![]() If there are emails that demand some lengthy action, I will archive the email and add a reminder to OmniFocus. I seek to maintain an empty inbox, meaning that I process email a few times a day and try to completely empty it. I continue to use GMail as my email service. I have separate calendars for me, for Aileen and for the family. I use iCal to record appointments and, occasionally, to record tasks for which I absolutely need a reminder that will appear on whatever device I am using at the time. I could probably just as easily use Google Calendar, but I stick with iCal as I love its ability to sync with all of my devices (and yes, I know Google can do the same). It aptly fulfills that great principle from GTD that you need to get tasks out of your mind and into a system. OmniFocus has a bit of a steep learning curve but once you understand the concepts and find a workflow that works for you, it is very, very useful and extremely powerful. When I get to church I check the Church Office context and see a list of the tasks I need to do there. When I am about to head out in the car, I just check the Errands context and I am immediately reminded of other things I need to while I’m out and about. I’ve also got contexts for Elder Meetings (which is a situation, not a place) and even for certain people. Some of my contexts are Home, Home Office, Church, Church Office, Errands, and so on. Contexts are largely geographical, but they can also be situational or, well, contextual. OmniFocus encourages you to create different contexts for your tasks. Because I work from a home office and a church office, one of the features I depend upon is contexts. This allows me to access my to-do list when I am at home or when I am out and about. It’s not perfect (it will only sync when you open the program on your mobile device) but it’s far better than Things or the other close competitors. The iPhone app allows me to add new tasks by recording a voice memo, something that is hugely helpful when I am driving (and it’s amazing how many things I remember when I’m behind the wheel). I plan to buy the iPad version when or if it fits the budget, but for now just use the iPhone version on both the iPhone and iPad. There are versions of OmniFocus for the desktop, iPhone and iPad. OmniFocus offers several features that I depend upon: I have folders for each area of my life (Family, Church, Blog, Writing, Speaking, etc) and within those folders there are projects and task lists. This is the software I use to record what I need to get done and to organize the many tasks and projects I’ve got on the go. Having tried many of them, and having a rather light commitment to the key components of the GTD model, I’ve settled on OmniFocus. One of the great benefits of using a Mac is the abundance of top-notch software, and especially task management software based on the GTD (Getting Things Done) model. Of course the hardware is merely a means to access software. At this time the iPad does not play a major role in my productivity. If I need to go mobile, such as when I speak at a conference or head to a coffee shop, I take the MacBook (which Aileen uses most of the time). So at home and at the church office I’ve got an iMac and in my pocket I’ve got an iPhone (an older one, but I’m going to wait out my contract). So while I use quite a few different pieces of hardware, I could just as easily make do with just two: a MacBook and an iPhone.Ī key to my system is having a way of either doing work or capturing to-do items in the major contexts I find myself in. I’m no longer doing web design, but still have much of the equipment (such as the iPad and MacBook). For many years I was running quite a high-volume web design business and this required a lot of equipment. Before I tell you about it, let me explain why there is so much of it. ![]() ![]() I am a Mac user, so my hardware is Apple-based. it would definitely begin to replace my need to use tadalists as a stopgap when I'm on the go.Sponsor Show Your Support Become a Patron Hardware I don't know about anyone else, but I'd be willing to give up location-based contexts and the full-project editor if it means something to play with short-term. I think more fundamentally, a lot of us are hankerin for some type of web implementation of OmniFocus (can't see to find the thread related to this discussion at the moment.) It would also allow me to add email tasks to OF from gMail when I am away from my Mac. If I could sync my work related projects to the gMail task list, that would give me localized access to my task lists in my working environment (including cut & paste!). I work in a windows/linux environment where I only have access to OmniFocus via my iPod touch. ![]()
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