Tips & Tricks Tuesday: “Archive” tasks easily based on the name

Sometimes you’re just done with a project. Archiving lists is a nice way to hide them (and their tasks) when you are putting them away for a while—or forever!

However, if things are a bit more in flux for you, you will appreciate fant’s tip about showing and hiding lists/projects based on a special character in the name.

It happens that I want to give some of my currently actionable projects (lists) a rest. Okay, I have to confess that this is rather selfish - I want them to not bother me, so I can concentrate on the more important projects/stuff (if there’s any).

On the frontend, I have a very simple setup. On the backend, it’s more complex thanks to the mighty Smart Lists. Below I show only the necessary parts, but it should be easy to implement this in any setup.

Setup: Lists

My list for ‘one-off tasks’ is named ’+’ (yes, only a +).

All projects (in this case, lists) which are active start with a ’+’.
(for example: +Conquer.The.World)

All Projects/Lists which I want to put in a dormant state, but don’t want to archive, start with a ’>’.
(for example: >Conquer.The.MilkyWay)

Thus, simply by editing the list name, the tasks in those lists become active or dormant. The lists themselves are not out of sight. For example, when doing a weekly review you can resurrect dormant projects simply by replacing the ’>’ with an ’+’ and vice versa.

The sort order of the lists is alphabetical, so the active projects are separated from the dormant ones.

Setup: Smart Lists

The simple thing is to start every Smart List which should show only active tasks (tagged 'desk’, 'home’, and so forth) with:

listcontains:+ AND (“here comes and the rest, what suits you best ”)

(for example: listContains:+ AND tag:desk AND tag:next)

Effect

As mentioned above, only tasks in active lists (starting with a ’+’) will be shown. Nothing else needs to be changed.

Drawback

Due to the fact that there’s no syntax like 'listStartWith:’, the names of dormant lists should not have a ’+’ in their name. For example: >Conquer.The.MilkyWay_+_Conquer.The.AndromedaGalaxy will not work. I’ve tried, but I had to surrender :-(

That’s all. Hope it’s of use to anyone.

Thanks for sharing this tip, fant! You’re our Tips & Tricks Tuesday winner this week.

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