Show/hide ongoing projects whose subtasks are all completed?
Life Balance has a very nice feature, explained here:
"Life Balance...has a simple mechanism to remind you to think
about what comes next for the project. When you complete all the currently active
subtasks for a project, the project itself will appear on your To Do List for evaluation."
I find this feature to be great for Reviewing, but much less great for Doing, because these projects severely clutter my To Do list when I'm not in the mood to evaluate them for possible additional subtasks. I have dozens of projects in my Outline that I never intend to complete (check off), because these projects are placeholders for potential tasks, and often contain subtasks which are all completed. Things like "help Sophie manage her asthma/allergies", "Manage home/appliance warranties", and "Complete TIMECARD/LEAVE work-admin duties".
A potential solution that I think I don't like is to just check off the project. This is bad because when I do come up with a new subtask some day, I'll to uncheck the project to get the subtask to appear in the To Do list, thereby losing credit for past accomplishments on the project.
Before I post the following feature request, I thought I'd post it here for any feedback you all might have. Above the To Do list is a nice filter checkbox, "Include closed places". I propose adding a second filter checkbox above the To Do list: "Include projects with all subtasks completed" (default setting is checked). When *unchecked*, none of those placeholder projects (whose subtasks are all completed) will show up in my To Do list, making it enormously easier to use.
Any thoughts?
Regards,
Earl (longtime LB beta-tester, now back in the fold with v5.1 on Mac and iPodTouch after a long hiatus)
Dummy tasks in place zHidden
Hi Earl,
I created a place "zHidden" (the "z" to have it a the end of the place list). It is always closed and is excluded from my most commonly viewed place "All Actions".
I then create a task named "Dummy Task - " in the relevant project (by appending the project name, I can track it more easily later, especially if I have multiple dummy tasks across projects). Then, when all active tasks are complete, the project won't appear in my task list because there is still that incomplete dummy task. The dummy task won't appear because it is in a permanently closed place (zHidden).
This can sound like a lot of work, but it only took me a few minutes to set it up and only a few seconds to set up a dummy task for an active project.
Note: this idea isn't mine. I learnt the trick here in the forums some years ago. I tip my hat to whoever posted that initial hint.
zHidden
Well, that workaround will partly do the trick, but at the expense of permanently preventing the good side of evaluating projects for potential additional tasks (during Reviewing). Thanks oz-nom!
Any thoughts on my filter idea, good or bad? For me the ability to turn such a filter on (for Doing) and off (for Reviewing) would be a huge plus, but perhaps for others it seems too heavy for the benefit.
No effect on reviewing
The good thing about the above technique is it doesn't affect reviews. First, everything is still viewable in the Outline. Second, and I didn't explain this well, "All Actions" is my own created Place, distinct from the built-in "All Places". All Places does exactly what it says, shows all places, including zHidden. I created All Actions (actually with an apostrophe in front, 'All Actions, so it appears top of the list), set it as "Always open" and included all of the places I want to appear in it.
Personally, I don't like the idea of an additional filter. One of the benefits of LB is that it *does* show projects in the to-do list when it contains no uncompleted tasks. I didn't realise how valuable it was until I tried some software that didn't do this. Kind of crucial if it is a repeating project that won't repeat until it has been marked complete. Bitter experience...
The other reason is that, for minimal work (creating a dummy task, you don't even need to go to al the effort described above) you can achieve the same end. Even if you don't create an 'All Actions place, regular reviews should still show all your projects and tasks since your outline is not affected by places.
If you were really after a built-in solution, I'd rather an option to exclude tasks and projects from the to-do list. At least this would only affect selected projects and not all of them - but even so, I still wince a little at the thought.
A simple solution
My strategy for dealing with this is:
- for placeholders, I use the trick proposed by oz-nom;
- for real ongoing projects, I assign the "Project" place to the upper task.
I then review the "Project" place from time to time (mostly every day) and it shows me projects without an undone subtask (next action).
For me, all the examples you provided are all projects in the sense above. So, with no subtasks, I would see when selecting my "project" place:
- Help Sophie manage her asthma/allergies
- Manage home/appliance warranties
- Complete TIMECARD/LEAVE work-admin duties
Hope this helps.
Martin
Use places
Like others, I use a place to keep these tasks out of sight most of the time. The place I use is called "Review." I try to look at it daily to see if there are tasks that have popped in there, and then I can ask myself, "what else could I be doing in that area?"
My methods
The main problem with the OP's proposal is that there isn't any mechanism to identify a particular node/branch as a "Project" as such, so how could a "Include projects with all subtasks completed" flag distinguish projects from other types of parent containers? I find it's just as easy to set this up myself, as long as you standardize on one method and follow it consistently.
I set up Projects as follows:
P - ProjectName (container of branch, in hidden place)
ProjectName (listed in Projects place, all notes here, no children)
?ProjectName (regular Place, parent of all tasks)
The one in the Projects place is kept separate from the tasks branch, and is only visible there.
If the ? task branch parent becomes visible on a to-do list, this means it's either done or needs a Next Action assigned.
In practice I have a template branch I just duplicate move and rename stored under a NotBalanced TLI, along with my Linked Datebook Items, KruftNeedingCleanup, RandomEvents and QuickPlaces.
I use Someday/Maybe branches, both within Projects and for single tasks under the TLI - labeled -SM, set to "Complete subtasks in Order" with a dummy task as the first sub. This hides them all from To-Do's, keeps them (and their hidden status!) very visible in an appropriate place in the Outline for re-activation at Review time.
I found that using the Importance slider or a S/M Place for this kept the "hidden" status less visible than I like, and I don't like the clutter of too many dummy tasks, I just use them as the first item in a (sometimes very long!) list of items that are all hidden together by the one dummy. Likewise if I use the "Complete subtasks in order" directly on a parent other than -SM, I'll put a marker flag at the end of the branch's name ([SEQ] for sequence), because otherwise I've gotten burned by having important tasks blocked from the To-do list by my forgetting I'd set the parent with CTIO.
BTW I doubt any of this is original, I've "stolen" and adapted most of my ideas from postings here in the past.