Would like to hear from anyone who’s purchased Kourosh Dini’s $29 book on OmniFocus, “Creating Flow with OmniFocus.”
You can hear from me…
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I found it very helpful, and imagine it being even more helpful if you’re a very busy person. Dr. Dini helps you work from the basics up to a high level personal and professional workflow. It sometimes seemed a bit overkill for me, but my environment is rather less complicated than some.
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You can read what Dr. Dini has discovered when he developed his OmniFocus workflow. Then you can take the pieces that fit your own personal workflow.
I’ve discovered by looking at various workflows, you’ll grab pieces that fits your personal system. I would suggest adding bits and pieces at first. When you’ve got one module firmly in place, you can incorporate another module.
You can see how others do it and mold it to your needs.
I’ve found the book helpful. But if you’re not ready for the higher level stuff (I think Dr. Dini calls it the “Land and Sea”), you will probably have to put it aside and come back to it when you are ready.
If $29 can boost your productivity, it would probably be a good boost. I think there is a sampler file for you to download and preview the first chapter.
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thanks all. I’ll read the sample pages first.
I’m a 12-year veteran of GTD, but a 3-day newbie with O.F. so I’ll take the advice to first get to know it better. I"m really enjoying it already.
Ah thought you were going to ask questions… :) Yes its an excellent book and methodology although you probably have to embrace the whole concept otherwise its probably going to fall apart.
I have been using it fully for a couple of months and it seems for me anyway a great system.
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A large part of Kourosh Dini’s book is actually detailed descriptions of various features in Omnifocus, which is redundant if you have read the Omnifocus manual. If you haven’t already done that, my recommendation is that you start by downloading the excellent, free Ibooks version of the manual. Then, if you like to have more advanced suggestions about how to build your workflow rather than creating it your own way, you could go on to Kourosh Dini’s book. I didn’t find his book especially helpful, but many others do, and he offers the money back if you’re not satisfied.
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Sometimes it helps to have something written with a different voice. I recently had to go through a similar experience.
I was tasked with learning how to use Filemaker 14. I downloaded the free manuals. But I was able to get a better grip of FileMaker 14 when I purchased FileMaker 14: The Missing Manual. Sometimes it’s another voice that can finally reach you. I’m thankful for the different manuals or workflow products that are available.
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Dini approach is elaborate, and I find I do better with a streamlined approach. I also find his ideas border on OCD (which is interesting, because I believe he is a psychiatrist).
I thought it was a great book, and I’ve purchased the second edition as well, which was fantastic.
He builds out a very elaborate complete “your entire life” system over the course of the text, but I thought it scaled down to something more simple as well. The book is really interesting if for no other reason than seeing how OmniFocus could be the center for just about anything you do in the course of a day but also be useful for large long-term goals.
Even if you never wanted to implement everything from long-term career goals and accomplishments to managing a daily routine, the book was still a great resource for me to get a different perspective and inspire my own tangents and better use OmniFocus — I know how to use the software on the technical side, but how to use it as a tool more effectively in the places where I could benefit the most.
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Good to hear, @emory. A quite different experience than mine. I guess I’m a person that prefers to learn the tools in the application and then experiment with them to find what works for me and what doesn’t.
I have, and found it useful to an extent. On the whole, It is excellent work, and presents some useful approaches to think about. At a certain point, Kourosh gets a little too “lives in his head” (if that makes any sense) for me, and gets caught-up in thinking about the system. But it is extremely thorough and methodical, which are definitely assets.
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Check the excellent Learn OmniFocus web site for some free webinars:
https://learnomnifocus.com/videos/webinar-recordings/
There are workflows and videos from some of the other OmniFocus bloggers such Joe Bulig, Kourosh Dini, Sven Fechner, David Sparks, Shawn Blanc, and Tim Stringer.
You can see some examples of how they set up their workflow. Take bits and pieces of each workflow to make it your own.
At the top of the web page, you’ll see links to other video links as well. But I think the recorded webinar page is the one you want to look at if you’re looking for workflows.
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I did think the OmniGroup’s book was great for that sort of thing, but I am absolutely someone that benefits from examples as a preferred starting point. I love adjusting and adapting to my own uses but it really helps me to see documented examples to light the spark — otherwise I tend to get easily bogged down in the details!
I had bought the original version and enjoyed it. Did you find the upgrade worth it?
without question.
I read it in the OF1 era and thought it was worthwhile, but it was not groundbreaking for me, just confirmation that I’d fully thought through some of the uses and several good tricks.
