Thanks for that insight—I did not realize I could use the Shift key to move around in finer increments.
What I ended up doing to solve my problem was employ KeyboardMaestro to run a macro that copies my selected OmniFocus actions as Taskpaper items, parses the relevant title and duration components, then fills a specified block of time in Fantastical with all the tasks that will fit while allowing a five-minute buffer between actions.
You’re definitely right that there aren’t a lot of tasks on my plate that are shorter than fifteen minutes, and I may find that five minutes is too small of a buffer, so thanks again for clueing me in to this feature and sharing your experience!
I usually drag the a short task that is important. Let’s say I have a 15 minute task called “write and submit weekly report”. I’ll drag it from OmniFocus to fantastical. Then I’ll stretch it to 45-60 minutes. I’ll revise the time block description to “write and submit weekly report + others”.
This title tells me to work on the important short task and then work on a couple of other short tasks within the same context.
My context/tag is “computer” for this task. After I finish the first important task, I’ll go to the tags perspective and look for a couple of other short tasks with the same “computer” tag. This reduces context situation and I can piggy back a couple more short tasks. I loathe having a bunch of small tasks that keeps piling up. This is how I manage finishing the first important task and knocking off a couple more tasks.
I now do most of my priority planning in iCal. I love this. Since tasks from Omnifocus can be easily dragged (splitscreen) into iCal again, my priority planning is done in iCal. To classify tasks in iCal, I have created several calendars with different colors (e.g. Urgent, Maybe, Expected…). This scheme is reflected in the tag list created in Omnifocus. This allows me to prioritize tasks over the course of the week At the end of the working day, all the tasks to be completed the next day are drawn into iCal and displayed in the corresponding calendar, adjusted in terms of time and reflected on in terms of practical implementation. In the morning I take a closer look at the prioritization and, if necessary, correct the planned times My better half and I also share the work and private calendars, so I always have a complete overview of what’s coming up in the near future. I relatively quickly added another calendar called “Relax” so that I can also think about my well-being and, for example Plan a short walk during your lunch break or spend an evening in a sauna in advance. Since I started using iCal to plan time, as I described, I feel quite relaxed and like planning the priorities and duration of tasks, so I now also do this for tasks at home: (changing a car tire, trimming the hedge, repairing a bike, Maintenance of the espresso machine…). I love this approach very much. It really helps me feel less stressed.
I have something similar, including repeating projects with a due date and a defer date. Like you, if I want to put something off for a while, I’ll push the defer date back, closer to the due date, but that change persists next time it repeats. I can’t see a way round that, other than having to rely on my memory, which is not the best plan!
I should have been a bit clearer in what I wrote. In my setup, things with due dates won’t show in the forecast view until they are due. I use the Today tag (to force them into Forecast view) for things that do NOT have a due date. So, deferring them doesn’t impact the distance to a due date in a repeat.
But, I have experienced what you describe with tasks that have a due date, but also a defer date. A example for me is renewing the vehicle registration. It may be due every year, but I can’t do it till at least 3 months before it is due. While OF lets me set them individually, I’d love the ability to set a defer as an offset from the due date (or vice versa) rather than a distinct value. I’ve had OF get into weird states where the defer date is after the due date, so the task doesn’t show as able to be worked on, but it is overdue.
