Tutorial 5: Use the view bar
Once you have a significant amount of information in your OmniFocus database, it can start to get overwhelming. The view bar can help you whittle down all that data into something meaningful and manageable.
For instance, say you’re ready to get some work done. Staying in the Projects view with all of your projects and actions all over the place won’t do. Try this:
Switch to context mode, where actions roam free of their project headings.
Click an empty area in the sidebar to deselect all contexts; all of your actions become visible in the main outline.
From the View menu, choose Show View Bar (there’s also a corresponding button you can add to your toolbar); a row of pop-up menus appears.
From the action status menu (with the checkbox icon), choose Next Action. Everything but your next actions disappears from the view.
As you mark things complete, the view updates to keep giving you stuff to work on.
This is just one way the view bar can show you exactly what you’re looking for. For more about how to use it, see the view bar section of the help.
If you ever get the view bar into a wacky state that doesn’t show what you want, you can always choose Revert to Default View from the Perspectives menu.