I often create actions I think of while on the fly and send them via email or through the quick action entry area.
When I get chance to review my inbox, I then move them to the appropriate projects are create new projects. When I move them to an existing project I drag and drop them to the project, which puts them at the top of the project, making them a “next action”.
Unfortunately, that is not how I work, and typically the item I am adding is not the next action, it is just another item in the list somewhere mid-way or at the bottom of the list of actions. The issue arise that if I do not go into the project itself right away, my next actions area has that item in the list, even though it is not really a next action.
Would it be possible to have a configuration setting or something to indicate that the items dropped into a project end at the bottom of the action list for the project?
I think a setting may be required, as people tend to have strong feelings about this and it tends to be about 50-50.
What we seem to agree on is that we want to be able to drop actions into a project, without necessarily having to immediately rearrange the action sequence within the project.
You Eric are apparently among those that are confident that you will not need to see the new tasks until much later, and you prefer to have them automatically “hidden” somewhere in the sequence or at the end.
I myself am in the opposite camp, among those who want new actions always placed in parallel at the top, such that I can never lose sight of an action by mistake. For me any new “dropped” tasks are often last-minute things I come to think of, to me done now, that naturally belong at the top, and you expect to be able to sort this out later, maybe at the weekly review.
The tasks further down the sequence, the “later” tasks, are usually created and arranged while I am reviewing the project, in which case I have the whole project in front of me and therefore do not “drop” any tasks; I place them straight into their correct position.
@Folke, I think I understand what you are asking for, which is very similar to me. The problem is the current system doesn’t support what we need. When a task is added to the task, we want to ensure the “next action” is not replaced with the new task dropped into the project. Today, that is exactly what happens.
In your design, you want the new task to be put in parellel as a next action. In mine, I want it placed at the end of the project task list.
Yes, I think we agree that the current next action should not be replaced (hidden). It should stay active, visible on the next actions list.
The need for a user preference setting relates to where the new action should be placed, and its status:
A) at the top, in parallel to the current active action, also active (visible on the next list if the project is active), or
B) at the bottom, sequentially on hold (currently inactive, not visible on the next list)
I strongly prefer A. You strongly prefer B. But we agree that the current next action cannot be hidden (inactivated; turned sequential; disappear from the next list).
I work in a similar way, new actions are moved from the Inbox to the relevant project. There they are either another task to do on that project or they change the current actions on that project.
I’m trying to use a Tag #review to cope with the latter, i clear my inbox and focus items first (which I need to stick to as I’ll let myself get dragged into new stuff too easily). So i process my inbox and then search for the #review tag to identify any projects that now need thinking about.
Where the additional task items that do not appear to trigger the need for a project review is something I’ve thought of but not dealt with, at the moment I’m leaving all new actions as review and then reviewing each new task in the context of its project.