Have tags appear bigger if they contain more tasks
Just a suggestion: Wouldn't it be useful to immediately see in 'today' or 'next' view which context requires the most action? For instance, if you see that the tag 'email' is bolder/bigger than 'call', you know where to shift focus to. After all, whether or not you're behind a computer right now should be driven by your GTD system, not the other way around.
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2 Posted by martin.tyler on 16 May, 2010 05:45 PM
I'm not sure that bigger is the right way, but i agree with your point.
I've often thought, with GTD, that it's not quite right when it comes to contexts. The idea seems to be you look at your 'calls' list when you are by the phone.. or your 'computer' list when you are on your computer - those two seem fine since the phone and computer might be things you go to regularly - but what about contexts like 'errands' ? dont you want to be reminded that you have errands to do? rather than when you are out and about you look at the list to see if there is anything to do. I've not seen anything mentioned in GTD that tells you what context you should be in.
I'd favour a count beside the tag rather than a size thing
3 Posted by DC Clarke on 16 May, 2010 07:50 PM
To be honest, I would not care for either option. Bolding, resizing and including a count badge next to tags would make the tag bar at the top of the screen very distracting. If such an option were to be included, I suggest that an optional count badge be used at the user's preference. But overall, I think that kind of feature starts to disrupt the elegant simplicity of the present UI design. It also raises a few issues that drive at the heart of GTD.
For one thing, I agree with you pnooren, that you may want to shift your focus to contextual areas that have more actions. But not always. The kind of feature you suggest falls into a category of features I thinking of as "nag" features. (You've heard of "nag screens" that bug you to buy a shareware program every time you run it?). I do not want GTD software to nag me in the direction of telling me what to do. I should be the one to decide what I want to do based on my time, energy, priorities, etc. Just because my "calls" context may list 25 calls does not make it more important than the preparation of a trial, for example, which takes precedence over all tasks for a day or more. That is a very bad and extreme example, but it makes the point.
Secondly, the key to knowing what needs to be done is the weekly review. No software can replace the labor and energy required to conduct a true weekly review. If you don't perform them, you really are not working the system to its maximum benefit. (And believe me, I fall off that wagon all the time!) The weekly review helps you not only make sure everything is captured, but forces you to consider what is important in the coming days or week(s) so that you can put your energy toward those tasks as you need to. This can only be done by taking the hour or two, or even three to "maintain" your system.
Martin, I disagree somewhat with GTD forcing you to only act on an action when you are only in that context. I look at contexts as a means of cross reference. If you happen to be in a particular context, it is useful but not required that you perform tasks in that same context. It is also a matter of convenience. If you are stuck in traffic or waiting for your flight at the airport, you have a "calls" context to help you use your time efficiently. But that does not mean you have to make all your telephone calls at the same time at any given time. That's a very rigid way of looking at the system and people really don't work that way. In my case, I am usually at my desk. I see on my list that I need to draft a document for a particular case. As I focus my attention on that case, I may realize I need to also conduct online research, make a phone call and have the document reviewed before I can complete it. All these actions fall in different contexts, but I am not going to put off the phone call simply because I am not doing actions on my "calls" list. That doesn't make practical sense.
So I apologize that I have gotten on my soapbox over what is an otherwise thoughtful enhancement to Nirvana, but I hope to see Nirvana remain simple yet elegant, and not try to "out think" me and my GTD system.
Having just watched a documentary on Rudy Giuliani last night (Giuliani Time!), I am reminded of the "broken windows" theory...
4 Posted by martin.tyler on 16 May, 2010 08:09 PM
@DC
I agree with you about the elegance of the gui - a count next to the tag wouldnt really work nicely the way the tags are displayed now.
The way i was using Nirvana before areas of focus came along meant i was usually looking at 'next' filtered by a context tag, @work or @home usually - but that meant i missed stuff i'd tagged for errands. Now with areas of focus, and even better with some of the other suggestions being discussed now, i can filter on work or home as areas rather than tags, and then i see all my contexts (grouping by context as suggested elsewhere might be nice here)
5 Posted by DC Clarke on 16 May, 2010 08:21 PM
@martin - Absolutely. That helps filter down actions during a weekly review too. Don't forget, you can select multiple contexts at the same time by holding down the CTRL key.
In some of his earlier posts, Proximo made a nice case for using tags for both contexts and subcontexts such as @Errands and Groceries, in which case you would Control-Click on the @Errands and Groceries tags to see just your Grocery list.
6 Posted by martin.tyler on 16 May, 2010 08:29 PM
ctrl click ANDs tags, which is good for most things, narrowing it down
no good, for example, for @home and @errands to see an OR of those two though. Having AND and OR in the gui isnt likely to work in any way other than a smart folder type feature - so the complexity is limited to a dialog box at setup stage
Hierarchical contexts can be useful too, but i'll leave that one until we have got hierarchical projects first :)
7 Posted by DC Clarke on 16 May, 2010 08:36 PM
You just made a great suggestion for customizable contexts. It has been suggested that contexts be given their own options window like Areas and Contacts. That way contexts do not merely appear and disappear as they are created in actions. What about the ability to define contexts based on other contexts as you suggest? A sort of smart list at the context name level. So in the context bar you might have a customized context named "Home@errands" which is defined as the context "Home" AND the context "@errands".
8 Posted by martin.tyler on 16 May, 2010 08:44 PM
David Allen talks about at some point realising that @computer wasnt good enough since some stuff needs the internet and some doesnt - and since he spends a lot of time on a place with no internet he had to split his context to online and office. This would be ideal for a hierarchy of contexts:
Computer, Computer/Online and Computer/Offline
Omnifocus does something like this too.
You probably couldnt do it without moving tags to the left bar - or separating contexts from general tags and putting contexts on the left bar
9 Posted by MarcinGTD on 16 May, 2010 09:20 PM
I would go for badges,
elegant ones like the :today: and :waiting for: has
10 Posted by roddyt on 17 May, 2010 12:04 PM
I agree with @DC back in post 3 for maintaining the simplicity. For the same reason, I disagree with the follow-on discussion on contexts.
Smart lists are coming and I haven't seen anything suggested that a smart list couldn't be created for. Of course, we don't know what the interface will end up looking like, but I would suggest waiting to see if it suits your purpose.
11 Posted by Proximo on 17 May, 2010 02:20 PM
@ DC,
GET OUT OF MY HEAD. It's scary
@roddyt
GET OUT OF MY HEAD. You scare me too.
That was easy..... :-)
12 Posted by DC Clarke on 17 May, 2010 06:39 PM
@Proximo. I set up a satellite office in your head as soon as I read your post on Toodledo about packing up and moving to Nirvana!
13 Posted by Proximo on 17 May, 2010 09:05 PM
@DC,
That was an awesome reply and as I read the thread about context, I started thinking exactly what roddyt mentioned.
scary for sure.
David McLaughlin closed this discussion on 04 Feb, 2011 02:33 AM.