@drewbert: I'm not sure if you know this, but in the "work" tab, if you press the red X in the corner, all of the green chechmarks will turn into numbers (1-4, 1 being the highest priority, 4 being the lowest) and you can set each colonist's work priority. So you can have a guy with research as his number 1 priority, but he'll still be able to pick up other tasks if there is nothing to research. Prioritizing will save you from having to check and uncheck different tasks.
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