Something that always left me puzzled of Omni Focus is that - when using the Inbox in “Available” view - deferring a task does not automatically hide it but just greys it out, so it still clutters my view.
This means that every time I defer a task I also need to switch to some other perspective - say Projects - and then to Inbox again. That’s mouse activity - or a CMD-something + CMD-1 combination - that should not be necessary.
I’ve searched for others talking about the same issue on the forum but could not find anything. Is it just me? Am I missing something? Thanks!
I don’t have a definitive answer, but I suspect this is a GTD thing - you’re not supposed to leave anything in the Inbox once it’s been processed. Either you do it straight away and mark it complete, or triage it into the appropriate project/context. The Inbox is supposed to be nothing more than the place to dump things into OF before processing.
That, of course, does absolutely nothing for your issue - and may be wrong too!
There is a preference setting to move tasks out of the inbox here:
I think the OmniFocus philosophy is that we don’t work out of the inbox. It’s a temporary collection of tasks that haven’t been processed yet. We can assign a task a project and/or context to move it out of the inbox.
There have been a few users who posted that they like to work out of the inbox. But I think it’s not the original intent of the inbox. If I get the mail from the post office, I’m going to take the mail to the office and sort it out. I send my mail to my desk inbox. I put my mom’s mail in my briefcase and will deliver it to her when I visit her next week. I dump all the advertisements in the trash can. My bank statements get scanned and go into my notebook app.
I am not going to go the post office and leave some of the mail there. I am not working out of my post office mailbox. I don’t sit at the post office attempting to do my own office work if i’m not employed at the post office.
In the same fashion, I don’t work out of the inbox.