Using OmniFocus 4.7 with the new Planned date field is a breath of fresh air-simplicity reigns. The toggled tag groups are also welcome and intuitive. Those two features moved me from NotePlan/Things back to OmniFocus. I refer to 4.7 as the Kaitlin Salzke edition. I was grateful for her plug-ins available to the community without charge, but now I am grateful to return to just using the stock app (mostly) without involving Keyboard Maestro scripts that run at 12:05am and so on.
I can’t help but notice the beta is more stable for me than the previous released version. My only issue is that I’m used to Things’ almost simultaneous sync and the OmniFu sync is a little slower (even though I am in the United States). I have an always on server (Minnie), so I will set up a WebDav tonight and see if syncing that way works faster.
Time to stir the pot…I am edging toward the conclusion that OmniFocus with Planned date, Today view, and Forecast view could be the simplest task manager available if you just want to see what’s on your plate today without seeing tasks that are not available. That’s assuming you ignore the advanced features, which is certainly doable. You don’t have to have projects or tags if you choose not to. I like all the advanced features, especially the repetition options. As a long-time user, I’m moving towards simplicity by exchanging automations for a quick click on the Inspector that has everything enabled. After three years away, I’m back in the OmniFu fold.
Here’s a post from OmniGroup head honcho, Ken Case, replying to a thread about Planned Dates.
Previously, I had a Keyboard Maestro macro that opened OmniFocus on the left side of my screen and set to show an OmniFocus perspective. The macro would then open Fantastical on the right side and switch to Day view. I would drag an OmniFocus task to a time block in Fantastical. That was how I scheduled time to work on a particular task or project.
The Planned Date is most likely gonna change my workflow and I would be relying on Planned Dates and the Forecast perspective to figure out my workload for tomorrow.
I’m enjoying the new repeat settings (repeat until a particular date or after a number of repetitions) and the mutually exclusive tags (changing a tag from High Priority, Medium Priority, or Low Priority) feature has me rethinking of new use cases.
Aah Ok. I was thinking “Today” view similar to Things, something I rely on a lot an its also the place I work out of.
It’s been a while since I have used Omnifocus.
Though I am waiting for 4.7 to release to give it a retry.
If the “planned date” items will appear in Today Forecast view then that will sort out my main hurdle. I am aware that I can create Today Custom view, but that doesn’t update the task items on the app icon - again something I find very useful.
And so just this morning I discovered that I was running version 3 even though I’ve paid for version 4! Apparently when I got 4 I couldn’t see any improvements worth the upgrade, so I stayed with 3.
OTOH a planned date field might make me reconsider. Not sure. I stopped using Defer Until years ago because I just couldn’t get my mind around having two dates for an action.
Once you wrap your mind around them (it took me some time too), defer dates are really useful. Let’s say you have a report due on Friday. But you know you won’t be able to start it until Wednesday, because you’re waiting for some information. In OmniFocus, you’d set:
Defer date: Wednesday (this tells OmniFocus don’t show me this task until Wednesday)
Due date: Friday (this tells OmniFocus this has to be done by Friday)
That way, the task won’t clutter up your various perspectives until you can actually start it. But you still won’t forget it, because OmniFocus will show it as due before the deadline.
But let’s say you actually intend to work on it on Thursday. Now you can set the planned date for Thursday. This is the new feature of OF 4.7.
It is indeed the Kaitlin Salzke edition! I too rely on her Scheduling plugin, but I haven’t installed the beta yet as it would require my updating a number of Perspectives and Shortcuts to replacing the Scheduling plug8n. Pretty excited they integrated this feature, however.
Still, I will continue to rely on her Templates plugin, among others. Being grateful to return to the stock app makes sense, but, for me, the increasing number of plugins has been one of the highlights of OmniFocus in the past few years.
Agreed on the mutually exclusive tags. I’ve been reducing my tag usage as of late, but mutually exclusive ones will be very useful. Looking forward to the kanban feature as well.
Thanks for that clarification. Am I correct that you not only have to download Testflight but also get an invite to test out 4.7? I’ve downloaded testflight but am not getting 4.7. The features you all are talking about are ones that I’ve wanted for a long time so I’m super excited to begin testing.
Yes installing 4.7 triggers a recompilation of the OmniFocus data to add the new “planned” field, etc. The update installer is very explicit about what will happen, and explains that if move from 4.7 back to 4.6 you will have to recover your data from a backup created before 4.7 recompiled your data. It’s not exactly a one-way street, but backleveling is not a simple thing.
FWIW, even when 4.7 is out of beta, this will probably be the upgrade path. But … in the past, like moving from OF 3 to OF 4, our data was reconfigured – not lost, just reconfigured.
I’m looking forward to Planned dates. I currently rely heavily on Due for reminders, but I find it makes my system noisy with too many notifications piling up. This leads me to underuse notifications and badges, which isn’t ideal for staying on top ofthings.
Planned dates could be the key to focusing on what I intend to work on each day. My workflow involves tasks I must do on specific days. Once those are done, I like to fish through my active OmniFocus projects to pick what to tackle next. With a weekly review to set active projects. I’d love to create a custom perspective to plan out the next two-to-four weeks, has anyone set up something like this? How do you balance fixed-date tasks with flexible project work in OmniFocus?
For those new to OmniFocus or refining their system, I can’t recommend the Productivity Field Guide enough. It brought clarity to my processes and helped me streamline my approach. Also, crossing my fingers for an OF4 Field Guide covering Planned items (hint, hint, @MacSparky)
Published my first OF plugin in anticipation of v4.7 (required for this plugin).
It lets you use the new mutually exclusive tags feature and cycles through a tags in a mutually exclusive tag group. Especially useful when connected with a keyboard shortcut.
