Hi Jim
Sorry to take some time to get back to you on this. I am absolutely a baby at automation on the iPad. However, Drafts 5 comes with an action in its directory to send a task to Omnifocus: https://actions.getdrafts.com/a/1CP.
This action then returns you to Drafts. I just added a second step to add the Draft to Things, return to Drafts and then delete the draft (my normal practice since I don’t need them clogging up my inbox or archive.
The actual callback URLs I use are: omnifocus://x-callback-url/add?name=%5B%5Btitle%5D%5D¬e=%5B%5Bbody%5D%5D&autosave=true
And
things:add?title=%5B%5Btitle%5D%5D¬es=%5B%5Bbody%5D%5D
After ignoring Task managers for the summer - just now getting back into them.
I was using Workflowy for quite a while and then switched over to Todoist. But now that I’ve tried the demo to Things 3, Todoist just feels awkward. I have a subscription until Jan 2019 so I am trying to do the responsible thing and wait until then to switch over to Things, but it sure is tough. Things really appeals to me.
I saw some people mention 2Do, I’m interested in that. How is it? I can’t figure out which one to use , I’m looking at OF3 , things 3, and now 2Do. I always would use Apple reminders but I want subtasks, and somewhere just to stump ideas then send them somewhere.
All the ones mentioned here have demos. I would try them all and see which one clicks immediately with you. For me, first impressions really count here. Sure, you can’t know all the ins and outs from initial impressions. But, if one just stands out to you, that’s probably the one you will find useful and enjoy going back to every day.
All the ones here mentioned can do what anyone needs them to do. Some offer more customization but I might argue that again is “in the eye of the beholder”. It’s quite possible to happily use OmniFocus without any custom perspectives and so on.
Go with the one that initially fits the way you think/feel/ like and you’ll be fine.
After all, the point is to get in and get out to get your stuff done. Unless your a To Do App developer, you should spend every minute of your day tweaking and fiddling in your to do app.
I’m starting to like the combo of Fantastical and Reminders. The one thing I didn’t like about Reminders is the lack of seeing all the tasks from all the lists at once. Fantastical takes care of this. And I know GoodTask does this too
And with the interesting things being done with Workflow and Drafts, using Reminders for my minimal task maintenance needs is starting to be attractive.
I can use lists as projects, mass assign tasks using Drafts with or without dates, and keep track of them all in Fantastical.
My goal is to keep it simple and not over think or get too involved in the productivity porn side of it. Limiting myself to a few general “areas” or projects will help my get more done I think.
I’ve been an omnifocus user since Kinkless GTD (anyone remember that?!)
Meanwhile I have bought every version of Things, only to abandon it in an embarrasingly short time. This weekend I paid for Things 3 on iPad, only to abandon it immediately when I realised the projects couldn’t be nested. Maybe I could get around this with Tags, I don’t know, but I scooted straight back to OF.
In the meantime I have used ToDoist for a year. I went to it because my OF had become hopelessly overcomplicated, and I needed a fresh start. Also, the ability to use it collaboratively is awesome, so I will probably keep it for shared projects (we have successfully used it for wedding planning, travel planning, house maintenance etc - something you can’t do in OF or Things.
So for now I am going to stay with ToDoist for collaborative projects, and put my faith in OF for everything else. Right now I am struggling with the disconnect between OF3 for iOS and OF2 for MacOS, but hopefully for not much longer.
And every once in a while I will fire up my paid for Things 3, just to drool at the beauty of it all, and then close it up again…
OK So here is what I don’t get. Lots of folks who compare Omnifocus to Things think Things is “prettier” with a better user interface. I finally decided to go ahead and try it. So I downloaded the Mac version and tried to work with it.
I found it irritating to use. No depth to the program, the interface is weird with lots of white space and the font sizes are way smaller and there isnt’ any way to color code various types of things like you can with themes in Omnifocus. The data density is very low and it requires more scrolling and more clicks to see stuff. There doesn’t appear to be any way to force all notes and details about actions or projects to be open all the time. I couldn’t find any way to force it to display all remaining actions for a project, you can only set up to 9 to be visible at any given time. There was no way to order or change the ordering of the areas in the sidebar. No way to put icons for shortcuts in the sidebar either that I could find.
I think they’re referring to the fact that you don’t have unlimited depth to your project structure. “Technically” you can’t nest projects in OmniFocus either. But you can create action groups and nest those as deep as you want in your projects.
However, I find that Things has more than enough options for nesting your tasks. You can create Areas > Projects > Headings > Checklists. That gives you roughly 4 layers of nesting which one could argue is plenty deep.
Mmm I think you will be disappointed if you like to nest your projects. As far as I can see Things is pretty much 2 level. Headings are just that - Headings. They are simply text. You can’t collapse them or search within them separately. Areas is equivalent to a ‘folder’ or group in OF - Work, Home etc. You can collapse the components. However under the folder its a flat structure. You can’t drag a project over another project to create a subfolder. You can have a project in which a ‘task’ can be a checklist - but that’s it, you can’t add a context or tag to individual checklist items for example.So its just a checklist.
It does look lovely though…
EDIT: This review explains it better than I can, under ‘project organisation’
While true. I don’t find it limiting. I’m more than fine with that level of hierarchy and granularity.
For instance, I have an “area” for one of my jobs. Within that area are any “single action list” items that don’t fit into a project. Then I have separate projects within that area for different jobs.
Ex, I have to create a flyer for an upcoming event. That’s a project. I have to inventory equipment. That’s a project.
For the inventory project, headings work super well, alongside checklists. I use headings to sort each “item” into categories. And then I can group similar items into a single item with checklists.
I agree that OmniFocus has more flexibility but I have found I don’t really require that level of detail for most of my projects.
tl;dr; Things has many thoughtful features that I wish Omni would more seriously consider for OF.
[rant]
Reading through Gabe’s post you linked to, I have to say I agree with his assessments on many fronts, both positive + negative with Things. I feel like his article does a great job of explaining why people like the “design” of Things. It’s not just the white-space, fonts, and pretty icons. The actual usability is well thought out in many respects.
The “things” that Things does well:
Keyboard Shortcuts. I can edit any aspect of the app with only my keyboard.
Quick access to a task’s details (no tapping into tasks and having to switch panes). Also you can clearly identify any metadata that is on a task (dates, notes, tags, deadlines, etc…)
All dates are clear and human readable (telling me something is due August 31 isn’t super helpful, but saying “next Friday” is).
Respecting the hierarchy of the project when showing something in other views. If I flag a project as “starting today”. It shows a single item that I can dive into within the Today view in Things. If I do the same in OF, it shows not only the top level of that project in my perspectives, but also every nested task inside. So I can end up with a perspective with 55 items in it if I’m not careful.
Search is fast & responsive, just type. I don’t have to remember to set custom shortcuts for different areas. Just type ‘t’ + enter, I’m in today.
The calendar/task view in Today + Upcoming is also more useful for future planning. I see items that are set to start + due with my calendar events. OF’s Forecast is wonderful if you almost exclusively use due dates, but if you rely heavily on defer dates to start tasks it quickly falls apart. There should be more data shown in the sidebar about what tasks are becoming available on upcoming dates.
etc…
Don’t get me wrong, I think OF is wonderful. I still use it, and find it works super well. However it does drive me a bit crazy when people dismiss the usability of Things as just being “pretty”. It’s definitely not. They have some very well intentioned features that I feel like OF should definitely take note of and implement.
I got super excited earlier this year when Omni talked about upping their app to make them easier to use. I don’t feel like they’ve accomplished that at all with v3. They’ve added tags, which work very well, but retained much of the app that can feel clunky to work with if you’re new to the system.
Still using OF. I really, truly hate the iPhone app. And I honestly don’t like all the added friction in the iPad app either. It’s hard to nail down, but with Things 3 I can walk across my apartment complex, defer a task to another date, add a due date, assign a tag, and jump to anywhere in the app with only 1 to 2 swipes. While also walking. Try this with OF on the iPhone. You can’t get anywhere fast. It’s clunky. It’s dense. It feels cluttered.
But, again, with hundreds of tasks in different jobs and roles, simply using one of a handful of perspectives, allows me to see what tasks I can work on this minute. No thinking required. Just go! Things won’t let me do this. I can quickly recreate a perspective with tags, which is so easy that this alone wouldn’t keep me out of Things. And I can ignore the deferred tasks easy-ish (I wrote them and asked for a universal ‘hide later items button’), but seeing tasks that are serial tasks that I can’t act on yet reaaaaaaaally clutters up stuff. I have to stop and think about which ones are truly actionable. Doing this throughout the day adds up.
So I stick with the clunkier, harder to use, less appealing on all accounts app because it shines with serial tasks and perspectives. If another app was able to handle serial tasks, I’d leave quickly.
Kind of the same. If things had saved searches or filters similar to todoist i think I’d switch, but although things 3 is so damn nice to look at and actually use, it’s so hard to filter out tasks and just see what I can do right now.
I’ve asked them about some type of saved search or filters and they don’t seem like they have any plans to do anything like that.
It makes me curious what their long term plans are. They had such a long time between v2 and v3. Curious to see what other features they will add in upcoming releases.
I went ahead and bought Things 3 for the iPad. It seems like it was overhauled since Things 2. I just LOVE it! Things 3 is certainly going to meet my needs. The interface is gorgeous. There’s very little of a learning curve. It’s refreshing intuitive precisely because a lot of thought went into it. I like the way the projects, the scheduled, the long-term and the daily tasks are set up. Your posts certainly were the deciding factors in opting for Things 3 and id like to extend a great big thank you! I’m going to have some fun!
