someone posted '' linking to https://joebuhlig.com/the-omnifocus-dashboard/

I’ve been using OmniFocus for about a year now and it seems like the right time to post a comprehensive review of it and how it’s worked for me. I’m an extremely diligent GTD (Getting Things Done) practitioner and frankly, both my personal and professional lives would be a mess without it. GTD is a time- and task-management methodology based on the book, Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen. I first read David’s book in 2006 and implemented his principles at that time; he released a second edition last year which I’ve also read.

In a nutshell, the concept is that you don’t want to expend energy (or perhaps more appropriately, mental capacity) trying to remember things; get them out of your head and into your system, whether that system is a paper-based list or a software application. Prioritize them and assign them a relevant context (e.g., home, work, phone) based on where you need to be or what you need in order to accomplish the individual tasks. Then review your lists on a regular basis (quickly each day, more in depth each week) and consider larger life goals in deciding when to do the projects you have on your plate.

For an idea of how I use the GTD principles in a variety of complementary tools, please see my previous post that outlines my time and task management workflows.

General Usage

Everything that I need to do, if it takes longer than two minutes and/or I’m not somewhere that I can do it, goes into my Inbox. I review and clear out my Inbox daily, typically when I arrive at the office and before I start my day. When I clear my Inbox, I assign everything to a project (or a Single Actions list) and determine its context. I can capture tasks via email (by sending a message to a pre-defined email address with the OmniSync service) or by asking Siri to set a reminder. There’s an option in OmniFocus that grabs reminders and converts them to Inbox tasks.

Some GTD practitioners use Areas of Focus (buckets specific to areas of your life or roles in which you serve) and I had never found much use for them personally. When I started using Doit a few years before, I started to use tags to emulate Areas of Focus. Specifically, I tagged tasks as either Personal or Work or Home, which allowed me to save searches that incorporated these tags for use while I was at the house or office. Having become somewhat accustomed to using Areas of Focus, I found that folders in OmniFocus let me do just that. All of my work projects are in a work folder, all of my personal projects are in a personal folder, and so forth. OmniFocus allows you to select one or more folders or projects, click the Focus button, and then all views are limited to those items until you click Unfocus.

The power of OmniFocus comes from a combination of its contexts and perspectives, which are really just highly configurable views of your projects and tasks. Let’s look at both of those.

Contexts

Most GTD solutions come with pretty standard contexts: home, office, phone, computer and errands. I expand greatly on these to accommodate several scenarios. For example, nested under Home is “Arriving Home” and “Leaving Home”. Since OmniFocus supports location-based services, I can set the application to notify me when I’m leaving or arriving at a location-based context. So, when I arrive at the house, anything I needed to remember to do as soon as I get home pops up in a notification. Under Errands, I have nested contexts for things like the grocery store and hardware store. Similarly, my Office context has nested, location-based contexts for when I arrive or leave from there as well. OmniFocus also supports search-based contexts, so I can have a Drug Store context that shows me in a map view if there is an appropriate location (e.g., drug store, grocery store) for available tasks in my task list.

It’s common to have a Waiting state in GTD, which typically means you’re waiting on something else before the task can start or complete. Some systems have a task status (e.g., Not Started, Next Action, Waiting, In Progress, Completed) and others use a context for Waiting tasks. OmniFocus uses a context for this, but I have expanded on it significantly.

For folks who I often am dependent upon for a task and need to consult frequently, I have nested contexts for specific those individuals. This includes my boss, my direct employees, my wife and a few generic ones like “Client”. Since OmniFocus includes a Waiting For perspective, I can view it with a single touch of my screen and have a neatly ordered list of everything I’m waiting on someone for while I’m talking with them. I have a similar set of contexts under Agenda, where I throw tasks that I use as reminders to discuss something with a particular person.

Perspectives

I use quite a number of custom perspective, but first let’s cover what comes stock in an OmniFocus installation:

• Inbox — The inbox is where incoming tasks are typically placed and where they remain until you process them (assigning them a project and a context)
• Projects — Projects that you’re working on, which are typically defined as any effort requiring two or more steps
• Contexts — As explained above, contexts are a way of describing where you need to be (office, home) to perform a task or what you need to have available for it (computer, phone)
• Forecast — This is a calendar view of scheduled tasks along with tasks that are due on or deferred to a particular date on the calendar
• Flagged — This is a view of all tasks that are flagged, which I use to indicate tasks that I want or need to complete for the day
• Review — This is a perspective used for doing the weekly review which is discussed below in more detail

Now let’s look at some custom perspectives. These are ones I’ve created based on research into best practices of other OmniFocus users (see Additional Reading below) or as my own needs have evolved. The ones in bold font are “favorites” and appear on the OmniFocus sidebar for ready access. The others are accessible through a menu in Mac OS X or using a “More” feature in iOS.

• Today — Tasks that are due today or are flagged
• Next Actions — The first available task (called a Next Action in GTD) in each project, grouped by context
• Waiting — Any tasks in a Waiting For state, grouped by context (which for me, is the person on whom I’m waiting
• Agenda — Any tasks with an Agenda context, grouped by context (which again, is the person with whom I need to speak
• Quick Hits — Any tasks with a duration of 15 minutes or less, grouped by context
• Home Dashboard — Any tasks that are overdue, due within two days or flagged in projects in one of my non-work folders (Areas of Focus), such as Personal, Home, Miscellaneous
• Work Dashboard — tasks that are overdue, due within two days or flagged in projects in my work folders (Areas of Focus)
• Time Estimations — Any tasks with no duration assigned; this is where I put in any time estimations I may have missed while processing my Inbox
• Completed — All completed tasks ordered from most recently completed, in case you need to look over what you’ve accomplished or in case you’ve accidentally completed a task you didn’t mean to
• Changed — All changed tasks ordered from most recently changed, in case you inadvertently changed something and need to review the changes you’ve made
• Added — All added tasks ordered from most recently added, in case you need to look over recently added tasks
• Stalled — Any project with no available tasks in it, used to complete projects in which all tasks are done or to find projects that are incomplete but their tasks have all been depleted
• Upcoming — All tasks, grouped by due date starting with those overdue, then due today, then future dates, followed by no due dates

It’s worth noting that for the most part, I don’t use due dates on tasks. I defer tasks that I don’t want to work on until a given date. I add due dates if there’s an external due date (e.g., my boss says he has to have a report from me by the 15th of next month) but in general I prioritize tasks during my weekly reviews based on what I know I need to get accomplished in the coming week to stay on track. Those tasks, rather than being assigned due dates, get flagged for focus that day and if they’re critical, it’s likely that I have time blocked out to work on them.

Some people set due dates for all of their tasks. Those people have badge notifications on their app with ridiculously high numbers. There’s nothing worse than looking at your GTD app and seeing a number in the hundreds or opening the app and seeing red all over the damn place. Those people suck. Don’t be those people.

Dashboards

The dashboard is my newest thing in OmniFocus and I got the idea from reading Joe Buhlig’s article about how he set up his dashboard, which displays overdue, flagged and “due soon” tasks. Mine is customized a little differently in the sense that I only display active contexts and I have a sidebar constraint that limits the view to work tasks (those tasks in three folders specific to work) or non-work tasks (those in four folders specific to, well, not work. This enables me to look at all the things I should be focused on when I’m at the office without seeing things like reminders to drop diapers off at day care the following day, or vice versa.

OmniFocus allows you to select certain folders, projects or even individual tasks in the sidebar while you’re creating a focus and then add those to the perspective itself. It’s an excellent way to filter your view to just what’s intended to be in it. Since I group these tasks by context and order them by project, as long as I have my contexts and projects sorted based on what I know is typically of higher priority — and this is another reason the weekly review is so important — the result is a dashboard that reflects the things I should be working on that day in the order I should be working on them. What better way to be productive?

Daily and Weekly Reviews

I typically perform a quick daily review each morning before the start of day. This review includes clearing my Inbox, looking at any Waiting or Agenda tasks (so I know who to ambush in the office), reviewing the next few days on my calendar in case I need to block out time to get things done without being disturbed, and then flag any items I know I need to complete that day.

It’s not uncommon that I’ll clear out my Inbox again during the day or after work, though that’s more a matter of convenience than an actual ritual. I’ll also dip back into my Next Actions perspective to look for additional items to flag if I have a particularly productive morning and deplete my flagged tasks by midday.

My weekly review is much more involved and spans well beyond OmniFocus. It includes clearing out my physical inbox (mail and other documents) and scanning documents in my “to-scan” inbox. I also check a couple email addresses for my side business in case I didn’t get to them during the week and clear out any downloaded files in my Downloads directory. I review my meetings notes from my paper journal and transpose any action items into tasks in OmniFocus and then do the same with any meeting notes I captured in OneNote. Then I clear my Inbox in OmniFocus and make sure all my projects are reviewed and have appropriate Next Actions identified.

If it’s the last weekly review of the month, I do some other things, like set up a new month in my paper journal, initialize a new monthly plan in Trello, change all my system passwords, etc.

Conclusion

My life is completely dependent upon GTD in general and OmniFocus specifically. I rely on the system so much that the habits I’ve described in this article are second nature and take virtually no time to practice during the capture and processing of my tasks. When I show my system to folks, they feel like it seems complicated. Once they watch me capture a task based on our conversation or make an adjustment to a project I’m tracking, they typically remark that it didn’t seem to take any time at all. The payoff for being organized really can’t be overstated.

OmniFocus is not cheap. I paid $80 for the Mac OS X version and another $40 for the iOS app. I also have access to my task lists through my Apple Watch, which I use far less than I thought I would when I bought it.

I avoided it for two primary reasons when I left Blackberry back in 2011. First, the OmniGroup only develops their software for Mac OS X and iOS; they’ve caught crap for this for as long as I can remember and it’s not likely to ever change. This was a show-stopper for me prior to buying my Mac since I was using BlackBerry (work mobile), Windows (home/work) and Android (personal mobile) platforms. I bought my MacBook Pro in 2012 and my company switched from BlackBerry to iPhone devices and this brought OmniFocus into play. I had heard great things about it and since I was leaving my current GTD system, I explored it again.

In the end, the cost is well worth it for a good system and this is the best one I’ve found yet. As I move closer to using Mac exclusively, I’m slowly adopting all of the Omnigroup products which include OmniOutliner (an outline/writing program), OmniPlan (replaces Microsoft Project) and OmniGraffle (replaces Microsoft Visio). I still have to use Windows for work (SQL Server Manager Studio, Power View in Excel, Minitab, etc. all require Windows) but I spend most of my time at home on my MacBook and whenever I get around to replacing my desktop workstation in a few years, that will almost certainly be a Mac also.

Additional Reading

Brett Kelly: A Brief Tour of My Perspectives in OmniFocus 2

David Sparks (MacSparky): My OmniFocus Perspectives

Lee Garrett: How to Take OmniFocus to the Next Level (via Productivityist)

Joe Buhlig: The OmniFocus Dashboard

When you first build your GTD system, it’s easy to focus on the tools and setting up the correct lists. At that point, it’s important to build the infrastructure and get your projects under control so overwhelm can vacate the premises. But it is common to let the system slide after a week or two or maybe a month.

The problem comes when the new and shiny wears off and old habits start to resurface. You didn’t write down that request from your spouse and forgot about it . Friday had a lot of unexpected circumstances that prevented you from doing a weekly review and now your system is out of line. Or you have a simple system in place but you keep forgetting to clear out your inboxes so it’s out of date.

It is this point at which your habits have taken over. And I’ve been there all too often. I have done every single one of these and more. But over time, I have picked up a handful of habits that lower the number of times I fall off the wagon and help me stick to the system. I still deviate from time to time, but each time I come back I am better at being intentional with my time.

And that’s the point, right? If I stick to these habits, it means I am better at helping others and building real-world relationships.

Capture at Multiple Levels

This is something I have recently learned. And it only came after reading Making It All Work. In this follow-up book, David Allen often refers to higher levels of thinking. Yes, the day-to-day, “pick up dog food” tasks are important to capture. But there are many levels of capture that we tend to ignore because we focus on these lower-level tasks.

It’s the relational tasks and the conceptual conversations you need to have with yourself that lead to the real cream of GTD. It’s not uncommon to see items like “develop a regular conversation with my siblings” or “help Emma comprehend her reading” in my inbox.

When you adopt this habit, the GTD process starts to make more sense. The “what is it?” and “is it actionable?” questions are better served when dealing with these higher-level items. The answer to these is borderline obvious with most day-to-day projects. But when it turns to relationships or beliefs, these questions become a challenge worth facing.

Decide When to Empty Inboxes

If you listen to the GTD podcast or read articles by David Allen, you’ll hear him reference the timing of “every couple days.” That usually comes with the caveat of how fast your work moves. If you work in IT or support, tasks can enter your inbox and reach completion within a few hours. And that means you need to clear it out more frequently.

But something I have found wrong here is that I am terrible at deciding when to do this thinking work. I will leave my inbox untouched for two weeks and run from my brain without realizing it. And that comes down to too much flexibility in emptying inboxes. Yes, I should be able to sense the feeling that my system needs updating, but I don’t act on it.

The counter to this problem is to schedule a time for clearing inboxes daily. My work moves on a day-to-day basis so I know I need to make these decisions daily. But there have been times when I have two or three critical, fast-moving projects running at once. In those cases, I schedule two or three times a day to empty inboxes.

In any scenario, it is best to have time on the calendar for this. Without a schedule, it becomes easy to put it off entirely and then your system becomes untrustworthy.

Actually Use Someday/Maybe Lists

It’s one thing to collect items on a someday/maybe list. It’s another to put them to work. I can capture ideas all day long every day of the week. But incubating them, curating them, and activating them is work in itself.

I see arguments against deleting items for these lists. But this is unfounded advice. If I have decided a task isn’t something I’ll do, delete it. Get rid of it. Make it go away. I don’t want to keep skipping over it because I remember my decision. If I have decided the answer is no, then act on it and delete the thing.

I see the goal of someday/maybe lists as a place to keep tasks and projects I don’t know if I want to do. It’s also a great place to hold things that you want to do, but don’t have time for this week.

And I say, “this week” intentionally. Sometimes we refer to these lists as bucket lists or a holding place for things to do in years to come. And that’s fine, but these are also places to keep tasks you have committed to do in months to come, but you are not actively working on them right now. It’s better to keep your “active” tasks limited to what you can do this week.

Review When You Don’t Know

David Allen talks about the importance of the Weekly Review. And I have been a strong promoter for the Weekly Review for a long time as well. That’s because I am terrible at sticking to it and need to make it as easy as possible to do.

And although I find a scheduled time for a Weekly Review valuable, you can’t always trust or rely on a single, weekly time for updating your system. It’s pretty common for a new project to land on my plate mid-week or to cut an existing project. And every time that happens, I need to do an extra Weekly Review. It’s the only way I know to refresh my commitments for the week.

A Weekly Review is important, but it’s also important to review your vision and life mission when you have life changes. I try to do quarterly and annual reviews to ensure I have a good vision to work towards and that I’m working on my life mission. But when a job change happens, an illness strikes, or my wife and I decide to take on a big household project, I often need to review these again. It helps to make sure I am not running forward (backward?) haphazardly but moving towards my vision for the future.

Trust Your Previous Decisions

One of the big mistakes I have made in the past with my GTD system is second-guessing my decisions about what to work on each day. I have built dashboards and today lists for a long time. And I still do this.

But the problem comes when I look at the list, see things I don’t want to do, and convince myself that there is something better to work on. And this enables me to procrastinate to no end.

Don’t do that. Trust the system you set up. Trust your thinking-self from earlier and work the list.

If Not Now, When?

This is a question I picked up from Patrick Rhone a few years ago. If I am not committing to completing a task right now, when will I commit to it? What day on the calendar or what time will I set aside for it?

In the case of GTD, we often think about this through the lens of contexts, a set of tools or periods when we work on certain lists. And a common misunderstanding here is working from these contexts “when you find yourself in that context.” I’m sorry, but I don’t “find myself” anywhere by accident. Even if that is the way life worked, I’m pretty sure that working from lists whenever you accidentally end up in a context wouldn’t allow you to complete the tasks you need to complete each day.

Instead, you have to choose to put yourself in those contexts. And I have found that the best way to do that is by scheduling time for different projects and contexts throughout the week. You see this concept employed in a lot of ways: time-blocking, daily themes, yearly themes, tasks on a calendar, etc… Choose the method that works for you, but don’t expect the contexts to magically appear and the work to complete itself when that happens.

Stick to Your Tools

I shouldn’t have to say this. Don’t change tools very often. In the eight years I have practiced GTD, I have used three tools for my GTD system. I started with Evernote because it was the tool I was using at the time and I knew how it worked. Then I upgraded to OmniFocus. I deviated for about six months into the world of text files, but came back to OmniFocus and have been there since.

Here’s the key: I know OmniFocus and I know how to work my system within it. I have looked at Todoist a few times and Things 3 and even Notion and Basecamp. And it’s very common for productivity writers and podcasters to talk about switching tools and show how they are doing it. I’ve even seen folks online switch tools four or five times a year.

But here’s the trick: these writers make money off of talking about these tools. So switching tools gives them more content to talk about. So, of course, they switch a lot. But the problem is that this encourages the general population to switch more often. Don’t fall for it.

Notion is new and shiny and there are a LOT of people talking about it right now. My suggestion: leave it alone. Stick to what you know and what is reliable. If you don’t have a tool you trust, find one that has been around for a long time, has a proven business model, doesn’t completely alter the interface frequently, and has a lot of people talking about it. You will have a much better chance of finding a tool that you can count on in the long run.

I say this because it is easy to spend more time setting up tools than it is learning the intricacies and nuances of GTD. For example, I only learned to capture high-level projects because I had a system I know and understand well. If I would continue switching tools regularly, I would be tempted to spend time learning the ins and outs of the tool instead of focusing on where I spend my time.

Know Your Weakness

My weaknesses are Capture and Review. I know this. It’s likely why I write about these two steps the most. I need the self-encouragement that comes from teaching others what I am doing. And knowing this allows me to focus more on those steps to ensure I am following through and working towards my vision.

« SearchLink Broke My Writing Workflow Joe Buhlig

an analog mind in a digital world