I’ve been looking over Everdo recently and it really does address all of my issues with Nirvana so I’m starting the process of transitioning, but I’ve got some confusion over the tags UI.
For some background, in Nirvana I’ve had a system of using symbols at the beginning of tags as a way to keep them grouped in the tags list and to easily bring up the the type of tag I want when entering them. So @tag for where, #tag for what type of action (read, buy, etc), .tag for a contact, etc and no symbol for general categories.
Moving to Everdo I noticed that the desktop apps have a Tags section on the sidebar but the iOS app does not. That’s a bit tricky for me as I often will pull up the tags list from the sidebar to, for example, tap a location tag and view everything I need to do at a certain location regardless of the list. That works as expected in the desktop app and I see that I can use tags to filter within a list in the iOS app, but I haven’t been able to find any list of tags in iOS that would let me select one to view all items with that tag across all lists.
Obviously my system of using the @tag for locations won’t work quite the same since Everdo would recognize that as a context tag, but I’m not entirely clear on how those are intended to be used. I read the documentation but it kind of reads to me like context tags are essentially what I’m referring to above, as a list on the sidebar that you can access quickly, but then the sidebar on the desktop apps already has the list of tags there so I must be missing something. Maybe someone can provide a more specific usage scenario to get my head around it.
There are indeed no navigation buttons for the specific tags in the iOS app.
There are navigation buttons for contexts because I thought it’s more important to be able to filter by a context quickly.
The way I look at it, there are three modes of working with GTD:
Capture
Execution
Review
When prioritizing features for the mobile apps, the emphasis is on Capture and Execution, but l,ess so on Review.
I considered the ability to navigate to a tag as a mostly Review-mode feature. An Execution-mode feature would be to filter the Next list by tags (which is supported well).
The desktop app on the other is deliberately the most flexible, providing all of the above.
Ok, that makes sense and kind of illuminates the disconnect for me. I do mostly review from a desktop app once a week and execution from my phone, but I also frequently do some minor review here and there during execution.
Like in the scenario of being at a location and checking that location’s tag, I’ve found it convenient to be able to see the items under waiting/etc while there because sometimes things have changed since my last review, or it can remind me to check in with a person I’m waiting on at that location.
So I guess you can count me as a vote for adding a Tags section to the sidebar in iOS, though I’m sure that would be low on the priority list if there’s even anyone else that wants that. I do think it would be minimally intrusive from a UI perspective, when collapsed it wouldn’t take up significant real estate or create any clutter.
Thanks for the reply though, the fact that you’re actually responsive here more than makes up for this UI quibble. Already the opposite experience I’ve had working with Nirvana support lol.
This might get lost in here but I am still a bit cloudy on usage case scenarios for context tags, if anyone has examples they can give I’d appreciate it.
I use context tags to let me filter lists down to just what I can do at the moment or to exclude things I can’t do.
An examples: I have an @internet tag I use for anything I can only do when I have an internet connection. If I don’t have a connection for some reason (internet service down, no signal, etc) I can exclude those items from my list.
Another example: I have a Shopping area where I have a notebook I use to keep track of items I need to purchase. I then use context tags such as @Grocery, @MassMerch, @HomeImprove, etc. When I go out I switch to the shopping area and when I’m at each type of store I can bring up only those items I can purchase at that type of store.