https://workflow.is/workflows/3b76a548a719433ebe607d0b5971a0e0
Open this link from your iOS device when you have the iOS App ‘Workflow’ installed, click ‘get workflow’ and check it out.
This Workflow sets up a Calendar event for an OmniFocus action.
I use it during my weekly review of deliverables to block timeslots on my office calendar in order to be able to work on tasks without conflicting meeting requests or interruptions from calendar-aware communicators.
Call the Workflow from the Share-Sheet of the action.
It is tested for the current, pro-version 2.15.1 of OmniFocus for iOS and the current version 1.5 of Workflow.
It’ll show you the Defer-Date in the Calendar first (if none is given: today), so you can make an informed decision as to a suitable Start-Date and -Time.
You’ll need to manually return to Omnifocus, so that the Workflow resumes and prompts you for that Start, the default being the Defer-Date and -Time (or the next full hour, if none was given).
Finally, if the action does not have an estimated duration yet, you can choose a duration for the new event.
You’ll be returned to the OmniFocus action, so you can make a note in this action (a reference to the event is placed on the clipboard, you can simply paste this reference in) and/or schedule other actions.
The note of the action will become the note of the event. The note of the event will also be populated with the action’s project, context, flag status and the callback-URL to OmniFocus (any of those only when available).
The Due-Date will be appended to the name of the event, if a Due-Date has been given.
The name of the event is prefixed with "Block: ", so that a formatting rule in e.g. Microsoft Outlook can automatically color this type of time block differenty. You may change that, of course.
Attention: Before using this Workflow, edit the ‘add new event’ block near the end of this Workflow to contain the correct ‘calendar’ to put your new events in. It will be put into the first ‘calendar’ of the name you give, so:
I had to rename a conflicting iCloud calendar as a workaround.
References:
Check out ‘Getting Things Done’ by David Allen for the theory on ‘GTD’; you’ll start blocking too many actions, otherwise.
Always block time for yourself regularily (‘lunch’, 'Block: ', ‘Review’).
Thanks to the author of ‘omnifocus 2.14 to fantastical’, I learned the fundamentals from him/her.
Christian Martini, August 15th 2016, V1.3
Change History:
from V1.2: default start for date picker is now ‘next full hour’, not ‘now’
from V1.1: selection of event duration, comments
from V1.0: comments only
