Add the possibility to combine contexts for more effective GTD

NB:
- Just read that Omnifocus iPhone will soon support Perspectives - that will solve some of these complex issues.
- I see that my case-scenario is kind of a cosmic coincidence that may actually take time and luck for those contexts to happen by chance.

I ran into another situation yesterday that might be a more practical example:
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I have maintenance tasks to do, the guest-room floor needs to be nailed-in, there is a hole in the wall to be patched, and so are there other holes to be patched in other rooms (so I cannot use one room as a context or just plaster). To apply plaster, I need to borrow a sander from Josh and a venting fan. It would be nice if it were possible to combine the prerequisites (tools) needed for a given task to become available. I know that I can create sub-tasks to borrow the sander, ensure that there is no rain etc, but if these prerequisites keep happening, it might be nice to work with combined contexts.... imagine quickly creating a perspective of repairs to do when it is rainy and you have the red car :)

Hey Donny,

Thanks you for writing back. The scenario you mention is certainly an interesting consideration for us to make. I've added your vote & comments to our database. I can assure you our team will take it under advisement for future development of OmniFocus.

In the mean time, (to get the most out of what you have available to you now) I'd encourage you to try simplifying, deciding, and generalizing contextual actions as much as possible.

In GTD terms, sometimes our tendency to be really specific about stuff is in anticipation of difficulty. We want to 'cushioning the blow', so we infer that if we plan enough, we'll be the most prepared, rather than simply responding with an appropriate amount of energy. It's possible that this is a preemptive overreaction rather than the "mind like water" readiness OmniFocus can provide with more general contexts lists. The principle there being, the less precise we need to be, the less dissonance will crowd the accomplishment. Therefore more flexible you are, the more "flow" will be experienced. You may even discover there was no need to 'brace for impact' at all.

If you'd like to discuss this further, or offer any other suggestions for us please email our Support Ninjas directly at omnifocus@omnigroup.com

hanks for your reply and insight - I will confess that I just started reading the book last week after listening to endless podcasts about GTD. I have yet to read and understand the mind-like-water principle, but I think I agree with you about complicating matters.

Previously, I scheduled tasks on particular days in my ticketing system (clockingIT) and only after reading the book, I realised that I do not need to schedule specific times to do things, but rather use milestones as a guideline of delivery dates - planning too much actually built-up stress in my mind when something threw me off and I was not able to finish chew through my list of tasks for a given day - When I look at my past logs, I actually see myself pushing one task from day to day for 10 days (how precise can that me?)
... well so much about my stories

Thanks and I am looking forward to more features and insight from OmniGroup to get me organised and cool

If I may chime in here. Donny, it sounds as though some of what you have in the above example aren't multi-context issues but rather a project (remodeling the guest room) with sequencial actions (rent fan, borrow sander, plaster wall, etc.) Looking at your tasks in that light may help with some of the context/perspective issues. Hope this helps,

Ray

Hi Ray, thanks for the suggestion, and actually the more I work with the application, the more some of these things are becoming clear. The approach that I have since taken is to create 'sub-projects' to assemble all the tools and requirements that I need (sequentially), and then start the project (with the sub-projects also sequential relative to each other). That is based on the same concept as your suggestion albeit with a more elaborate hierarchy of sub-projects.

My new challenge is how to have dependency between sub-sections of bigger projects. I may be making this more complex than it needs to be, but I have grouped my home activities into folders and projects. In one case, I need to do all house repair budgeting and financial planning in one place (currently have budget as a context), but then it means that if I need to involve different people for different budget tasks (these are budget issues for different projects anyway - home, office, personal ,hobby etc), I cannot add the "people: Bill" context to be able to consult bill about the cost of a given item/job when I see him. As is, I have to create a sequentially preceding task for each budget item and call it "talk about web-server purchase @context - people: Bill" so that I can only get tot he budget action after I talk to Bill. Although this is logically valid, it makes things unnecessarily intricate since multi-context items like budgeting have to be turned into sub-sub-projects just to be able to connect two contexts.

I am sure I can think up more intricate relationships, but they may be unrealistic :)

Donny, that sounds good - a lot of it is whatever works for you. I have heard David Allen talk about when further action shouldn't be listed. His example is the need to borrow a tool from a friend (no kidding this is exactly what he uses) and the obvious next action is: "Call friend..." David implies that for GTD purposes it may not make sense to have a next action because you don't really know yet what the call will yield: Yes, come get it; I'm using it till next week; No...

I think that the actual appliaction of GTD will always be a personally evolving system, again, something I believe DA alludes to when he speaks about his own experience with GTD.

Best, Ray

It is definitely "whatever works" when it comes to details. I listen to some podcasts on GTD and I hear a myriad of approaches - which reinforces your point.

That said, I still do not know how to manage the example above about budget items that have to be discussed with different people. One approach might be to create a budgets folder, but then that would break the project container that each budget action belongs to. Maybe if Omnifocus supported Tags, that would provide a simple, flexible, but powerful way to link items in a fluid way.

I use an IT support application (ClockingIT) that has the same constraint, and does not have context, but it supports Tags and so I can create a tag for context and combine multiple tags in a search/query. In ClockingIT, the issue does not arise cause when I am on phone with my designer, I can sort by the designer's name and see what I need to mention, or if there is a meeting with a designer and server admin, I can combine the tags (with an OR relationship) and have an quick and useful agenda.

Am I expecting the wrong features from Omnifocus?

Donny, here's where I'm less qualified to comment. Locked into a PC environment at work and home so my OmniFocus experience is all iPhone. From other OF forums I've gathered that the desktop has more functionality than the iPhone app. Maybe there's something there and I just don't know about it. Sorry.

It's an interesting problem though. I've used tags in other PC programs and been able to do what you're thinking: sort/search by multiple tags to group like items. Maybe a mindmap of the budgeting connections would show some patterns that would suggest folders/projects/contexts that would meet your needs.