Hello. I’m just getting to know OmniFocus 2 (coming from using Trello for everything – personal and work). This is a high-level question about organizing tasks in general.
For my freelance clients I use Trello and we share boards so we can all assign tasks etc.
I love the idea of using OmniFocus 2 for things like focusing on just what’s on my plate today, personal and work.
In a high-level kind of way, how do you handle the fact that all your work tasks are somewhere else already like Trello or Jira or Asana? Do you quickly jot those tasks into OmniFocus 2 so you can see them in your “today view” etc?
Thanks! Those are handy tips for automating getting tasks from a different product into OmniFocus 2. My question was a bit more broad though. Like, do people find it’s a good idea to replicate/copy every task that’s already in Asana into OmniFocus 2? Or keep them totally separate? Or somewhere in between? Just looking for ideas, really. I like reading about all the various ways there are to skin a cat with Omni Focus. (“skin a cat”…what a horrible phrase when you actually type it out. ha!)
I use Kanban boards (with Curio) and OmniFocus. I keep Projects on my boards and their tasks in OmniFocus. Once many years ago, I duplicated tasks in both. It was a royal waste of time. Now, I just link between the two apps with URL calls. The note field of the Project in OmniFocus has the link to the Project icon, and the Project icon has a link to the Project in OmniFocus.
I used to think I should have everything in one system but I’ve steered away from that. Duplicating just means more work and maintenance. I’m quite comfortable with using Asana to track my workgroup stuff. It separates it from my personal stuff which is located inside OmniFocus.
It may sound like a lot of overhead but I’m sure my colleagues don’t want to accidentally view my home renovation project.
I like to think of having two separate systems as two separate containers. Asana for my workgroup. OmniFocus for everything else.
Multiple task systems can be used at once, but like DrJJWMac mentioned, you need to be cautious about identical tasks. In some ways, I think of having multiple systems as a fairly advanced level of task management use. One of the major appeals of a solid system is that it reduces the number of places you have to look in order to make a decisions as to what to do next.
For example, if you have a list of 4 or 5 well considered ideas to choose from in front of you, and you feel that all of your other projects and ideas have been stored well, then it becomes much easier to choose and have clear focus. One way to use multiple systems is for one to be central while others are more “satellite” in nature. You could have the details of a project in one system but a task to go to that project in the central system.
Another way may be to do as wilsonng suggests by dividing systems by the type of work involved.
