I think what is needed generally in most lists is the ability to group (and filter) the list by Goal.

Doit's Goal feature has excellent potential for being the "area" designator that many people require, and I already use it as such ( http://help.doit.im/group/topic/92 ). For example, you can put all projects and tasks for Business1 in a Goal called Business1.

Context is better suited (and is intended; and is defined in GTD) for situational requirements for being able to do the task, such as "need to be out somewhere" (@Errand) or "need to be on the phone with someone" (@Calls),

Thanks. I'll give that a try. "goal" made me think of a different use, but sounds like it might be what I'm looking for and maintain the contexts usage. Thanks.

How do you add a project to the goal?

@huntrenc - drag it to the Goal in the left menu (that is the only way I have found, works in web version, anyway)

I have given this a try, but the problem (as others have noted) is the lack of inherited contexts or tags. I understand the developer's point of not wanting to create inherited contexts, but I think inheriting tags makes a lot of sense.

@dhunternc - I totally agree

And speaking generally, I can see three different avenues for Doit to improve all this. Generally speaking, what we need is the capability to both limit and rearrange what we see on any given list, in particular the Next list, but other lists, too. And it must be convenient to use also, not just barely possible with an effort, but really smooth and convenient.

For the rearrangement aspect (regrouping, resorting), which is a powerful capability that I use many times a day, it would save a lot of trouble to have those options (group by context, by deadline, by box, whatever) available with one single click. This is required regardless of which of the avenues below is chosen for the tagging/filtering etc.

And also, to allow other grouping options than box on contexts lists and projects etc it would be necessary to a have a graphical "box indicator" for each task, such that you can tell the difference between, Next actions and Waiting For actions etc even if they are grouped and sorted by context or deadline etc.

But as for the temporary LIMITING of the contents (filtering) on a given list, I see the following three main avenues:

Alt 1) Allow projects, goals (and even other things) to be TAGGABLE and that these tags be automatically applied (INHERITED) to the tasks within. This approach makes use of the existing "tag filter".

Alt 2) Modify the "tag filter" itself such that not only Tags are represented - there could be buttons for contexts, goals, priorities etc also (without the user having to tag these aspects manually as in alternative 1) .

Alt 3) Modify the "advanced filter" such that it can be used super quickly for temporary filtering of the current list without any need to specify obvious things like "uncompleted tasks only" and with a default to require no name and have no saving of the filter etc - just click a few tags, goals, etc and the appropriate Boolean conditions and GO.

In general, regarding both the current tag filter and the current advanced saved filter, the permissible Boolean conditions in Doit are far from sufficient. It should be possible to "include also" (OR), or "include only" (AND) or "exclude" (NOT) tasks that have selected types of characteristics and combinations thereof.

If we can't inherit tags, then I would just like to see the filter/search not be so rigid. Instead of only being able to select complete project names from a list, I would like to have "contains" and "does not contain". That way I could name all of my projects with a suffix for the particular area and filter by all projects containing that suffix.
Example:
[jobA] project 1
[jobA] project 2
[jobB] project 3
[home] project
[hobby] project

then filter by "contains" [jobA]
or "contains" [jobB]
or "does not contain" [jobA] OR [jobB]

This simple UI improvement would solve the issue for me.
Hopefully this will be noticed as a feature request!

You can use Doit's Goals for your "areas" (that's what I do). But what is missing are a few simple improvements to make those Goals be of some more concrete use than just allow you to compress your left menu, and some of those improvements I think might also solve - directly or indirectly - the kind of issue you are having now:

- Goal tasks list: When you click a goal in the left menu you would get the list of projects (just like today) immediately followed by all the tasks in all the the projects in that goal, grouped appropriately. This would allow you to see all tasks in jobB in one single click (if jiobB is defined as a Goal)

- group by Goal (jobA, jobB, hobby etc) generally in most lists, e.g. the Next list.

- use Goal (and Box) as variables for the saved searches (e.g. show jobB only)

... and, as mentioned above, be able to most parameters and filtering criteria conveniently for very quick, temporary, non-saved filtering of the current list.

But as you say, @hunternc, inheritable Tags would be a very simple and powerful feature that would be useful for customizing the task organization and viewing almost regardless of what other features are implemented.