I need some help, not sure what I did to my Omnifocus setup. I was trying to clean/organize things, it’s possible I may have deleted something. In any case, I decide to start over in one of the areas of my life. New Folder called “My Reviews” (haven’t picked a name yet). It contains 2 projects, a Daily Review that happens each morning, and a Weekly Review, happens on Sunday night, contains a bunch of things I need to do before starting my day or week.
The Forecast view is not consistent across the devices, so I am not sure what happened or if the project was setup correctly.
When I go to Forecast on my iPhone…I get 2 sections, tasks that are Due and Deferred for that day. However, on my iPad and Mac…I only see the ‘Due” stuff.
If you see another way of doing this, let me know….here’s what I want to do….
Project: Daily Review
Tasks are: Process Inbox, Process ABC, Review ABC
All tasks need to be displayed each morning between the hours of 8am-9am when I will do them before anything else in the world. They are done while my kids are eating breakfast.
Side note - after seeing a post earlier today with @Bmosbacker in discussing his daily/weekly review. I like the idea, but not ready yet for taking the plunge out of Omnifocus just yet. Maybe run them both simultaneously and see where I gravitate more towards.
Sounds like your view options are just different. They don’t actually sync with your other data. Omni allows you to set these independently on each device. Look for an icon that looks like an eye and click on that and make sure show deferred items is selected.
For my personal daily review, I just opened up a word processor and typed the step-by-step instructions. I just printed them out and put them on a clipboard. It’s always on my desk and I just go through it every day. Keeping it simple by just printing it out and referring to it when I’m doing the daily review. If I lose or misplace the clipboard, I’ll just print it again.
My daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual review rarely changes. So, I’ll be confident when it’s on a clipboard. You can probably go to your local office supply store and buy one of those standing plastic sheet displays that stands upright and look at it during your morning review.
If your reviews rarely changes, why are you doing them?
Acc. GTD the Review should be a process, where you have a look onto your Projects, to decide which Tasks are necessary next, to get the Project further on.
If your Reviews not change, then it sound for me more likely, that you are running some Checklists of always the same stuff you have to do.
And while it can be important to have and use a checklist, that is normally not a “review-process” as recommended within the GTD-Concept (at least as I understood it). So maybe you can save some time, by just run your checklists…?
Check email inbox for anything that needs my attention today
Look at all active projects. Update as needed.
Check calendar appointments to make sure I’m aware of them
Review waiting for items
Choose 3 Most Important Tasks for the day
This is my own typical daily review. Instead of keeping this routine in OmniFocus, I opted to print it out. If I change it, I can just print out the revised page.
This sounds to me more like a Task-List you are running, than a “Review” in the GTD-Way.
I have a similar list with items I do on a daily base, but I have them as tasks in OF, with a daily repeat. So I easily can check them when done, don’t get confused, if I lose attention while I’m running thru the Tasks, and get them automatically the next day.
I also have them always with me, and can go thru them also e.g. on a Business Tripp, or while I’m not in Front of my desk for an other reason.
Not every project has to be reviewed daily. I only review my currently active Big Rock projects. Many other projects are paused or on hold. I have a property development project set to paused because I’m waiting for certain government clearances and authorizations to be issued before I can continue. I’ll pause the review of that project to 6 months into the future when I estimate all the multiple authorizations will be completed.
Each project also has a different review cycle. Some needs to be checked daily. Some my need to be checked every 3 days. Many others are on a weekly, biweekly, or monthly basis.
Many other Someday/maybe projects can be reviewed once a month because they are on the back burner for now.
I look at my active projects to do this:
I see the GTD review as a checklist of tasks to perform. For the purpose of the OP, I wouldn’t worry about the tasks showing up only between 8-9 am. I also didn’t want to complicate the review process. That’s why I like a checklist outside of OmniFocus.
I think so, if you are the type to review. Being able to set default review frequency, and per-project review frequency, saves a lot of time in the long run compared to running down your whole list. The review interface lets you mark 1-2 projects as reviewed when you have a moment, which further prevents the need for dedicated review time.
If you’re not in the habit of reviewing, OF’s review prompt isn’t aggressive enough to get you to start the habit. But, I used OF before I had a review habit, and it was nice to have a good review tool ready, when I was ready to start, if that makes sense.