2Do is great at this. GoodTask does this as well (but the interface is a little more clunky around Start Dates).
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Iād been on Things for around 6 months, and jumped back to omnifocus as soon as Mojave came out. Iām so much happier! I know in part I was fooling myself because the act of transferring and updating my information served as a big deep review and I checked off a ton of things, but not having the review features in Things in the first place is part of how I ended up here.
- I missed review.
- I missed having the ability to check off a repeating task if I happened to complete it a little bit early (not possible in Things).
- Most of all, I missed not having to worry about my repeating tasks actually repeating. Iām sure itās my own fault, but sometimes things slipped through the cracks with Things, and if thatās going to happen then this whole court is out of order. My number one use for task management is deferred and repeating tasks, and if itās broken I wonāt even find out until sometime after itās due when I think āhey, I havenāt seen that one go by in a whileā¦ā
Iāve been thinking lately that the task tool I really need is a text edit window on my second screen with the font cranked up huge and it says YOU ARE DOING: [TASK]. Iām always falling down these task ladders where Iām working on F because I need it for E so that I can update D which is the only thing missing from C and if I just had C Iād basically have B which is all I need to get through task A.
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Have to agree with repeating tasks, importing from Reminders, etc. I noticed the other day that my petsā water was low because the recurring task went away for some reason.
Iāve been thinking lately that the task tool I really need is a text edit window on my second screen with the font cranked up huge and it says YOU ARE DOING: [TASK] .
Reminds me of Vitamin-R, a tool to help one focus.
"When youāre up to your ass in alligators itās difficult to remember that your initial intent was to drain the swamp.
Enjoyable and useful episode here. I liked @MacSparkyās idea of āvectorsā ā projects, folders, tagging and contexts are all just ways of getting different views of different subsets of your data and should be mixed and matched where appropriate.
Iām going to try to implement two ideas inspired by this episode:
Mobile tag:
For tasks I can do on my iPhone while on the go. I might even call it āon the go.ā I attend a lot of professional conferences, and seem to often find myself in situations where Iām idle but canāt get out my MacBook. Sitting on an airplane waiting for takeoff. Or maybe Iām hiking across a conference center and have a couple of minutes between meetings where I can find a corner out of the way of foot traffic and do some things on my iPhone. I could have this āmobileā tag and get some things done on the iPhone while Iām literally standing around doing nothing.
"Fake priorities."
Use the OmniFocus Perspective tags for tasks I want to remind myself about several times a day. As the day progresses into the afternoon, Iād flag a couple of tasks I feel I must complete that day. Then thereās the regular, available tasks; I guess Iāll check on those once a day or once a week? And finally there are tasks on hold ā you might call that the āsomeday/maybeā list.
You may well ask why I call those fake priorities? They look like actual priorities, right? Flagged tasks are priority 1, Perspectives tasks are priority 2, regular available tasks are priority 3, and tasks on hold are priority 4. I call them āfake prioritiesā because Iām a GTD guy and GTD says donāt use priorities. Happy to clear that up!
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Iāve started to use iCloud but with Fantastical as the front end. Serves me well at the moment. Felt burn out having tried most of the third party apps.
Really enjoyed this episode. It made me think through my own process and why I do what I do. Always helpful to have a rethink!
Something I thought of while listening: I love location based tags but I donāt want (for example) all my āofficeā based tags to notify me when I get to the office. So I created an additional tag called ā(Loc) officeā that is location based and will notify me of the specific tasks I need to do next time I get to the office. Does anybody else handle this problem differently?
Thanks @MacSparky and @katiefloyd!
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Nope. I have a few tags that only exist as a moving part. āArriving Officeā, āArriving Daycareā, āLeaving Gym.ā
Those tasks will also often be tagged with the non-location tag just in case I want to see it in the regular tag with the rest of the tasks.
Also I use a āchecklistā tag as a way to keep list and routine items out of my main working perspectives without having to leave them āon hold.ā
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Great ideas here. I think itās fine to be experimental with tags to begin.
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There are two techniques I use:
-
Tasks tagged with āInterstitialā which are 5 minute tasks. Also 15 minute ones. Former to just do with a little spare time. The latter to give myself faith the task will soon be over.
(Similar to something @MacSparky said.) -
Iāve started scheduling tasks with Due dates at specific times of the day - for the current day. As Omnifocus shows my calendar interspersed with the tags that gives me a unified idea of what Iām supposed to be doing when in the day.
But for me the main issue is just getting on and doing stuff; There are always more interesting things to do than a dry task in a task manager.
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I just estimate when I need to see this to get it done and then flag if it really needs to get done. I use Davidās āTodayā perspective showing me all available tasks today across projects and tags and then I have those flagged which are more important than others so that they stand out
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I have considered going all-in on Reminders as well instead of OmniFocus. But the lack of deferring dates just makes it really unappealing to me. I just now that I will have a ton of tasks in Reminders that I will never get done. There is a much bigger chance that I will get somewhat unimportant tasks with OmniFocus than Reminders
I still find 2Do to have the best Reminders integrations if you are wanting OF-esque features, but with Reminders sync.
It supports:
- Start Dates
- Paused Tags (for someday/maybe lists)
- Thereās a URL scheme & some iOS Shortcuts support
- Email to 2Do
- Smart Filters (Perspectives)
Itās a very full featured app. It sometimes can lag behind system updates, but itās a very solid system.
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Thanks! How does Fantastical fit into all that? Because thatās actually how I manage my Reminders today and I like that. Do you use Fantastical for Reminders as well?
Teehee. Yeah, itās pretty transparent that MPU is all about Omnifocus. Ah well, I imagine itās whatās used, so itās whatās discussed. Thing is, the vast majority of people donāt have a Lawyerās tasks to deal with, so the thing that gets lost, in spite of all the āweāre not making this into an Omnifocus showā¦ Oh wait, we areā stuff is that whatās being discussed is largely inapplicable to the majority of the audience.
I bought Omnifocus years ago because I listened to Dave hammer on about it forever until I was convinced it was some kind of panacea of task management. The one thing they got right this time was that you need to look at your life and your needs before you look at a task management system. Many folks donāt even need one.
For me, Iāve kind of settled on using Due for almost everything that I need to get done, and Things to act as the depository for everything thatās just an idea. If I get a spare few minutes/hours I want to use productively, I see what I can find in Things.
All the rest is gravy. I found out that you can waste a lot of your life trying to be a productive human. Really, I believe thereās about a 5% chance you need Omnifocus. Most folks would get by just fine with one of the āfirst levelā solutions.
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Iām increasingly relying on time blocking or āhyper schedulingā as David calls it. OF3 does a nice job of showing the tasks in the timeline, but I think it goes one step not enough in the right direction.
Iād really like smarter integration between the calendar and my task manager. Any ideas on how that can be done with OF3?
Side note: Iām very tempted with Sorted 3. I like the idea of the app a lot, just not sold on an iOS only workflow (they are building a Mac version).
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I think the utility of the various software solutions has less to do with what you do than with who you are. It depends a lot on personality. I donāt do very much that is like lawyering and I use Omnifocus for everything, both personal and work related, because it fits how I think and what I need.
For other people, their personality requires something that scratches their itch in a different way. We canāt get hung up on the tools that others use in a comparison to what we choose, but we have to glean the universal principles available.
As to who needs Omnifocus, I think the percentage of people who could benefit from it is well above 5%, but itās also probably not most people either.
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I used Fantastical as a review tool. It has the ability to show you all completed Reminders on your calendar. Thatās a nice feature when youāre trying to evaluate where you spent your time. Because many of the additional features of 2Do are only available in those apps I generally never managed my Reminders outside of 2Do.
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Point taken. Different people think differently, and perhaps my 5% figure is off the mark a bit. Still and all, I think Omnifocus is decidedly more for people managing a lot of balls in the air. I donāt think most peopleās lives are that full of stuff. At least, I hope not. Iād kinda go nuts if I had so much on all the time. But then, thatās to your point of āwho you areā. Maybe itās not who I am to be so busy, so Iāll never need anything to manage my business. I think one of my main tasks would always be ātake time for yourselfādo not be busyā. Antithetical to task management when your task is to have no task.
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Iāve dragged tasks from Omnifocus into my calender before. Maybe try that.
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