Why I'm switching to Things, again

Reorderable list for today’s items: I’ve used OmniFocus since it became available, and adding this feature has been my #1 request the entire time. Most days I open an OmniOutliner file to help me juggle the ordering and reordering of actions for the day.

5 Likes

I just purchased OmniFocus for Mac and iOS. I’ve used Things mostly, and I like how it shows scheduled (deferred tasks in OmniFocus sense) and due tasks. I wish there was a way to create one perspective like this for OmniFocus. But it seems like there is no way. I want one perspective, one way to see all my tasks that are due today (things I must get done) as well as things that were deferred until today (things I would like to get done today but are not necessary).

2 Likes

There is actually a way to do it, using an existing perspective. In the Perspectives window, choose Forecast, and check "Show deferred items”. You may need the Pro version to do this, I’m not sure, but at least then it is possible both on Mac and IOS.

1 Like

Problem here is this doesn’t work on the Apple Watch app. No way to get the Today view on there to show deferred tasks as well as due tasks.

Oh, I don’t know anything about the watch. Maybe it’s a case for the Omni Support?

Great analysis. My biggest problem with OmniFocus is the Forecast view. It seems like a great idea, but to my surprise I’ve always fought with it. The closest I ever came to having it work like I needed it to was to have defer dates on everything, but it took a tremendous amount of effort and time to manage that—plus, it was a fake way to plan. Simple reordering of that view would solve that. I suspect the Forecast view works better for people who work in companies and whose work is constantly defined and scheduled by others.

In the meantime, I’ve given up on Today and created a custom perspective that works better for me. It’s not perfect because my only recourse is to rely on Contexts. Unless I change Contexts to act like Tags, I still can’t see what I want and only what I want.

Since the Watch app can’t do custom contexts, I’ve given up on that, too.

But I won’t go back to Things because the cost of switching outweighs the problems with Things. For now.

Great post and I agree with many of the sentiments expressed in this thread. I think, beyond the “runway level” ability to reorder, or the GTD methodology smashing concept of multiple contexts (HOW much time have I wasted trying to identify that ONE MOST relevant context?!) I think the real weakness of OF regards the planning environment. It’s just not easy or fun to do at all. Being able to open multiple windows helps - a little, but feels kludged. My suggestion in the “OmniPlanner / OmniFocus Integration Rant” thread suggests that OP could and very well should be OF’s planning environment with a radically different UX and toolset (level resources is very much much what I’m talking about. How bout some more of that wizard AI functionality like Wizards that ask questions and set up projects, priorities, contexts etc automatically?) that allows OP and OF to speak to each other in a very efficient and low level manner (update OP and aspects of OF update automatically - and the reverse).

The trick would be to invent a new, bold and comprehensive vision and strategy for what each application is really supposed to facilitate - and stick to it. I think both apps are pretty good but it feels like OG lacks this overall productivity vision for what busy professionals really need and are now - or soon will be looking for.

OG - please, do something utterly inspired instead of releasing incremental relatively non ground breaking improvements so slowly. Someone will figure this out and run with it just as you did when you were inspired by Kinkless. I’m rooting for OG but 3 years of waiting for OP-OF integration is ridiculous.

Thank you,

1 Like

I’ve switched back to OmniFocus. Let me explain.

I no longer use GTD. I now use a modified version of Mark Forster’s Final Version system. I tried it in a paper notebook for three months and it was great: simplicity and completeness calmed my anxiety and kept me from forgetting things. Paper kept me from fiddling and being OCD about shuffling and rearranging my tasks to be perfect. I liked being able to look at one long list of 50 or 100 tasks in the order they were entered and see progress of slowly progressing through my backlog. The one feature I truly missed from computerized lists was due date reminders. That is what pushed me back to try an electronic tool.

My top reason reasons for switching and my top features of OmniFocus I wrote about previously no longer apply (OmniFocus project hierarchy, non-reorder able tasks). Instead I use a bare minimum configuration and it’s working great.

I carried over some simplifications I learned with paper:

  • No contexts except one for errands.
  • No projects. Everything is an action. I may have a separate project list for focusing.
  • No sub actions.
  • Only 4 projects: Must, should, could, everything else. These are my 4 priorities.
  • Actions can be left in the inbox and all perspectives will still work.
  • A view to mimic my paper Final Version list: All actions ordered by date added. This looks exactly like my paper notebook would have.
  • I no longer obsess about breaking down projects into perfectly-worded next actions.

I changed, but not to fit a piece of software. I found a simple, paper-based system worked best for me and OmniFocus did a great job at retaining most of those benefits while being able to apply a few electronic nicities.

If you feel OmniFocus or another tool doesn’t work for you or find yourself jumping between task managers, it could be time to take a step back and reevaluate your system.

5 Likes

Wish I could figure out how to edit the original post and the topic… Maybe not available in mobile layout? I click the pencil and just get taken to the history.

I can edit this post, but not the original. Hmmm… I wanted to update the topic to reflect I returned to OmniFocus

It’s probably best to leave your original post so that we can see the evolution of the thread.

Congrats on adapting Mark Forster’s Final Version. Perhaps you can make a blog post of youtube video of how you work your magic with OmniFocus and Final Version? ;-)

Unfortunately, your link doesn’t point anywhere, it shows me a ‘Page Not Found’ page…

this should point you in the right direction:

http://archive.constantcontact.com/fs004/1100358239599/archive/1109980854493.html

I remembered when he had several mutations of his own productivity system. I remembered trying an earlier version call Do-It-Tomorrow.Then I remembered AutoFocus. But I side stepped to making my own Frankenstein system. It was interesting seeing him evolve his productivity system over time. Here is a timeline of his systems. You might find a system that fits into your own system.

http://markforster.squarespace.com/tm-systems/

Hi, just a question – with this sorting new tasks appear on the top of the list instead of the bottom, correct? I just read FVP and I like the idea very much, just curious how to get new tasks at the bottom … ? Thanx for sharing!

You can’t get new tasks to appear on the bottom, but that didn’t bother me so much. I just started at the bottom of the list and worked my way upward.

1 Like

Actually this is a very interesting thread. How many people went back and forth between Reminders, Wunderlist, Things and OmniFocus? And wasted a huge amount of (personal life) time?

I am as guilty as anyone else - just to come back to OmniFocus to find out that this is the tool I need.

At the end it really depends on what you make out of if. OF offers a huge amount of functionality and the geeky part in us want to use it all! But this is not what OF is about.

OF is offering the flexibility to trim it down to what makes it work for you and help you getting sh* done.

Today I run OF on my iPad, iPhone and Mac again and I am using it to manage multiple personal and professional projects.

However, I did spend an awful lot of time coming up with a simplistic set up that still offers enough GTD-ish components that I’d like to deal with.

Using Clip-O-Tron is a great help and the forecast view nearly replaced the view to my calendar.

Things was clearly a strong force - but to be frank, Cultured Code never managed to stay close to their customers nor managed to evolve the product at least a bit.

The Omnigroup gave enough proof that money invested in them is a good investment.

FWIW

Stefan

So many great things said here. Being able to reorder lists is huge. I don’t know how many times life has gotten crazy and I’ve had to temporarily stop using OmniFocus in favor of an app that has re-orderable lists (e.g. Reminders, Trello, etc.), only returning to OF weeks later when I have enough time/energy to get OF in order. Even if it was just being able to reorder the Flagged perspective would make OF palatable for these “emergency” times.

(Last time this happened, in an effort to stay with OF, I used the In Box for this purpose. Although not ideal, it does allow one to reorder items.)

2 Likes

That’s exactly it.

Update: I switched back to Things once more after FVP and OmniFocus. Something just didn’t feel right. Then I switched back to OF again for the same reason as before: no good review mode, overview, or ability to sort by date created (any of those would be enough to help me review).

And now I have been back in OF for the last 4 months.

The difference this time is I am now using contexts in flagged perspective to work around OF’s limitation of no reordering. It gives my brain enough structure to prevent anxiety.

I also have projects listed in order that help me prioritize both projects and tasks:

  • Must (single action)
  • Chores (single action for recurring tasks and items like picking up something from the store that are hard to prioritize)
  • Should (single action)
  • Folder of big rock projects
  • Could

This system has held up to daily use for 4 months of personal and family projects.

The only feature I still miss is the ability to reorder the flagged perspective.

3 Likes

I think the problem that manual sorting is trying to solve is that our perspective’s list of tasks is too long. We feel much better if we can re-order a long list.

The solution I’ve found is to have a perspective that is shorter and doesn’t show “everything.” The idea of focus is to just get the information that you need.

For example, I work mostly off of 3 perspectives: Due, Flagged, and Available.

My “due” perspective is the number one priority. Get as many due tasks done as soon as possible. This perspective is much smaller because I’m only concerned with due tasks (due in the next 7 days or whatever constraint you have set in your preferences). I put due dates only on tasks that have a real hard deadline (not an artificial deadline).

When I finished as many of the due tasks in the due perspective, I’ll visit my flagged perspective which is my second priority. These are all the tasks that I’ve flagged as wanting to do within the next 7 days but does not have a real due date.

Afterwards, I’ll visit my Available tasks perspective which gives me a long laundry list of all available tasks. From this perspective, I either set due dates (only if necessary) or flag the tasks that I want to do in the immediate future (within the next 7 days).

This is similar to @flight16’s experience. Multiple perspectives with a different purpose.

If you have a list that is too long, it defeats the purpose of “focus”. There are too many items to choose from. I know when I walk into a Chinese restaurant, I have 100 items on the menu. But I only order two dishes. I might want one seafood dish and one meat dish. I focus on the seafood section and the meat section. I ignore the noodles section and the vegetarian section. But I know that they are there. I just don’t look at those pages.

I intentionally keep my perspectives as short as possible. I think the feature request for manual sorting arises when our lists are just way too long. Keeping our perspective’s list of actions as short as it needs to be helps to alleviate my desire for manual sorting.

But if manual sorting is still a massive priority, shoot an e-mail to omnifocus@omnigroup.com to try to bump this request up the priority ladder.

7 Likes

Nothing like necroing a 603 day old thread. Replying to self after using OF3 for one month:

Summary: I’m done moving. OF3 is my new home and where I plan to retire.

Things’s Today View was the feature that kept me away from OF in the past. OF3 lets me replicate it very comfortably with two custom perspectives:

  1. “Morning Review” that shows me all incoming deferred, past deferred, due soon, or past due tasks. This is what I check every morning at a minimum.
  2. “Focus” which is my manually-orderable “today and next few days” perspective. This is what I work off of throughout the day. Tag = Focus. Order = Tag Order.

Let’s see how things are looking now that OF3 has launched…

Check.

Check. (Custom perspective: due soon OR (defer date AND available))

I don’t do this anymore.

Check. (The “Focus”/Today perspective I work off of)

Check.

Now for the things that OF2 did better

Even better in iOS OF3 with great drag and drop.

Even better in OF3 with more granular rules.

Ok, Things 3 has this now, but at work I’ll now be able to use OmniFocus Lite on the web. Woohoo.

Still a cornerstone of a stress-free system. Still not in Things 3.

In closing…

Things is still too simple for structured planning. OF3 is now flexible enough to keep me calm on crazy days with new custom perspectives, tagging, and (limited) manual ordering.

Last year I used OF2 to survive an international move with our family of 4 (bank accounts, healthcare, housing, credit cards, cars, and about 20 other projects). This year I used OF3 to survive closing on our first house, visiting relatives, and my busiest quarter at work. All in the same month.

Although I’ve only used OF3 four weeks, I’ve kicked the tires enough to know how it holds up: great.

Very happy with OF3. Thanks, Omni.

5 Likes