It makes me sad to leave Omnifocus. I’m posting my thoughts because as a fellow software developer I enjoy insight into how people are using my application, what they like, and what they dislike. I also think if Omnifocus added a few more features, it could capture what makes Things great.
What Things has
Today view:
- It’s re-orderable! This is huge. It sounds silly, and no it isn’t “needed”. However, it provides a tremendous sense of calm to arrange and view today’s tasks in the order in which you plan to do them (which is why many of us use GTD in the first place). I’ve read every argument against this: What order should they appear in when a new task is added? (ask Cultured Code), it isn’t part of GTD, it isn’t needed, etc. Whatever. It’s the most basic way possible to prioritize a list. My daily priorities don’t always match up with the order of my projects in project hierarchy. The fact this is available provides relief and calm. It’s a huge feature I’ve seen other people after across the Internet.
- Start and due items collect there if I fall off the gtd wagon for 2 days because life happens. They don’t disappear! I am calm because I know I will see them whenever I do get back to Things. Omnifocus’s actions with start dates will be out of view in Forecast perspective if they’re 2 days past start. They are things I’m planning on starting that day but not due that day. I need to create a separate, custom perspective to see these. Do-able, but just another thing to check every day. Little friction areas like this add up, especially in something that is supposed to streamline your life.
- I can put entire projects there, and I see the project, not the individual tasks. To me, that’s a feature. I can work at a higher level. I can see the project name and just start working. If I’m lost I’ll drill down into the individual actions. Some will no doubt cringe at this, but it also means my next-actions don’t have to be 100% in order and up-to-date (which does happen for fluid projects. The answer to this would be more daily review and always keeping that next action list up-to-date. My counter would be that Things lets me simply write “Project X” on my today list like I would a sticky note on my desk, work on that, then consult the next actions and re prioritize on an as-needed basis).
- I can add little actions like “pick up milk” or “read son a book today” to it directly without picking a context or project. Omnifocus solutions? Add a “Misc” category, don’t use a context, but then I have to remember the misc project name and filter through other project search results. Again, stress, overwhelm, and friction. Leave the item in the Inbox and flag it? Ok, but then weekly reviews suffer. Sure, both work-arounds are technically possible, but little things add up…
Tags/multiple contexts/lists:
I use them to box off time frames: “week | month | quarter”. I won’t even get into this because the topic has been discussed to death in other threads and I haven’t found a single work-around that feels right. Sure, they all work, but they’re all rough around the edges and sacrifice something else, and little things add up…
I know Ken has stated tagging/lists/multi-contexts are being considered, and I’m excited for that.
What Omnifocus has (aka: What makes me sad to leave, in order):
- Project hierarchy for seeing the big picture in weekly / monthly review. I can see EVERYTHING at once. It eliminates stress in weekly review. I KNOW I’m not missing anything.
- Action status (remaining/available/etc) and styled action titles. A huge way to cut down on overwhelm when looking at a list or filtering down projects. I love being able to set in-order/parallel for projects and subtasks, then getting a visual indication of what’s available, while still seeing “the big picture” with other tasks greyed out.
- Custom perspectives (eliminates stress and overwhelm)
- These forums, Omnigroup’s excellent support, public betas, and honest, public comments from Ken about the roadmap for the year (in stark contrast to Cultured Code and The Hit List).
- “Copy as link” to link back to projects from my markdown monthly roadmaps.
- Mail drop (great for adding stuff from work)
- Review perspective (eliminates stress)
What would it take for me to switch back?
Short: 1) Reorderable list for today’s items, 2) Tagging or a priority field for setting 4 levels of priority.
Long: I think re-orderable lists (think playlists) where I could drag tasks would be a huge starter. I could use them for priority horizons (“This week”, “This Month”, etc). I could use them as my re-orderable today. Bonus points for being able to drag projects here. More bonus points for being able to use them in perspective filters. I think this was one implementation of “tagging” that Ken mentioned Omnigroup is evaluating. I much prefer this to straight-up tagging because the lists would be re-orderable.
What it comes down to:
The way I see it, Omnifocus is great for planning weeks and months, but lacks the flexibility needed to deal with the changing day. Things is great at being flexible and simple enough to deal with a changing day, but lacks the bigger-picture, structured features of Omnifocus.
I know I’m just one user and everybody has a different workflow they want to make work, but this is mine.
ps. My task manager history is Omnifocus -> Things -> Omnifocus 2 (dabbling in Hit List, 2Do, and a half-dozen others).