Timeframe and Pull Workflow (Help please!)

After much life laundry I think I’ve finally figured out what I want from OmniFocus. The problem is, I have no idea how to do it! If anyone can help, I will be forever grateful.


I’ve called this structure “Timeframe and Pull” because I wan’t to give all my tasks a rough timeframe, then pull from them periodically. The time frame is structured into 5 sections, with each section having additional divisions:

  • Today
    • Morning
    • Afternoon
    • Evening
  • This Week
    • Monday
    • Tuesday
    • etc.
  • This Month
    • Week 1
    • Week 2
    • etc.
  • This Year
    • January
    • February
    • etc.
  • Sometime eventually

Imagine that every task is allocated in this structure. For example, something that needs to be done today, this morning will go in Today -> Morning. Something that needs to be done in the second week of the current month goes in This Month -> Week 2. Things that are a pipe dream go into “Sometime”.

Tasks to propagate through this structure thorough the periodic “pulls”. The the structure of “pulls” is as follows:

  • Every day
    • This Week <current_day> -> Today
  • Every Week
    • This Month <current_week> -> This Week
  • Every Month
    • This Year <current_month> -> This Month
  • Every Year
    • Pipe dream -> This Year

For example, every evening I perform a “pull” on “This Week” to get "Today"s tasks (for tomorrow). Every week I pull from “This Month” to get “This Weeks” tasks. Every month I pull from “This Year” to get this months tasks.

So, say I’m planning Wednesday’s tasks as per the “Every day” pull. I go to “This Week” and pull out all task under the “Wednesday” division. Then I move this tasks into “Today”, under the “Morning”, “Afternoon” or “Evening” division. If I was being overly optimistic when pulling into This Week (see later) then I can reallocate this task back into “This Week” Thursday, or Friday, or even back into “This Year”.

An example for the weekly “pull”. Say it’s the 3rd week in May. I pull from “This Month” week 3 division, then allocate a day to each task.


I wonder if anyone managed to follow that?

Currently in OmniFocus I have a project for every section and division in the timeframe then I just go through the “pulls” manually. This is not very elegant and means that I can’t really use projects for what they were meant for!

I’m trying to use defer dates, but haven’t managed to create a custom perspective that lets me see, for example, things I’m going to do “sometime in September”.

Hmm.