31 Days, 31 Products: OmniFocus
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Day 14: OmniFocus
This post is part of a larger series where for 31 days I’m posting a story about a particular product or service I’ve come to enjoy.
OmniFocus, from the OmniGroup, is a task manager that embraces the work style of Getting Things Done.
I’ve been an on again and off again user of GTD / OmniFocus for many years now. I’ve done GTD through index cards, automated scripts over OmniOutliner and then eventually OmniFocus. For the years where I did stop, it was mostly because I was taking time off my side work and frankly didn’t have that much to keep track of. Over the last few months however I’ve been taking on more things and setting up some long term goals. OmniFocus has really helped me stay on track and keep up with my responsibilities.
A bit about my setup. I use the Mac version primarily but also own the iOS version for occasional reference and general OmniGroup UI-fanboy reasons. I have project folders for Personal, Work, CocoaHeads and Clickable Bliss (Relaunch). I also have projects named “Tasks” and “Someday Maybe” for each responsibility which is a great place for one-off things. I’m much better about doing my Reviews since restarting, typically doing them on Mondays. I take the time to not only cleanup my inbox, mark done things which I have yet to check off but to also flag those items for which I want to work on that week. Some of my flags are a little more well-wishing then they should be but I like having the flag context be my ‘sit down at desk, what do I need to do today’ list.
I also use a browser extension for quick recording of URLs. This isn’t the Read Later stuff I send to Instapaper, but more the, hey I’m writing an app in EmberJS and here’s a great article on authentication. Let me add it to the EmberJS research project. Or, heres a great gift idea for my sister, let me add the URL to the Buy Christmas Presents project.
OmniFocus for Mac does have a free trial. When you are ready to buy you can use the Mac App Store or buy from OmniGroup direct. Standard Edition is $40, Pro is $80. The iOS app (App Store) is similarly, $40 for Standard and $60 for Pro.