Thanks @MacSparky I’ll pick the guide up today and start to get back on the OmniFocus train!
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@Erlendks That’s exactly what I fear! I’ve had a relatively quiet summer but life is about to get crazy. Now that the Mac version is here with multiple tags, combined with perspectives, I’ll have multiple views into projects.
I heard this a lot so recently experimented with putting my work stuff into Things, I’m definitely getting to the messy stage sadly. It’s a lovely app!
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Have you detailed this Today perspective anywhere Rosemary? I’m currently living out of forecast and would be interested in branching out!
Not yet. It’s currently changing every few days so I’m loathe to document it. But when I do I’ll try and remember to let you know!
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This is something that I think is really helpful, especially for people like me that seem to have an on/off relationship with task managers. I’m good at sticking with a program as long as I have a good strategy for using it, but if I don’t have a strategy or if it’s not working out, I find myself drifting toward other systems.
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I think that can be true for all of us. Our jobs aren’t to run our task managers. A powerful task manager can either become a weight around your neck or wings. It all depends how you use it.
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Perfect thanks Rosemary 
In the meantime I also have @MacSparky’s OF field guide to get through!
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What I do thanks to a suggestion and various discussion with @Wilson_Ng in the OmniFocus forums, I have my Due Soon as over 7 days and then have a perspective to show all those tasks. Might be worth doing @IrvingPenn
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I don’t use OF, though I have a license for OF2. Does the Field Guide have material applicable to general manager/maker roles and how I could become super awesome, or is it more heavily OF-centric?
I think we all take from each other and share the wealth of knowledge that comes from the community. I haven’t found a community as wide and willing to share as the OmniFocus community. I take no credit with what I’ve discovered. It’s mostly experimenting and taking from others and melding with my personal/professional life.
I’m just happy to know that we’re all in this together. Sharing ideas and sharing our experiments to help us tweak our workflow to better our lives.
Thanks for the kinds words, @Jonathan_Davis. MacSparky has put a lot of love into the OF3 Field Guide. Holy cows! I’m also looking forward to the new content from @Kourosh and @timstringer.
I’m glad Things 3 has found a niche in the market. Not for me but an excellent alternative who are looking for something different.
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That’s what I’ve done with a lot of my experiments. Try out other task manager apps and try to figure out their philosophy and way of doing things. Then I’ll see if I can take some aspects of the other task app and try to implement them with my own task manager.
If I see a deficiency in my task manager app, I’ll complement it with other apps. My task app might be a great project/task manager but it would not be graceful as a CRM (Contact Relations Manager). I have a CRM for my customers and keep that work separate. I don’t subscribe to the idea that I should have one app to do it all. But I can put the pieces altogether to make a system that takes care of different aspects of my life.
There are a lot of strategies in the OF3 Field Guide. I haven’t gotten to this section yet but I do see this a little further down the list.
The Sweet Setup web site has a screencast for sale focused on Things 3. It also has a section that centers around general strategies. I’ve not seen this yet but it might be something if you’re a Things 3 user or someone who wants to learn about other task management practices.
https://thesweetsetup.com/things/?utm_source=training_sidebar_link&utm_medium=sidebar
YMMV
I avoid putting in any due dates unless it really is critical. For example, I have a project to get post weaning weights and scrotal circumferences on the ram lambs. There are strict time limits for those measurements to be valid for calculating EBVs so my OF Project has a start date of the earliest date I can do them and a due date for the last day they can be done. We have 2 contemporary groups of lambs so I actually have 2 next actions in that project, one for the early lambs and one for the late lambs with separate dates for each group of lambs.
I second Rosemary’s advice to save your existing system out into another document and then you can selectively drag and drop projects as you rebuild your system.
To answer a later question, I do not typically set a date or day or even time I want to work on something within OF. If I really have to do something at a particular time it’s in my calendar. I do occasionally block out time on my calendar to work in specific contexts but within that context I’ll just do the tasks as they come up.
Review is critical as is keeping up with daily processing to add things to the OF list and to mark things as completed.
I very rarely work out of the Forecast perspective. For me I work in context lists and am still on OF 2 because I am also still using Sierra. I’m not really even sure I’ll use tags much if at all.
By way of reference my current OF system which is much reduced from what it was even 6 months ago has
FOLDERS: 12
Active folders: 12
PROJECTS: 222
Active projects: 189
Current projects: 97
Pending projects: 92
On-hold projects: 19
Completed projects: 13
Dropped projects: 1
SINGLE ACTION LISTS: 3
Active single action lists: 3
CONTEXTS: 35
Active contexts: 35
ACTIONS: 1430
Completed actions: 180
Dropped project actions: 1
Remaining actions: 1249
Actions in Projects on hold: 170
Actions in Contexts on hold: 0
Blocked actions: 847
Sequentially blocked: 266
Awaiting start date: 581
Available actions: 232
I keep all my someday/maybe projects in DEVONThink not in Omnifocus.
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This is one of the big lessons I’ve taken from the Field Guide. My old system used due dates a fair bit for “I’d like to have this done by then” tasks. Now I’m trying to keep due dates to tasks with absolute rock solid deadlines and use tags to help prioritize tasks instead.
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I agree and it’s best for one to find what works, pitch what doesn’t and even be willing to run experiments if one cares to. It’s a mixing and matching thing and certainly there’s no right way to do it though certainly some things work better. I’ll be digging into the MacSparky Field Guide this weekend as I’ll have some time to finally. Really excited for @Kourosh’s updated e-book too.
As for getting bombarded with red tasks @leanda, one suggestion is to set some tasks to be due at 11:45pm. I hope your in bed or not working then but then it doesn’t annoy me by it turning red, is more calming. I also think that like @ChrisUpchurch and @OogieM mentioned is using Due Dates sparingly. I run Sierra and OmniFocus
3 works well. Also @OogieM, I forgot you were in farming and livestock, misread your scrotal circumferences to something else. On a serious note when recording this data do you use special software so it’s more a form you fill out?
This also reminds me I need to take time and review stuff. It’s been a couple weeks since I’ve done it and I’ll feel better doing a review and seeing what I wanna throw on the docket for this upcoming week to get done. Might even consider using the Eisenhower matrix too.
Where did you find all the data for your OmniFocus system @OogieM?
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I think OmniFocus 3 requires High Sierra (MacOS X 10.13)?
I’m always trying to get ahead of the game and try to get into as many Due Soon (within the next 7 days) as soon as possible. I hate running up to the deadline and I’m screwed.
I have some tasks due by 4:00 pm because my end of day is 6:30 pm. If it’s not done by 4 pm, I’m definitely having to start shifting gears to get going. My due dates are often a day or two before because I might need the cushion when other situations arrive on my desk that are beyond my control but I need to take care of them.
For due tasks, I try to add that cushion and almost never try to reach the actual due date. Most of the time, it works. I don’t like running up to the deadline. It’s a good practice to always get ahead of our tasks. It keeps coming down the conveyor belt!
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Your right I’m running high Sierra my bad.
I’d imagine there’s a sense of competitive with yourself in being ahead on stuff. Did the shift in working and finishing things ahead of time gradually happen or were you always like that? I wanna slowly do that. A good mentality to get into.
All sheep flock data is colected, managed and reported out of my own LambTracker software that I designed and wrote. SQLite database with an Android tablet as the handheld/chute side device, Mac to run reports by entering in raw queries. LambTracker integrates with an EID tag reader my husband designed and also a bluetooth scale my husband built. No automatic calculation of scrotals though, I still have to measure them with a tape measure 
All the sheep have EID tags in their ears but LambTracker does notrequire EID just some sort of individual animal ID, can be name, farm tags etc.
I have the script OF Stats installed on my system as I really like tracking how much I have done. It’s almost as good as clicking the done circle on a task. 
I’ll go post the script on another thread.
And to continue on the OF Field Guide. I got it yesterday and ended up spending a lot of time watching it. Not doen yet but I learned some really nifty things. Mostly the shortcuts which I never really got around to using as much as MacSparky does. I also love the spelling errors in the tasks and project titles, makes me not feel so bad. I love seeing a real human doing stuff for real even if the tasks are a bit farfetched.
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@RosemaryOrchard I was reading your article where you said,
I was once disorganised, continually missing deadlines, and had no idea what was going on. Thankfully after reading what felt like everything available on the Internet on the subject, I found out how to manage tasks well, and more importantly, I found what I needed to know to become organised.
Would love to hear where you found this fount of knowledge, and what you recommend reading.