I use a dropped “Someday Maybe” folder where I move all the projects that I’m not working on for a week or two.
I would still like to review those projects and move inbox items into them. Is there a way of doing that?
Hmm… it’s true these things are hard to do with a dropped project. We were intending dropped projects to be more permanently cancelled, and “On Hold” to be the place for setting projects aside for a bit – still showing in project drop-downs and the Review list.
A paused state for folders? I use it that way because it’s faster to drag projects out of the “someday maybe”-dropped folder than changing its state individually. Something similar to the paused contexts.
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Thank you. That really helps me understand why you’re using Dropped instead of On Hold.
So adding either of these could be a solution for you?
- an ‘On Hold’ state for Folders
- see Dropped projects in Project drop-downs and Review
both will work but I think it would be better to see dropped projects in the drop down and review. I get that it’s a pretty particular use case but it can be useful, I’ve read about using a dropped folder for projects on hold before so I guess more people use it that way.
I’ve just done the same thing. Thought I’d have a brainstorm and set up a whole bunch of projects in a dropped folder. Made some new projects, put them in the dropped ‘someday’ folder, EVERYTHING vanished. Couldn’t access them in a perspective, nothing. Gone.
Had to undo a few times to get everything back.
I guess like the previous poster, I thought I could create a folder that was basically on hold, like OF1, and hide all the projects that I didn’t want to see until later, yet have a way to access its contents using perspectives. Then I could not have to look at the folder in projects, but have an on hold perspective just for those projects.
PS I’d be quite happy for a built in ‘on hold’ perspective, all projects simply vanish from the project list and appear in the on hold list. GTD is all about only looking at the essential stuff, anything you can do to keep things out of site until you need them is cool.
For me, ‘ON HOLD’ is a kind of indefinite time, like a project that I may never in the history of the universe get around to. As there’s always quite a few projects like that in ones life, having a folder to hold ALL of them simply makes it easier to flag them in one go.
PAUSED to me is something I would like to have for actual tasks, as when I think of ‘paused’ it’s short-term, one thing in a currently active project tripping the whole thing up before I can move on because I’m waiting on someone, something, or another type of outcome which will be resolved SOON. This isn’t ‘on hold’, I haven’t stopped the project, there’s simply a momentary pause while I wait for a simple condition to be met.
I’ll keep going before I forget this stuff:
PAUSED should be for tasks ONLY - it’s a short-term pause in an otherwise ongoing project
ON HOLD should be for projects ONLY - it simply means you’re not engaged with the project
At the moment, when you ‘on hold’ a project, it’s paused. This is very counter-intuitive. To pause something it actually needs to be in progress. I don’t want to pause some of my projects, I want to hide them away (on hold) until I need to see them again (once I actually activate them by taking them out of the deep-freeze)
Currently the way OF2 implements this whole thing is at cross-purposes. This is something I’d really like to see ironed out in OF2 sooner rather than later.
I was just going through this. I am on vacation for the next week, and the last thing I want to see is any of my work projects when I look at Omnifocus (which has far more than just work in it. I have all of my work tasks under a “Taking care of business” folder, but noticed I could not put that on hold. My contexts encompass both work and non-work so placing a “work” context hides some but not all (agenda, technology, etc.). I ended up dropping the “work” folder, but will definitely be bringing it back. I also am thinking I will drop it every weekend for the same reason. I would love to see an “On Hold” for folders.
