Hi guys, long time lurker here.
I was wondering what some good (ideally free) resources for learning Omnifocus are. I always hear such great things about it, but I don’t think it’s quite “clicked” with me yet.
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Peter Akkies has a bunch of good free content on OmniFocus: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIiotNwafpxC9eS-M_58VlA
Also some good free content on the Learn OmniFocus site: https://learnomnifocus.com/tutorials/
Both also have paid offerings.
Invest $25 in Macsparkys field guide. Really worth it. If I had bought it the first time I bought OmniFocus I never would have given up in frustration and spent $100 on a different platform only to then buy the upgrade to OF. And THEN buy the field guide!
Learn OmniFocus.com is also really good
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Check out Peter Akkies on YouTube. Also can purchase an OF3 courses too.
Another paid option is Build Your Own OmniFocus Workflow by Ryan Dotson and Rosemary Orchard of Automators/Nested Folders and others fame. It’s $30.
As a years-long OF user, do what you can to learn a bit of the software, but if you’re finding it’s still not clicking, you don’t have to force it to work either! OF is extremely powerful, yes, but if it’s mode of task management isn’t working, it’s ok to try something else.
However, I do echo the recommendations for Learn OmniFocus, David’s field guide, and Ryan/Rose’s book. They’re all fantastic. Maybe start with one and go from there.
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If your local library offers Lynda.com courses, MacSparky has two courses on there. They are from 2016. But it’s free.
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A resource that completely transformed my approach and made me see what the app could bring is @kourosh’s Creating Flow with OmniFocus book.
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This is excellent advise. I tend to shit towards omnifocus for some things, but find some projects work best with Agile / Kanban methods, and for a while dealt with ‘sunk cost fallacy’ = I spent money on pro editions of OmniFocus and felt like I HAD TO make it work. I recognize that omnifocus is a great tool, but not my main tool, for getting work cranked out.
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Ditto on Kourosh Dini’s book. It’s as much about how to be productive (but in a realistic, based-in-experience-and-psychology way) as it is a manual for OF3.
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Dini’s book is great. For free, though, I recommend reading the OF manual. It clears a lot up, especially, in my case, regarding perspectives and column views. It’s more fun than it sounds! If you’ve already been picking at OF, you don’t need to read the whole thing.
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OF takes a while to “click”. It’s not like you install it and all of a sudden all your tasks, projects, etc. just “work”. It takes an effort to think of projects, contexts, etc. and how to handle due/deferral dates to fit your work style and approach. What works for me might not work for you.
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The problem I experienced with the OF manual tells you HOW to use functions, but I needed another set of resources to build proper workflows with it and get benefit from it. OF was like getting a supercomputer and then only building better to-do lists until I learned how to properly calibrate my own uses and workflows with it through David, Tim, Dini, others.
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I have often thought that OmniFocus isn’t really a task manager; it’s an app for building your own task manager.
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Great way to look at it, it’s the only software where I’ve spent more in learning how to use it effectively than actually what I paid for the software itself.
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It probably helped me that I was trying to replace an existing GTD-ish system with OF, and had read about it on 43folders prior to its release.
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What I like about OF vs other platforms is that I can have something ‘basic’ and then fiddle with it. The fiddly- ness of OF keeps me engaged and gets me to use it.
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ooooo I LIKE that analogy. As a veteran of OF (user since 2009) I’ve found that as my needs and abilities change I can change the system to fit me with no problems.
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