Using the inspectors
The inspector window is a central place for setting the attributes of actions, groups, projects, and contexts. You can use it to examine or change one or many selected items. When you select something in the sidebar or the outline, the inspector window automatically switches to the applicable inspector.
Each inspector has controls that are relevant to the type of item you have selected, and some of these controls overlap between different types of items.
Project — This sets which project an action or group belongs to. You can use this as an alternative to finding the destination project in the sidebar and dropping the item there.
Type — You can choose whether the selected group or project’s contained actions should become available sequentially or in parallel; that is, one at a time or all at once. You can also turn a project into a single-action list, for containing unrelated one-time actions.
Status — For projects, the status can be Active (a project you’re still working on), On Hold (an on-hold project is one you’ve set aside for some day in the future), Completed (a completed project is one you’ve successfully finished), or Dropped (a dropped project is one you’ve decided not to pursue anymore). For contexts, the status can be Available (a context you still intend to use), On Hold (an on-hold context is one whose actions aren’t available for you to work on), or Dropped (a dropped context is one you don’t expect to use anymore).
Context — This sets the selected action’s assigned context, just like choosing one in the Context column of the main outline.
Default Context — This assigns a context to be automatically assigned to any new actions added to the selected group or project. This is handy if you have a project that you know is going to take place mainly in one context.
Estimated Time — This is the amount of time you expect the selected action or group will take to complete. See estimating action duration for more information.
Start and Due — An action, group, or project’s start date determines when it becomes available; if you can’t start working on something until later, give it a start date so that it will stay out of your way (in Pending status) until then. If your action, group, or project has a deadline, enter a due date. As the due date approaches, the item appears in the due soon style, and if it becomes overdue, it appears in the overdue style.
Completed — The date that an action, group, or project was completed is recorded here. You can edit the completion date, in case you actually completed something a while back but didn’t get around to telling OmniFocus about it until just now.
Added and Changed — OmniFocus keeps track of when each item was added to your database and when you last changed it. Sometimes it’s useful to check these values to see just how long you’ve been meaning to do something.
Repeat — If you have an action, a group, or a project that needs to be done regularly, you can set up a repeat interval. The Next Start and Next Due dates show how the next repetition of the item would be scheduled if you completed this one right now.
Next Review — This indicates when the selected project is due to be reviewed. You can let OmniFocus determine this based on the review interval (see Review Every below) and the last time you marked it as reviewed, or you can enter your own date.
Review Every — The default interval between reviews is set in the Data Preferences, but you can change the interval on a per-project basis if there are projects you want to keep a closer eye on or leave alone longer.
Last Reviewed — This is the last time you marked the project as reviewed (or the date it was created, if you have never reviewed it).