Often we need to juggle our attention between numerous projects. OmniFocus helps to simplify matters of our decision by allowing us to place some projects on hold, and then later activate them. When we set a project on hold, all of its tasks change from being “Available” to “Remaining”.

For the most part, our work perspectives rely on a filter by availability setting of Available or First Available.¹ Therefore, when we set a project on hold, its tasks no longer appear in our usual working perspectives.

We can switch between the two states either by:

• using the contextual menu (accessed by control-click):

Set project On Hold via contextual Menu

• Through the menu (Menu > Edit > Status > On Hold)
• or by Inspector:

Set project On Hold via Inspector

Adding Key Commands

Key commands often make a significant difference in one’s workflow. If you know the key commands for an action, not only do you become much quicker with the program in general, but actions become more easily used, and therefore they become more often used.

As a result, I tend to prefer key commands. However, as there are no key commands assigned, I use Keyboard Maestro to create one. If you are interested in doing so, below are the settings²:

To set a project On Hold:

Set OmniFocus project On Hold settings for Keyboard Maestro

To return a project to Active:

Set OmniFocus project to Active settings for Keyboard Maestro

For extra credit, this one is to drop a project:

Set OmniFocus project to Dropped settings for Keyboard Maestro

Give it a shot. I bet that once you can jump between states just using Option-h and Option-a, you’ll find a subtle, but significant difference in your workflows.

1. 1. 1. Tasks have several states of availability:

   

   1. • First Available - Displays in Next Available task filters
      • Available - Displays in all Available tasks filters
      • Remaining - Displays in all Available and Remaining tasks filters
      • All - Displays in Available, Remaining, and Completed tasks filters
      • Completed - Displays in Completed tasks only filters

↩

2. For a more thorough explanation of setting up Keyboard Maestro macros for OmniFocus, check out this post. ↩