Can OF4 (4.0.5, on Ventura) now have a Perspective for ON HOLD items in any other way than by selecting in its ‘Contents:’ rules all the items which I’ve tagged with ‘On HOLD’, please?
IOW, I suppose, can ON HOLD now in version 4 in any way be its own state/category/condition - in ways analogous to ‘Remaining’, ‘Blocked’, ‘Dropped’ etc?
I hope to understand you correctly.
You are asking if it‘s possible to have something like an on-hold status for actions as it exists for projects?
What items do you consider on-hold? Like someday/maybe items of GTD? Deferred items that can just be done in the future? Items on-hold due to a tag that has on-hold status enabled?
Thanks for your reply!
I think you do :-)
Yes.
Just so. Yes. All of those and more.
For example: I currently use a Tag (of my own, of course), ‘ON HOLD’. I apply it to every item which I have in my Computer > Software Project that concerns a possible piece of software whose details appear attractive and for which I probably have a use - one day. But which I certainly won’t be buying soon; indeed, I may never buy it. But if in the future I have a vague recollection of that file-renaming utility whose details I put in OF - in preference to starting yet another duplicate spreadsheet :-) .
Is that ‚ON HOLD‘ tag in its status actually set to On Hold as well?
Could you please explain „Just so. Yes. All of those and more.“ ? Especially all of the more portion.
Unlike for projects as it was in OF3 already there‘s not on hold status for actions in OF4. That was confusing me when I started with OF3 implementing GTD. Wanted to treat someday/maybe projects and actions in the same way. But that‘s not possible.
If you keep on using your ‚ON HOLD‘ tag and it is set to status On Hold, then there should be a way for a perspective.
It‘s already quite late where I live. I‘ll have a look at your next reply tomorrow.
Logan,
Yes, it is.
I’m sorry. Of course: I meant that you understood exactly what I wanted to do :-) By ‘…and more’ I mean that some items (like notes for later about possible things to buy etc) are really vague, tentative and open-ended.
Yes. I can see how it was awkward.
There should, shouldn’t there.
But in fact just setting out what I want and writing it up here makes me wonder whether this would also work:
Understood. Thanks, Logan!
I‘ve played arount with Structure: Flexible and managed to display someday/maybe projects as well. The Contents (rule set) is quite confusing and I have to fiddle around with it a little more.
Let‘s exactly agree on what you/we are looking for. My objective is a list on which I see all someday/maybe items:
I‘m not quite sure if I want to see deferred items (in future only if that‘s possible). I personally exclude due items, because they are (probably) active anyway or part of the previous categories.
This is getting difficult.
Thanks, Logan!
I think mine might be a little different.
I rarely put (whole) Projects on hold.
So what I want to do is simply see all Items (individual Items and, rarely, Projects) which I have put into OF4 for future consideration.
Since they will have neither Defer nor Due dates, I may already have found a way to build such a Perspective. And then - as you point out - I can use the ‘On Hold’ property of the On Hold tag.
Happy to continue to research, share and read of your progress :-)
This is how I made the (until now) best Someday / Maybe perspective for me:
‚Vielleicht / irgendwann‘ is the German title for GTD someday/maybe.
In OF3 it was not possible to see both projects and actions on the same perspective so I had to use two perspectives. Thanks to your post I fiddled around with the Flexible structure option. Flexible would allow you to manual sort items. That‘s why there‘s a Sort Now command in the view options.
Regarding your perspective post… I assume you either use directly the tags you use for on hold or the criteria to filter by all tags with on hold. The latter one did not work for me because I use tags with on hold status enabled for Waiting for tags. There I use 3 (Waiting Work, below that Tickets and next to the work one Waiting Personal).
I‘d be curious how you organize your stuff if that‘s not too much to ask.
Thanks, Logan: well done!
I think mine (s0 far I’ve settled on this) is simpler than yours.
That’s a step forward: good for you!
I now have two Perspectives for ‘On hold’: one using Tags - all always set to On Hold (thanks for pointing out that I can do that, Logan!). And one as above.
I may be missing something obvious. But it appears that - with your help, thanks again - we’ve both got a good solution, doesn’t it :-) .
I’ve been experimenting some more with the rules to create an On Hold Perspective.
My initial assumptions remain these:
Can anyone think of a good reason why this won’t work as I want it to, please:
then I could stop having to tag actions* with ‘On HOLD’ - as I am doing now:
Is it possible that the one reason why this won’t work that I can distinguish between Projects and individual Actions: I do need to be able to do that?
Anyone’s expertise will be greatly appreciated, please.
Hi @MarkSealey,
I‘d like to help, but didn‘t get what kind of structures…
Project 1 (State: on hold)
Project 2 (State: on hold)
The clearer what you want to filter for, the easier it is for to reproduce that.
Then there‘s the question regarding the desired outcome of the custom perspective. You wanna see projects only or actions or both if the project is on hold?
I‘m just not sure I understood your expectations.
Thanks, Logan! Your help appreciated :-)
I want to create a Perspective which:
Ideally I’m wondering whether any task/all tasks which doesn’t/don’t have either Defer or Due dates can legitimately be considered as On Hold.
I should also add that I don’t use ‘dropped’ very much. And I don’t want to include completed tasks.
I hope I do the quoting right in OmniDiscourse.
- applies to individual tasks/items - regardless of the status of their (parent) Project;
Understood
although it would make sense for child tasks to inherit the state of their parent.
I think for custom perspectives this just works to some degree.
But that’s not really essential: I rarely if ever put an entire Project on hold!
Understood
- doesn’t rely on tags… currently I have the ‘ON HOLD’ tag and apply it to every project
How else would you know the action is different (‚ON HOLD’) than the others?
I think there are only these possibilities for an action/task:
I really would put the whole project in status on hold. If that‘s the case you even see this visually with the project‘s appearance.
Adding the tag to a project does nothing to its embedded actions. Just if you add an action after the project has been tagged the tag gets also applied to the action.
Ideally I’m wondering whether any task/all tasks which doesn’t/don’t have either Defer or Due dates can legitimately be considered as On Hold.
David Allen (author of Getting Things Done - the art of stress free productivity) mentioned in a podcast „in the extreme you can consider everything that you currently don‘t do as someday/maybe“. We know that doesn‘t make much sense in its extreme form, but philosophically you could see it that way.
Therefore, an alternative to what I wrote in the list above is you consider everything on hold without marking these items and mark all projects you consider not on hold with a flag. But if this is a good idea depends on how many projects you typically consider active and not on hold at the same time.
I should also add that I don’t use ‘dropped’ very much. And I don’t want to include completed tasks.
If you‘d like we could have a personal e.g. Teams call and discuss this in depth. In that case send me a personal message.
Best wishes from Germany
Logan,
Yes, you have; looks perfect to me!
And thank you again for your persistence in guiding me.
Well, that’s the whole point of this, I think: I mostly use Single Action Lists - to keep track of my own busy life at home (I’m retired) and really use the idea of ‘Projects’ to group all the things I have to do… finances, maintaining hard- and software, research etc.
I typically ‘build’ a new Project - say ‘(Upgrade to) OmniFocus 4’ in my OF ‘Software > Productivity’ 1. folder hierarchy - by adding criteria and considerations pertinent to doing so. For instance:
Then that list (an OF Project) simply becomes maybe a dozen non-sequential items (like synching, Fluid columns, customizing the Inspector… etc… etc…).
Some of these I may change and put into some sort of order. At that point they will have both Defer and Due dates. Others (also still in that same Project) I decide to postpone for a month. For these I will change to a Defer date in March. Others I decide I just don’t need to do in the foreseeable future. So these have an ‘On Hold’ status.
It’s unlikely that I would forget these, and that these have two be done, for OmniFocus - because I make such heavy use of it :-)
But it would be useful to have a Perspective which showed all (such) tasks/item that weren’t imminent. And which I had - effectively - postponed indefinitely.
Yes, I’d say so (as well as repeating).
I can see circumstances where that would work well. Say in an office where a directive from managers said something like: “Hey, because person X is off on maternity leave and because we really don’t have anyone else who can do her work and because we don’t need it finished for another year”. Then the whole Project should go on hold.
In my case, though, I need ti be more selective within all my projects. Some tasks will have dates. Others will not.
I guess my decision is this: can all tasks which have no dates be considered as ‘On Hold’?
Yes; I’ve read that too. I can see exactly what he means. Makes perfect sense :-)
I need to think about that. It’s certainly a clean option, isn’t it!
Thanks very much. That’s very kind of you, Logan. I’ll give this some more thought and experiment a little bit more.
And to you too!
