Processing Inbox Items
In order to process inbox items correctly, I must first switch my Areas to "All" or I will potentially misplace my task.
If I am in my "Work" Area and decided to process some inbox items I have. I select the inbox task and select the tag, energy, time and Area it belongs too. I must manually drag the task from the inbox the my desired list. If I drag it to the Next list, the previous Area I picked will be changed to the current Area I am working in.
This forces me to change my Areas to "All" in order to avoid my Area from being changed automatically.
It would be nice if I could choose the list my Inbox task belongs too in the same way I can choose from a list of Areas. This will allow me to process my inbox items without having to worry about what current Area I am in.
In many cases, the inbox will have task from various areas. When selecting the correct area for my task from the list, I would like to choose what List it belongs too as well. Next, Waiting or Someday.
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Support Staff 2 Posted by Elbert McLaughlin on 20 Jul, 2010 08:08 PM
Yes... we have been thinking about this problem for awhile now, and I think some changes in the hopper will streamline the whole filing process quite a bit.
At the moment Nirvana is confused as to what precisely a tag, area, context and list are. It comes from having built Nirvana from the UI down, rather than from GTD up... which we in the process of realigning this month. The mobile webapp is just a mess.
So yes, on this precise point, we're going to add a pull down on the new/edit task pane to select the task's "state":
Followed by Area
Followed by Project
I believe that the lack of clarity on this is why we've gotten pretty close to GTD but are still missing the mark.
3 Posted by Lasares on 20 Jul, 2010 08:27 PM
Since we are on the topic of Processing Inbox Items, I would like to point
out something else that is bugging me (and will eventually be solved by
Elbert's suggestion above): I cannot simultaneously mark an item as both
Today and belonging to a project, from the Inbox. If I mark it as either, it
leaves the Inbox and I have to chase the item to give it its second
association.
Elbert's suggestion would allow to assign both before closing the edit
window : a state and a project, and even the item to someone if I get it
right (as well as set an area, but we already have that one, as well as a
possibility to set a Scheduled date). My only additional remark would be to
add Today to the possible states (which would also mark the item as Next,
since Today is a subset of Next).
4 Posted by Proximo on 20 Jul, 2010 08:32 PM
Sounds great Elbert.
Thanks
5 Posted by Terminado on 21 Jul, 2010 04:55 PM
May I assume that once we've selected Area, only projects in that Area will display? That would make things much more manageable than they are now with the drop down box on the right.
Thanks, looking forward to these updates!
Support Staff 6 Posted by Christiane Magee on 21 Jul, 2010 07:49 PM
@terminado, short answer - yes. The list from the dropdown should only show projects belonging to the area you have selected.
7 Posted by Lasares on 23 Jul, 2010 06:37 PM
I found another inconsistent behaviour when processing Inbox items. If I am in a given Area of Focus and I schedule a task, it moves out of Inbox to the Scheduled list and it keeps the current AoF.
But if I am in this said AoF and I assign the task to someone, it moves out of Inbox to the Waiting list BUT its AoF becomes "Unassigned".
Support Staff 8 Posted by Christiane Magee on 26 Jul, 2010 02:37 PM
Thanks for reporting this one Lasares. I'll open a bug report as technically it should inherit the AoF.
David McLaughlin closed this discussion on 04 Feb, 2011 01:44 AM.