I have realized something that I want to share with the development team. Maybe it is of great help to you, I do not know.

On the one hand, many people (including myself) were very happy with the very consistent and realible "second sorting" by priority in all lists, for example in the Next list when grouping by deadline, context, project etc.

On the other hand, many people (including myself) see the potential in having manual sorting capabilities everywhere, even in lists like the Next list, Waiting list etc.

The main disadvantage with the new implementation is that new tasks are placed randomly within the list (hard to find) and that you need to adjust the placement of the tasks.

As you know, I have previously suggested that the new sorting of such lists could be by priority (as before), and then manually adjustable within each priority band. I have now realized that there is an even better and simpler way to accomplish all of this.


The KEY to everything is the INITIAL PLACEMENT of the new tasks (i.e. initial placement of tasks that you create within the list or drag/move to the list from somewhere else).

Suggestion: Always place new tasks immediately before the first existing task that has the same priority as the new task. That's all. That solves everything:

For a new user with no tasks in the list, and who does not yet want to use manual sorting, tasks will automatically appear in priority order, with the latest task first in each priority band. Very neat! Very simple. Just like before. No funny random placement. No adjustments necessary.

For a user who likes the automatic priority sorting within each group, but wants to adjust the placement manually within each priority band, this will be perfectly possible. Just drag and drop. Easy! No need to necessarily adjust all new tasks, but if you want to you can adjust as many of them as you like. And they will never be moved automatically. Only the new tasks are INITIALLY PLACED by priority, but existing tasks are never re-sorted.

For a user who wants totally manual arrangement within each group (disregarding priority) can have that, too. Since tasks will never be re-sorted by priority automatically (only the initial placement is affected) the new tasks are placed immediately before the first task that has that priority, so it will always be easy to find them (much easier than if they are placed "randomly" as they are after the update).

(An old user, who liked the automatic priority sorting within each group, will need to manually rearrange the tasks once after the Dec 22 update, but most of us have probably done that already, and it will not be necessary to do this again.)