Holidays and closed contexts

[Dwight Arthur]

Hi, everyone. Today is a holiday in the US and I should be doing yard work. But my @Yardwork context is closed and my @Work context is open and my TODAY view is full of stuff about getting the work week off to a good start. I went in to the "manage contexts" window and set @Yardwork to always open and @Work to always closed, but this totally wiped out the schedule that I had created for each of these contexts - tonight I will have to re-establish all of the days and hours that I want each of these contexts to be open.

What I would really like would be a command that I could use today to say "Treat this Monday like it was a Sunday" and have all of my open and closed contexts from Sunday in effect. I probably would have also asked for this Sunday to be treated as a Saturday.

Second choice, probably a lot less coding, would be to have buttons on the "hours" tab in Manage Contexts to say Override: Open context and Override: Close context, as well as End Override.

Do any of you share this issue and how do you deal with it?

-Dwight

[pottster]

Hi Dwight,

I'm not a user of closed/open contexts but I suspect the solution to this issue is either a very simple manual intervention e.g. adding another tick box in the Contexts section of the Task Views Pane to include/exclude Open contexts (already one for Closed) or a complex calendar based solution along the lines of the Change Working Time dialog in MS Project.

Here in the UK, "Bank Holidays" as we call them are becoming so violated that differentiating them as working/non-working is becoming moot :-(

[Mark]

As a preference I would like to see an option to either mark open/closed for X hours in the future - so I don't have to remember to switch it back.  The principal is a good one though.  I switched to using a top level folder, Work, Personal etc, so I could ignore work for the holidays...

[Lisa Stroyan]

Couldn't you have views that do not consider open/closed context, or is that too many views to re-create? If you used inheritance perhaps?

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[Dwight Arthur]

Lisa, thanks for the suggestions. I would love to solve this issue by using inheritance but I haven't been able to imagine how it would work.  If you can make any suggestions I would be most appreciative.

What I am doing in the interim is to temporarily ignore context closure. It's easy enough to do but only partially effective. My objective is that every task near the top of my "today" view is something that I could and should be working on right now. Ignoring context closure does effectively add tasks from usually-closed contexts like "@yardwork" to the view. But it also adds tasks from other, irrelevant contexts like #Winter'sWeeklyTasks or #Mom'sHouse. And it does nothing to remove normal workday Monday tasks from contexts like @work.
-Dwight
Mlo betazoid on Android sgn2

[Joel Azaria]

Agreed, this is a good feature and can serve multiple purposes.

To answer your immediate question - if you use contexts that segregate home/personal stuff from work then on desktop you could try going to (or creating/copying) a view that shows your personal/at home contexts and at the bottom of the contexts list, check "include closed".  This will show the even in their closed times.

Longer term, the simplest (and most desired to me) solution is a simple checkbox near/at the top of the view to include and/or invert the closed contexts.  

I see something like this: 

First tick = check mark = includes closed contexts.  

Next tick = other color check = inverts open/closed contexts.  

Tick again = empty check box =  goes back to normal behavior (typical open/closed contexts.)  

This is an essential feature imo to the mobile, even more than the desktop (but needed on both, no doubts.)

When I was a Life Balance user on the Palm (a program very similar to MLO that pales in technical prowess but could definitely teach MLO a few things about UI) -  there was a tick box to include closed contexts near the top of the 'to do' view.  

This opened up contexts open/closed times to be so much more useful as in addition to use case like you describe, one could designate certain contexts that were typically closed during work the day (for instance personal errands) but then still quickly check them when wanted by toggling the check box at the top of UI (for example if your were out running a business errand or unexpectedly find yourself in a CVS or similar during lunch/work hours.)    

Automating the check box to make a "holiday button" wouldn't be difficult once it's done.  Just need a settings page for a timer and logic to set it (to inverse for example) and then set it back after timer (8 hours for example.)

Heck you could even use AHK/AutoIt to handle the automation if the box exists (or Automator on Mac or e.g. Tasker/Llama on Android)

Today I can sort of mimic this behavior on mobile but the reality is the checkbox to include closed contexts is buried in settings and requires like 3 or 4 clicks (including moving off my current screen and train of thoughts) to get to and toggle it, then navigate back to my view and then repeat all that movement again to revert back.  In truth it makes it too much effort and so not doable/usable.  

It could be pretty easily remedied by just putting the box on the 'front' of the UI though.

[althegr...@gmail.com]

Hi Everyone,

I came across this post and I have a solution for you to consider.

(Please see attached Video of these steps)

The original Post:

I am happy to offer this solution as I have receive so much help from the all of you!

My Solution

 

Simply make a New Context with the Open/Close the way you want it.

 

Please see attached Video of these steps.

 

Here is how I did it.

 

From the Manage Context (F8) Dialog box:

 

Pick the Context you want to change. I will use @Work

Right click and Duplicate the Context. Work1

Rename the NEW duplicate Context  (Work1) with a Name of @Work - Original

 

Now the important part:

Again do ANOTHER duplicate of @Work.

This gives you @Work1

NOW DELETE the original @Work!

MLO askes you: Delete context(s) and assign tasks to another context: Option to pick another Context.

Pick @Work1

Now the original @Work is gone.

@Work1 has ALL your tasks assigned to it.

 

NEXT:

Rename @Work1 to @Work

Now change the Hours to what you want (All Closed if that’s what you want)

The result is that all your Views still use @Work and function the same (only the Hours have changed).

 

To return BACK to the ORIGINAL Context and it's Hours:

Duplicate @Work - Original to @Work - Original1

Delete @Work

Assign tasks to @Work - Original1

Rename @Work - Original1 to @Work

 

Now the Name and the Hours are back the way they started.

The written steps are a bit different than the video.

Hopefully you will see how to use another great MLO feature: Delete Context

Hope that helps,

-Al

 

[althegr...@gmail.com]

Hi Everyone,

I came across this post and I have a solution for you to consider.

(Please see attached Video of these steps)

The original Post:

On Monday, May 26, 2014 at 6:51:54 AM UTC-7, Dwight Arthur wrote:

[althegr...@gmail.com]

seems you have to open the "show quoted text" to read my solution and the original post.  :)

Or you can just watch the video ;)

-Al

[Dwight Arthur]

Thank you,  it's a good suggestion.
-Dwight
MLO Betazoid on Android SGN4

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