Hundreds of Ways to Get S#!+ Done—and We Still Don’t | WIRED.pdf (2.4 MB)
What are your answers to the questions raised.
Has anyone found a way to do time blocking with OmniFocus
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Omnifocus isn’t for Time Blocking, it’s for task management.
The way I kind of do this is to set aside blocks of time for different types of tasks, and tag tasks as that Type of task, e.g. Deep Work, Shallow Work, Admin, Development….
TLDR…yet.
I open Fantastical and Omnifocus side by side. Then I drag projects or task into Fantastical. It creates a calendar event and the link to the project or task is in the calendar event description. I have it set up to write to a private calendar called “Schedule”. Now I’m time blocked (usually for tomorrow).
Then I turn my “Schedule” calendar on to show up in my Forecast view in OmniFocus.
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As per @lmichaelwest, I drag OmniFocus projects or tasks into Fantastical. I rarely use the backlink, it’s just putting it on my calendar. For actual execution, I drag OmniFocus tasks into Vitamin-R, then nominate how long I’d like to focus on that task, and start a focus block. When the focus block is finished, it asks you to rate your focus and whether the task was completed or not. If it was completed, Vitamin-R can reach back into OmniFocus and close the task. Putting it on your calendar is great, but actual execution is what counts.
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Omnifocus is installed on my iPhone, iPad, iMac, and macBook. All of my approx. 200 tasks or projects have a tag that represents a day or period (today, wednesday, thursday, november, december, next year, quater1, quater2 …). Every morning I use different perspectives to update the assignment of the day and to arrange my tasks in time. The “today perspective” is then used to note the current tasks of the day in a special timer (made of paper -> very oldshool) with colored pencils in order to block the time.
Your linked document and the author seems to me like someone who buys an expensive drill, but is not technically gifted, then complains about the drill (GTD). You cannot swim if you only know the arm and leg movements theoretically, but otherwise have no practical experience of swimming :-))
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I will give that a try.
Thanks
For me to maintain your type of system would be so overwhelming, I am trying to use OmniFocus to coral my ADD.
It must be so wonderful to be so organized.
I suspect that there are many more who regularly end up with a list of shame.
I say you are the exception, I feel like it’s kind of like Michelangelo saying you get a hammer and a chisel and a piece of stone, I don’t understand the problem
i enjoyed this article and can relate. thanks for sharing this.
Yes, it was good - but I was hoping for a miracle solution at the end :(
Great article and it hits the mark. Many of us will recognise the issues the author replayed. Once you embark on the journey of finding a solution to getting things done it becomes never ending. I wonder about the psychology of it all the time.
Very few of my colleagues or friends use any digital method, preferring calendars and notebooks. They get on fine in life whereas these methods never worked for me. I’ve been a fairly settled use of OF since v1, but that hasn’t stopped me ‘looking’ for a ‘better’ system - whatever that means.
I’ve concluded no system is the best but you have to settle on a consistent basis around one and stick to it.
I’ve great hopes for OF4 (currently in TestFlight) in that it addresses all the issues that have heretofore bedevilled it, causing frustration for it’s users. So far several of mine have been answered and for that I’m grateful.
I’ve tried simple todo apps and complex todo apps. Each have advantages/disadvantages and there is no easy answer to what is right for you. I think you have to find a system that makes ‘sense’ to you and to you alone.
I’ve used Vitamin-R before and do think it made me more productive. What I don’t get is why can’t an app like OmniFocus Do all the things you mentioned. It’s such a drag to have to use 4 apps
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