In case an example is worthwhile, my main perspectives for working with OmniFocus are:
- The standard Projects perspective, set to show Remaining.
My project hierarchy tucks everything that's Someday/Maybe or just a list (like, say, Books to Read or Gardening Ideas) into a Lists folder under which there are some subfolders, and almost everything there is in a List context that's set to On Hold. That makes all those things not Available and thus invisible to other contexts.
- The standard Contexts perspective, set to show Available.
- Projects Available: All Available actions, with Use project hierarchy turned on, no other grouping or sorting.
- Contexts Available: All Available actions, with Use project hierarchy turned off, grouped by context, sorted by project.
- Contexts Available No Group: Same as above, but not grouped by context--it's just everything available.
- Contexts Available Flagged: Same as above, but only flagged actions.
One goal of my weekly review is to get Contexts Available No Group down to one screenful--I demand VERY short lists. To get it down, I make things Someday/Maybe by moving them to Lists, I Defer them, and I delete them.
Edited to add: Some of those things in Lists are actionable, despite being configured as not Available. For example, the items in some shopping lists are items I actually plan to buy, rather than Maybe items, but I don't want "buy pastry brush" in my main lists unless it's on the critical path for something important. Instead, I'll check that list when shopping happens. ("I'm putting in a Target pickup order. We need anything else?") If I have a long list of stuff I actually want to do, it may have a placeholder in my main lists in the form of a repeating task, "Check Garden Prep list for a task."
- The standard Projects perspective, set to show Remaining.
My project hierarchy tucks everything that's Someday/Maybe or just a list (like, say, Books to Read or Gardening Ideas) into a Lists folder under which there are some subfolders, and almost everything there is in a List context that's set to On Hold. That makes all those things not Available and thus invisible to other contexts.
- The standard Contexts perspective, set to show Available.
- Projects Available: All Available actions, with Use project hierarchy turned on, no other grouping or sorting.
- Contexts Available: All Available actions, with Use project hierarchy turned off, grouped by context, sorted by project.
- Contexts Available No Group: Same as above, but not grouped by context--it's just everything available.
- Contexts Available Flagged: Same as above, but only flagged actions.
One goal of my weekly review is to get Contexts Available No Group down to one screenful--I demand VERY short lists. To get it down, I make things Someday/Maybe by moving them to Lists, I Defer them, and I delete them.
Edited to add: Some of those things in Lists are actionable, despite being configured as not Available. For example, the items in some shopping lists are items I actually plan to buy, rather than Maybe items, but I don't want "buy pastry brush" in my main lists unless it's on the critical path for something important. Instead, I'll check that list when shopping happens. ("I'm putting in a Target pickup order. We need anything else?") If I have a long list of stuff I actually want to do, it may have a placeholder in my main lists in the form of a repeating task, "Check Garden Prep list for a task."
