Overpriced? To me, the value of Omnifocus is much higher than the price. And as you already have paid for Omnifocus, the cost should be no problem, especially not as the time between paid upgrades for Omnifocus tends to be very long. But if you don’t actually use Omnifocus, or struggle with doing that, you should of course find another system. I’m just a bit surprised, as I have found Omnifocus to adapt so nicely to special wishes, so that you can have it work in a way that suits you.
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For me the two strengths of OF that I’ve not seen in other task management tools (and I’ve tried far more than is healthy) are:
- it’s ability to hide what’s not currently important (through sequential next actions, pausing projects and defer dates)
- the review feature (once you’ve built a habit around it is invaluable)
I used OF for a long time (years) on and off before I really started to appreciate these two properly, I struggled to stick to doing a weekly review which I think is pretty common for people trying to implement bits of GTD but once you get your head round these two items you’ll really ‘get’ OF and realise it’s head and shoulders above anything else in the market. Unfortunately, for me at least it took a long time for it all to click.
What is it that you actually want to do on those dates? If it’s just a reminder you could just put it in your calendar with the relevant notifications set? If there’s an action to take then add it with a defer and due date on the relevant date (or alternatively what I do a lot when there’s no concrete due date is defer an action until a specific date and flag it so it puts up on a perspective I review quickly in a morning). Once I got in to the habit of reviewing all my projects once a week then I found I didn’t need to keep reminding myself of events in the future with alarms as I saw them each week in my review - prior to this I was concerned I would miss them and had alarms coming our of my ears. As part of my weekly review I also go over previous and future calendar events for a few weeks so I see what’s coming up and can add any relevant actions.
I’ve got 2Do, it’s a good product and I used it for a while however it didn’t give me the piece of mind and reduce my stress levels like OF does. I found OF needed a lot of investment time wise but it was well worth it in the end.
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That and the tag system was one of the first things I noticed with 2Do. I’m hoping on more advanced search options in OmniFocus (search options in both search and the perspectives) and multiple contexts. Another thing I quite like is the “scheduled” focus (which you can accomplish with a perspective in OmniFocus), adding a checklist (bit less of a hassle than in OmniFocus) and the way way better share sheet in OS X (OmniFocus needs to implement the same sheet for OS X as they have in iOS instead of something that looks like a Twitter/Facebook sheet).
Overall I just like the OmniFocus GUI better, I just feel like having more overview in OmniFocus than in 2Do for some reason. It also seems less cluttered and more clear (2Do has a colour scheme that makes differentiating between the various components difficult at times).
This. Just this one point alone I think is the key to OmniFocus’ design philosophy. This is the “secret sauce” that makes an OmniFocus based system work.
I also struggled for years with OmniFocus and other task managers trying to build what can essentially only be called an AI system that could read my mind and figure out what I wanted to do, and honestly, all that time setting alarms and due dates, and planning things out WAY in advance, and worrying and overthinking timelines was far more effort than simply sitting down and going through my list of projects on a weekly basis and being reminded of everything.
Suddenly, instead of worrying about whether I’m going to remember something, I can feel secure in knowing that OmniFocus will remember it for me in a list I’m going to check regularly. Instead of trying to think ahead weeks or months at a time, I focus on what I’m going to get done THIS week to move things ahead, and leave everything else for later.
Once you get into the weekly review, you can trust that you won’t miss anything, because you know you’re going to see it come up on a regular basis. You can dump stuff into OmniFocus and get it out of your brain and into a “trusted system.” It’s hard to let go of that at first – it took me a couple of years to fully drop the mentality that I was missing something – but I’ve been following the review logic for the past few years now, and it’s absolutely great to know that I can dump stuff into OmniFocus and then stop spending any mental energy thinking about it. Once you get into the regular reviews, you become comfortable and secure in the idea that things you may have “forgotten” about will come back up and you can decide what to do with them then, and ultimately you’re never really worrying about the details for more than a week at a time.
Further, the fact that review cycles in OmniFocus can vary and you can set arbitrary “Next Review” dates is even better, as it keeps projects off your mind that don’t require weekly attention, or may not need to be even thought of until a future date (think Christmas-related projects, or taxes, for example – I can dump new tasks into my “Christmas Errands” bucket when I think of them in the summer, and then happily forget about them until mid-November when that one comes up for its first review of the year.
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I have issues with Contexts . Life is just not that black and white. Yes I have really studied them and lots of the advice on the web.
Searching in 2do is excellent.
Omnifocus GUI seems to involve me in a lot of clicking back and forwards both on the iPhone and mac versions. So I find it cumbersome sometimes.
OF support is excellent and it is fine product. I particularly like the inspector . But just now I am really thinking of giving 2do a try due to its flexibility and simplicity of GUI.
PS I think Context is an excellent idea. My work is better organised from studying the concept. But I think its a dogma to say all tasks must have one and only one context. To me a task should have zero or more contexts.
A solution is planned by The Omni Group, as Ken Case explains in this post:
Multiple Contexts per Task
Let’s hope they will manage to finally get it done in 2016!
If you strongly need multiple contexts and don’t find it sufficient to imitate the feature by constructing your own tags (for example #tag1, #tag2) and search for combinations of those (or have perspectives that do that) until Omnifocus gets the feature, then 2do might be the best choice for you. Just remember that you probably will miss other things instead. I would never sacrifice the Review feature on Omnifocus on my Mac, for example.
Out of curiosity I bought the Iphone version of 2do, though. As I use Omnifocus differently on Mac and Iphone and don’t sync them, it would be possible for me to use 2do on my Iphone. I really like the convenient sidebar and that I can see in the lists if a task has a note. But I soon found out that I can’t have more than two levels of tasks (the list level and the project level), which sadly makes 2do very limited and hard to use for me. I will probably stick with Omnifocus even on my Iphone. It could be more convenient on that platform, but for my needs, there is no limit for what I can do. And I’m tempted to draw a conclusion:
If we find a product that is good enough - and to me Omnifocus definitely is more than that - it might be better to stick with it, learn it on a deeper level, handle its limitations and start using it efficiently than to keep searching for other products when one feature or another isn’t as good as we would like it to be.
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Thanks Jan_H for you obversations.
Omnifocus is certainly and excellent product that follows the GTD methodology and it is very feature rich. There are features in omnifocus that are not in 2do for sure including the one you have pointed out; also emailing a task to 2do does not work if you sync via dropbox is another missing feature . But for me 2do seems to more flexible and I personally don’t need all the structure that OF offers. Also 2do offers very fast task input on my iPhone, it also offers an interface from Drafts on iOS which I really like . I will know for sure in 2 months or so if it is better for me. Will post back here if my journey to 2do is a failure.
It could well be a case of out the frying pan and into the fire moving to 2do. Maybe all I really need to do is study my do lists very carefully, clean them up and stop reading online reviews about the latest greatest to do list manager. I really don’t think most people should move, copying across all those tasks and projects is a PITA for a start. Maybe I have to much time on my hands :D
I thought that the "Save +” button in Omnifocus would provide task input as fast as with ”Quick add” in 2do on the Iphone, and it does, but only if you are in the project where you want to save your new tasks. Otherwise you will have to choose project separately for every new task you create. Nice solution in 2do!
2do for IOS is overall very nice, with fast navigation and great design, making it very obvious where you are in the hierarchy and what information you are looking at. I wish that The Omni Group would draw inspiration from it for their IOS version of Omnifocus.
I’m curious about the interface from Drafts you are talking about, though. Do you mean actions for adding tasks from Drafts? Isn’t the functionality the same in actions for adding tasks in Omnifocus from Drafts?
And when you talk about copying tasks, I thought I should mention one convenient feature in recent versions of Omnifocus for IOS that I like and can’t find in 2do: the possibility to create separate tasks by pasting line-separated text.
Anyway, good luck with your journey to the task manager that suits you best!
thanks again Jan_H your comments are helping me understand the differences between two apps better
I am fairly sure that 2do offers an interface were I can select the Project and tags from iOS Drafts app and so for example I could add to my shopping list by simply entering all the items I want in Drafts. I would create an action called "Add items to shopping list " in Drafts and there would be no need to enter anything in 2do (i.e. I would not have to enter the project or any tag ). But the 2do iOS app is so fast for task entry that I have not bothered to configure the actions in Drafts yet.
those are good features you speak about the “line -separated” pasting as is Save+ in OF. I was not aware of either.
To be honest contexts are not my main beef with OF. it is the ease and flexibility of the 2do interface that I really like. I have learned a lot from the GTD system and OF is an excellent implementation of that system but OF is somewhat rigid in comparison to 2do. So Im going move to my own system now called “Pauls personal variation of GTD”. :D
I’ve been an OmniFocus user for years, but sometime around Christmas I stumbled upon Federico Viticci’s review of 2Do for iOS “Why 2Do Is My New Favorite iOS Task Manager” on MacStories.net and decided to download the apps for iOS and Mac to play with them a little bit. Fun fact: I didn’t have to pay anything for it, because I already owned a 1.x version of the app and was really surprised to see that the developer is still supporting it.
What should I say? 2Do is a really powerful and nice looking piece of software. It has some very features features that I would really to see making its way into OmniFocus.
- It’s just super great to pick an action like Call, Message, Mail, URL, Visit, Google to e. g. link a task with the information of a contact from your address book and to just call the person right from the app (when the tasks becomes due).
- The iPad version is just awesome. The 2Do team did a really great job in using the space to show you information like lists, the chosen view as well as you calendar entries.
- New iOS features like peek and pop have already been implemented.
As I said earlier, I would love to see a lot of this stuff making its way into OmniFocus for iOS and OS X, because I really like it and don’t want to switch to another party. Although right now, I have the feeling that 2Do is “slightly” more powerful, especially on iOS.
Follow up:
I found a little workaround on iOS which lets you add a phone number to an OmniFocus task using Workflow:
- Just add this simple workflow and set it up as an Action to use it right from the iOS share sheet using the Workflow App Extension.
- Open OmniFocus.
- Create a new task.
- Press “save”.
- Open the task again and click on the little icon to launch the share sheet (“Info” section).
- Choose the the Workflow App Extension.
- Run the workflow"Get Phone Number".
- Choose a contact/number.
- Now paste the copied phone number into the notes field.
- Done.
Hi,
Here is a workflow I wrote today. You start by searching the contact then write the purpose of the call and it creates a todo in OF. In the notes section of the todo, you have a complete list of the phone numbers which you can tap to make the call.
Call it from the the Notification Center.
https://workflow.is/workflows/1ef88e174b96423fbe25a5c4f555b25b
Enjoy !
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I used 2do for a while because I didn’t fancy the learning curve with OF1. 2do is great. I enjoyed the simplicity coupled with great reminder notifications. Then I began to hate all the reminders which caused so much anxiety! Then I started to experiment with OF1. I never looked back! For me, OF1 & 2 represent the best & most logical in task/personal managers there is. I have dabbled with others in between times, but only out of interest.
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My experience was similar to @revstu’s: I found OF 1 confusing (2 is a revelation: wonderful); so I moved to Things. That worked well for a while. But got stale and began to look and feel dated and missing features I was growing into.
I did all the usual research and decided on 2Do. Although it worked well by and large, I experienced a series of major bugs which prevented me from adding single items to Projects and Checklists… tasks kept ‘jumping’ out of their parent groupings. This may have had to do with the fact that 2Do lost Yosemite development and one machine I was on was still using 10.10.
When I looked (back) at OmniFocus 2, I very quickly realized how far it has come. I’ll stick with it - if for no other reason (and there are many) than that its support system, community of users and likelihood of survival in a competitive market look better than those of 2Do - although I wish the small fish in a big sea well.
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I’ve been back and forth between OF2 and 2Do quite a bit. Lack of tags in OF really hurts. Can’t wait to see it arrive. Smart lists in 2Do are really powerful and flexible. But the biggest one for me is the IOS UI. The navigation in 2Do is some of the best I’ve experienced. On the other hand OF on iOS is just so painful to navigate. I hate using it. So much swiping back and forth. I don’t understand why more apps don’t employ the long press menu pop-up?? It just makes so much sense and makes 2Do a delight to use. I do love forecast in OF though. Would be great if it was more configurable what tasks end up there. Like have it display a perspective (or a few perspectives stacked) instead. Also 2Do does batch editing on IOS very well. Actions are also a very nice touch and actually useful! Oh and being able to create as many custom alerts for a task as I want is huge.
Now on OSX though…I far prefer the feel of OF in comparison to 2Do. It’s frustrating. When on iOS I want to use 2Do. When on OSX I want to use OF. Can’t I just have it all?!
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I want to share my experience with 2Do. I honestly cannot understand why so many people stick to OF2, the GUI is extremely outdated and lacks lot of function. But listen for yourself.
A program often not discussed… 2Do.
After I put massive amounts of data and time into OF, by chance I read about 2Do. And I immediately loved its UI. And then I loved more about the program, and it fell from my eyes: 2Do on macOS is nice, functionality grows with your needs, it is not just massively there as in OF (with loooots of time taken to create the “right” perspectives…).
But the iOS version, especially on the iPad but also on the iPhone… The UI is just gorgeous… SO many little details that make sense. This sounds like blasphemy, but how can a program SO BEAUTIFULLY designed and SO FULL OF POWER IF NEEDED be so underrepresented in reviews.
When I chose OF2 I just didnt know about it…
I switched everything I had in OF to 2Do. Loved it! Love it.
I really would be interested in other opinions of users that tried the latest (!) version of 2Do, well the one thats now on their homepage. Free trials by the way.
Tell me, why staying with OF? It looks so, so bad compared to 2Do.
Sorry for this tough bashing, but IMHO it is not enough to have 110 functions while another prog has 100 functions but has SO MUCH less friction, it goes easy as a swipe of your hand and all those little things I kind of fell in love with.
OF UI is, in my real honest opinion, compared to 2Do UI design and functionality, ugly.
I wished I had known it before.
Very excited what you think about that software in comparison.
Michael
I think it’s awesome that there are so many choices available in the market, allowing us each to pick the solution that fits us best. Between 2Do, OF, Things, Todo, Todoist, Wunderlist, TaskPaper, and many others, there is enough choice to make sure you get the best solution for you.
I like OF because of its simplicity in UI. For how complex it’s feature set can be, it’s very keyboard-friendly, has a highly simplifiable UI (I can reduce it to just a list in full screen), is highly automatable with URL schemes and support for TaskPaper format, and the location-based alerts. Also, I like linking to tasks and projects from other places.
But that’s just me - OF feels comfortable to me. Maybe because I started with a paper system in 2005, maybe because I used OF1 (and Kinkless for OO before that), but it works and I don’t fuss with it any more than I need to. But that’s the thing - what works for me won’t work for everyone. So choice is good :)
ScottyJ
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Well I agree with you in most points, but there is a feeling inside me which leaves me with the impression that despite all functions that are implemented in OF, the GUI lacks a lot of modern ideas… And lives more through it’s kind of “iconic” status and willingness of users to bring up a solution for ANYthing, but at the same time lose view for the whole (experience).
Staying in the OF universe is convinient… I just really hope that Omni can read the signs that say that people want to be able to love the products they use everyday. And that very often starts with look and feel…
