I’m trying to create a perspective to show me active projects with no available actions. For the life of me I can’t seem to figure out how to make it work. Has anyone else done this? If so, what does your query criteria look like?
This post could be useful for you:
I shared a Projects – Stalled perspective in the Custom Perspectives for OmniFocus directory on Learn OmniFocus.
Note that “stalled” only applies to parallel and sequential projects. An empty single action list isn’t considered stalled, which makes sense as single action lists are typically used to group related actions and don’t represent a specific objective.
On a side note, I have a repeating action that prompts me to check for stalled projects every day. For convenience, I’ve included a link to the “Projects: Stalled” perspective (omnifocus:///perspective/Projects:%20Stalled) in the note field.
I hope this helps!
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Thank you Tim! This almost gets me there, but not quite. I may have projects which have remaining actions but none available. For example, suppose I’m waiting for something from someone else. the remaining action has a “Waiting” tag. The tag is on hold. Thus, the project has remaining actions and would not appear in your “Stalled” perspective.
I’m trying to build a perspective which would show me this project when there are no available actions. Once I add “Call Bob about the thing I’m waiting for” the project would then have an available action and then would NOT appear in the perspective.
I have concluded there’s no way to do this in the current perspective feature set. Maybe the perspective builder will be revamped in OF 4 in a way that would make this possible.
You’re welcome, @masoric. Thanks for sharing additional info on what you’re looking for.
I could see how you’d want to treat a project with only waiting action(s) remaining as stalled. Though, I otherwise wouldn’t consider a project with remaining actions to be stalled, especially if these actions are deferred into the future and there’s no action that can be taken at present.
I expect that you could use Omni Automation and/or AppleScript to show a list of projects whose only remaining items are waiting (or whatever criteria makes most sense for you).
Beyond that, I have a “Waiting” perspective (tied to ⌃W for convience) that shows me everything that I’m waiting for grouped by project. I make a point of reviewing this reguarly and, if I’ve been waiting for something for a while, I may either take immediate action or create an action to follow up.
OmniFocus’ excellent Review feature also provides a systematic way to keep tabs on projects, including identifying any that are blocked due to inaction.
On a side note, I told tend to have many waiting actions. I use Asana for most of my collaborative projects as I find it’s helpful if everyone involved can see what’s happening on the project. I can even set up dependencies, making it clear what work needs to be completed before other work can begin. I realize that using a collaborative system like this isn’t always an option.
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