Sorry if this is well known but I could not find this workaround on other forums about the lack of multiple contexts and tags. So thought I would post it here in case it helps others.
In lieu of multiple contexts and tags it’s possible to create a perspective based on a “Find text” filter. So certain text (tags) can be added to the Notes field, and you can show tasks based on this.
If I add for example ##phone## to a Note, I can create a perspective with ##phone## in the Find Text field, and it shows only those tasks. This means I can use my main contexts I have (which were preventing me from adding a “phone” context too).
If you think its a pain to keep entering the tag text, then consider using Text Expander or similar tool to save your tag text as shorthand text.
Thanks, can also use something like ‼️ in titles to show the priority by the help of text expander.
It’s great to combine the original context with above "fake "context to create useful perspectives.
These are great ideas! I am in love with OmniFocus 2, but I do wish that it had introduced tagging. Alas, good workarounds, especially the TextExpander idea. Well played stephen!
I’ve tried the tags before, it’s not particularly elegant as you have to search for strings. My biggest issue is paying $35 for TextExpander to get consistency when it could have been included anytime in the last few years…
Brilliant! I work in the legal field and amongst GTD-practicing lawyers and those who have work divided by cases, customers, clients, etc., it has long been debated whether a legal case constitutes a project. My conclusion is that it does not. So I’ve stopped creating projects by case, but still wanted a perspective whereby I could see all my actions by case. I’m a prosecutor, so I created a text expander snippet for each of the criminal defendants I’m prosecuting by name and included the name in the notes field of the action. I then created a perspective grouping those actions by context and sorting by deferred date (this way I only see available actions first). A concern I had was that adding all these perspectives would make my perspectives list a little unwieldy but the quick search (command+o) makes it very easy to pull up those perspectives without having to create a shortcut for each one.
I appreciate the suggestion, but the only problem with not officially supporting tags means that if for whatever reason you need to retag those tasks it would be quite laborious
