Goals/Projects--mutually exclusive. A task can either be in a Goal or a Project, but not both at the same time. | Help Center

Goals/Projects--mutually exclusive. A task can either be in a Goal or a Project, but not both at the same time.

PRO

bowmandm21 03/20/2014 13:40

Platform:Web

A task can either be in a Goal or a Project, but not both at the same time.

Assigning a task to a Goal deletes the Project entry that the task was previously assigned to. Assigning a task to a Project that is currently in a Goal deletes the Goal setting for that task.

Any individual task can either be assigned to a Goal, or to a Project, but not to both a Goal and a Project at the same time.

Folke post on 03/20/2014 15:36#1

PRO

Yes, that is how it works. For me this is good, because it makes it easy to maintain a hierarchy with just a amall handy number of top level goals, each one having a number of projects, and each project having a number of tasks. Goals in Doit are actually what other apps call Folders or Lists etc etc, but I think Goal is a good name.

Personally, I have everything organized under 5 Goals, two of which are "real goals" (real concrete objectives; "super-projects", GTD 30 k goals) and the other three are actually ongoing "areas":

- Private
- Not-for-Profit
- Ongoing Business
- Establish New Business "1"
- Establish New Business "2"

When you say you would like to have Goals and Projects independent, are you thinking of goals in the sense of "values" or "life goals" etc (GTD 50 k stuff), for example "be a compassionate person" , "be an honest person", "be/stay fluent in French" etc? Those kinds of things are only seldom hierarchically applicable to entire projects or areas or concrete goals. They typically apply across the board as a kind of "standing checklist item" for whatever you do, but sometimes they can apply to some tasks more than to others (or occasionally even entire projects). What you can do if you want to mark certain tasks with a special warning or admonition to, for example, "remember to be honest" is to have a Tag called "Honesty!" that you apply freely wherever it is particularly relevant.

In principle, Tags are very powerful, and Doit has them, but unfortunately they are invisible, so they are not of much practical use yet, but I hope Doit will improve that very soon. Many people have pointed out this shortcoming.
bowmandm21 post on 03/20/2014 16:59#2

PRO

>>For me this is good, because it makes it easy to maintain a hierarchy with just a small handy number of top level goals, each one having a number of projects..

My point is that there is no hierarchy. (Incidentally, I have been using your posts as a thought-provoking major rework of my doit.im setup).

I currently have three goals. Basically: personal, job, freelance business.

When I click on any one of these goals on the left menu, no projects appear in the right-hand pane underneath the goal. The only 'heirarchy' that appears in the right-hand list is: 'Today', 'Next', 'Someday', 'Waiting', and 'Archived'.

There is no option visible to select any other entries within the goal. There is no way that I can see to select any 'Projects' to appear in the right-hand pane.

If I edit any a particular task within a goal, the 'Project' entry is blank. If I enter a project name, the task will then be removed from the goal in which formerly resided and be placed into the appropriate 'Project'. The task disappears from the goal in which it had just been residing. The task will instead show up under the proper Project. It is completely gone from any and all Goals.

If I drag this task from its Project, to any Goal, the task is removed from the Project in which it had just been residing. The task then shows up again under the Goal to which I had placed it, and the Project entry is again deleted from the Task. Opening the task to edit it verifies that the 'Project' entry is again blank.

Thus, I am struggling to see where the 'heirarchy' exists. Any given task resides either within a Goal, and the Project category is forced to be blank. Or the task resides within a Project, and has no Goal attached to it. My tasks can either be in a Goal, and have no Project associated with it. Or the task can have a Project associated with it, but cannot be assigned to a Goal. Assigning a Project to a task deletes the Goal to which it had previously been assigned. Or, alternatively, assigning a task that resides under a Project to a Goal, deletes the Project category to which it had been previously assigned.

Seems like a bug to me. Maybe I am missing something obvious?

Thanks.
Folke post on 03/20/2014 19:45#3

PRO

Maybe there is even a bug somewhere. In any event, it is not very intuitively implemented, that's for sure.

But what I do is this. I drag my project onto one of the goals listed in the left-hand menu. That's how the association gets established once and for all. (Not super-intuitive)

From that point onward, whenever I click that goal in the left-hand menu I get to see a list of:

- tasks that I have tied straight to that goal (if any; personally I keep my tasks in projects so this section is usually empty)
- projects that have been associated with this goal.

This means there is a hierarchy: I click the goal, then the project within the goal, then a task within the project etc.

What I am missing is a direct "Goal Overview", such that when I click a particular goal in the left menu I could see all tasks in the whole goal, not just the list of projects. I still want the list of projects, too, of course, but that could sit either first of all, before all the tasks, or as a temporary expansion of the left menu, indented under that Goal.