OmniFocus
OmniFocus is an application from the folks at The Omni Group based on Ethan Schoonover's Kinkless GTD (kGTD for short)- a series of Applescripts combined with OmniOutliner Pro to produce an "automated, elegant OS X task management" system base on David Allen's Getting Things Done.
OnniFocus does it one better.
OnniFocus does it one better.
Contents at a Glance
The book that started it all.
btw... Getting Things Done is often simply GTD
Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity
Amazon Price: $10.40 (as of 12/03/2009)
OmniFocus was made for GTD and while there are numerous blogs and lenses where you can find information on the system there is no better resource than David Allen's book. You will find yourself coming back to it time and again as you work to achieve a "mind like water".
GTD Workflow
The basics of GTD in five steps.
- Collect - Capture anything and everything that has your attention in a single place.
- Process - Decide what to do with all of your collected "stuff". Act on it. Toss it. "Tickle" it. File it.
- Organize - Put what's left in the right place. Project LIst. Calendar. Next Actions List. Waiting For.
- Review - Daily, weekly, monthly and longer as needed to meet your goals.
- Do - Make choices about your actions based on what you can do (context), how much time and energy you have and finally on your priorities.
Step 1 - Collect
How OmniFocus can help you capture your tasks, projects and goals.
The first step in GTD is to get everything that is on your mind or in your way out in the open and into one place and OmniFocus has several ways to help you do just that.
- Quick Entry - With OmniFocus running, the default key combination control+alt+space bar will, regardless of which application you're in, will bring up the Quick Entry box. Here you can capture your thoughts, assign them to projects and contexts, add estimate, start and due dates, add notes and flag tasks to declare importance.
- Clipping - With an active selection and OmniFocus running, pressing the default Shift-Alt-Command-Period places the selection in the Quick Entry dialog along with a link to the originating source as a note.
Enabling the OmniFocus Mail Clip-O-Tron 3000 from the OmniFoucs Preferences allows you to clip directly from Mail's message list. - QuickSilver - If you don't know about QuickSilver you are missing out. Control+Space brings up a super fast way to access files, applications and capture thoughts and ideas regardless of whether or not OmniFocus is open.
- Email - You can email yourself messages that will go straight to OmniFocus by putting "+OmniFocus" before the @ sign in the email address or by starting the Subject line with a predefined shorthand. Various formatting within the message body will tell OmniFocus what to do or you can have it sent to the Inbox for processing later.
Capture with Jott
By creating a contact within your Jott account (mine is simply called Omni Focus) and assigning it an email address that follows the Mail Rules OmniFocus uses you can Jott your thoughts and have them emailed right into OmniFocus.
This is a great way to capture when you're driving or when you don't have access to your OmniFocus Inbox.
Step 2 - Process
Use OmniFocus to work your way through your inbox item by item.
Once you get it out of your head you need to decide what it means, not what to do... not yet.If you added Contexts to your Tasks and assigned them to Projects already congratulations, you're one step ahead of the system! But if you haven't, if you just did a brain dump to clear your head and haven't taken the time to process, to understand what you have, what it means and what you should do with it, now is the time.
If the task can be completed in 2 minutes David says you should do it now. Of course even if it takes less than 2 minutes, if you don't have the resources or energy to deal with it then don't do it!
Anything you don't act on right now needs either a context, a project or both. Assign your tasks these and you can Clean Up your Inbox and let OmniFocus file them where they need to go for easy organization and retrieval later.
Step 3 - Organize
Project List, Calendar integration, Next Action and Waiting For lists all easily in OmniFocus
A project in GTD terms is anything on your list that takes more than one step to complete. These one step tasks are sort of like projects too. They're all things you want to accomplish and OmniFocus helps you organize them.
Projects can be grouped in folders to define areas of responsibilities. Projects can have tasks that are themselves projects. Project tasks can be done sequentially or in parallel and can have a default context assigned that new tasks will be automatically assigned.
Tasks that you've assigned specific start and due dates can be synced with iCal or they can be made to show up in OmniFocus only when they are within a couple days of being due.
Next Actions and Waiting Lists are two other ways to view your tasks in OmniFocus so that you can quickly, easily and reliably focus on what's important.
Projects can be grouped in folders to define areas of responsibilities. Projects can have tasks that are themselves projects. Project tasks can be done sequentially or in parallel and can have a default context assigned that new tasks will be automatically assigned.
Tasks that you've assigned specific start and due dates can be synced with iCal or they can be made to show up in OmniFocus only when they are within a couple days of being due.
Next Actions and Waiting Lists are two other ways to view your tasks in OmniFocus so that you can quickly, easily and reliably focus on what's important.
Perspectives
OmniFocus allows you to save your favorite views and settings so that you can go back to them quickly. You might create perspectives to recall your morning glance at what's due today, your weekly review, or your retrospective of what you've gotten done lately.
Step 4 - Review
Customize views in OmniFocus to help keep your projects and goals up to date and relevant.
Once you're organized you need to stay organized... and relevant. Your project and task lists need to be reviewed periodically in order to ensure that progress is being made where and on what is needed. Some things you haven't done you will decide need to be done soon, others you'll keep on the list and a few will move off these lists into a someday/maybe list.
Each project and task can have a review period assigned depending on its importance. OmniFocus Perspectives can be created to quickly find those items in need of review. You can then mark them reviewed so they disappear from the view until the next predefined period or you can change the periodicity so they come up in your reviews more often or less frequently if necessary.
Each project and task can have a review period assigned depending on its importance. OmniFocus Perspectives can be created to quickly find those items in need of review. You can then mark them reviewed so they disappear from the view until the next predefined period or you can change the periodicity so they come up in your reviews more often or less frequently if necessary.
Step 5 - Do
OmniFocus can help you figure out what to do when you're ready.
Context determines what you are able to do and is the first thing to consider when its time to act. OmniFocus lets you organize your tasks by context so you can quickly see what you need to do depending on where you are and what you have available.Handy, next action, lists can be printed to take with you when you're away from your computer
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