OmniFocus’s “Review” feature has never worked for me. It’s this extra thing that I’m supposed to do, and it just turns into a massive stupid guilt trip that adds anxiety with no mitigating benefit or value.
Does anyone find it useful? And if so, how?
(To be clear: I do review my system. In the Project and Contexts views. And no, I don’t mark them “reviewed” because that’s an extra treadmill that ain’t nobody got time for.)
Yes, I find it useful.
It prompts me to review outstanding tasks and also to think about projects that have no tasks left (possibly because I hadn’t got around to thinking about next steps).
Works for me.
If you have your own way of reviewing, you shouldn’t feel any guilt about not using the review feature. OmniFocus is very flexible (esp. the Pro version) and I would consider the default features a starting point, not something you are expected to abide by. Some people don’t use tags/contexts, some put due/defer dates on everything and others don’t, people use flags in all kinds of ways – you can adapt it to your style.
I do use Review. One advantage is you can customize the review schedule per project, so you don’t have to see projects that can be left on the back burner for a while. Another advantage is the Mark Reviewed function clarifies what you have reviewed. I wouldn’t trust myself to manually review my entire projects list.
In fact I’m moving away from using the Projects and Contexts/Tags views, toward custom perspectives. The problem with that is I’m limiting (deliberately) what I see most of the time to focus on just a few things. The review perspective is a way of stepping back and recirculating things that have been put on the back burner, restructuring projects and adjusting dates. The review feature seems maybe not strictly necessary, but it’s more convenient than a manual review of my projects list.
I find the review invaluable, I am slowly bringing OF up front and centre in my work and personal life and would say I am a long way from being a ‘power user’ but once a week I complete a review of all my projects and tasks and this refocuses my mind on things that may have slipped through the cracks. I will then do the 2 min rule on tasks I can, and then tweak tasks and actions for later completion. I find the tweaking etc takes no more than 15 mins and then add the tasks I complete in 2 mins the review takes no more than 30 mins ( I expect this may get longer as I incorporate more into OF.
That being said I was in a zoom class with Tim Stringer www.learnomnifocus.com and he helped me understand perspectives more than I ever had…I actually though making your own perspectives was difficult (it’s not). Tim set up a few perspectives he finds helpful in my OF3 (beta) and I can honestly see my weekly review perhaps becoming nonessential…perhaps.
