It’s been more than six months since OmniFocus 3 was released, and I’ve done thousands of tasks with OmniFocus 3 over the past six months. In this process, after continuous trial and optimization, I finally found a very suitable workflow for myself. This article is quite long, with a total of about 8,000 words, and I suggest you read it in two sections. The first half of the content mainly introduces some theories of time management. In the second half of the content, I will share my own workflow with OmniFocus 3. Before I start, I’d like to say that “the tool is secondary, the idea is key”. With basic ideas, OmniFocus, Todoist and Things can all have their own ways to practice. In addition, everyone has their own workflow, so readers don’t have to follow exactly what I’ve written, but rather take some inspiration, practice it and incorporate it into their own workflow. What is a good task management system first of all, the purpose of the task management system is to better complete the task, all from the basic conditions of the system are not available. If you think a simple Todo List will do the job well, then this is the task management system for you. In my opinion, an excellent task management system needs to meet at least the following conditions:
- Ability to collect
- Know what you can do in a given situation
Why do we need to satisfy at least these two conditions, or why are these two conditions important to a task management system? “Gathering capability” means that the task system can hold (almost) anything: a task, an idea, an unread email, a note, a link, an unreimbursed invoice, etc. If you’ve read Getting Things Done or read GTD theory, you probably know that collecting is the very beginning of the process. If the to-do list is scattered all over the place, there will inevitably be forgotten moments when the task is not collected and there will be no subsequent process. In practice, it’s not really necessary to pack everything into the quest system. For example, I use Evernote as a clipping and note-taking tool, and it’s obviously impractical to copy every note into OmniFocus. However, I will add a task to OmniFocus to “periodically clean the Evernote Inbox” so that Evernote is managed as a sub-OmNifocus Inbox. For some applications that support URL Schema, it is possible to specify a link in OmniFocus, so that OmniFocus can also directly open the content of other applications. The collection capability determines what to process, and the second condition determines whether a task system is stable and usable. Contextually, know what to do in the morning, what to do at work, what to do when you’re bored, etc. This way, you can jump right into a situation instead of spending time thinking about what to do right now. A mission system that does both of these things well won’t leave you in the awkward position of feeling like you have a lot to do but no idea what to do. Three elements of a task management system So far, I have not covered the use of specific tools. Because the tool is secondary, understand the essence of the idea, use any tool is no problem. Take a look at the various task management tools: OmniFocus, Todoist, Things, org-Mode, they also support different functions: Project, infinite hierarchy, Defer, Due, Repeat, Context, Label, Tag, Filter, Perspective, etc. Do these terms scare you? Do we have to learn all over again every time we switch systems? Leaving these terms aside, let’s take a look at what constitutes a mission system. In my opinion, there are only three essential things in a mission system: tasks, additional elements, and filters. Task: A minimum executable unit is a task. This is best understood, so I won’t explain it too much. Additional elements: The different dimensional constraints that apply to the task. This sentence is a bit of a mouthful. For example, “pick up the delivery at XXX (by 10:00 today)”, where “by 10:00 today” is a time dimension that limits the task. Similarly, “projects,” “tags,” and so on are additional elements that apply to a task. Filters: Filter rules that combine different additional elements. The additional elements alone are of little practical use, but once you have filters, you can write different filtering rules to filter the tasks of the specified rules. For example, if I want to know ‘what is important in the last 10 days’, the filtering rule might be’ Due date < 10 and flagged ‘. With these three basic concepts in mind, you can take a broader view of the various task management tools and avoid the re-learning costs associated with switching tools. These three concepts are very similar to Hum’s “LTF (List, Tag, Filter)” in a More modern Way of Doing Task Management, and Hum covers the concept at greater length. Subscribe to this column if you are interested. OmniFocus 3 applies the basic three elements of the above task system to OmniFocus in practice. Tasks are individual Todo items. Additional elements are the item to which the Todo item belongs, Due Date, Defer Date, Tags, Flag, Repeat rule, etc. Filters are perspectives. I will use OmniFocus 3 as the carrier to introduce how to implement a reliable task management system and introduce some practical Workflow processes. It is recommended to use a uniform set of project Settings. For example, my OmniFocus project and Evernote Note project are almost one to one. This has the advantage of keeping your project categories in order. If you want to keep your projects organized, you can divide them into three levels: large Folder, sub-folder, and Project. For example, my project is graded as follows:
I have divided them into five major projects: Work, Study, Life, interest and system, which can cover almost all fields involved. Within each large project, break down smaller projects, which can be broken down according to your own needs. OmniFocus supports unlimited levels of project division, but I recommend only three levels, the last of which is the task, to ensure that the project level is not too complex. This is a Single List of items, so that items that do not belong to a particular project can be included in the List. The categories of projects don’t have to follow me, just make sure they are organized. Some Tips for project setting:
- If it is not a Single List, the project needs an established completion condition. At a certain time or under a certain condition, the project should be marked as Completed or Dropped, so as to avoid a project staying in the task system for a long time.
- The tasks in the project should be minimal and, if large, can be further subdivided using OmniFocus’ infinite task hierarchy.
The OmniFocus 3 tag system can add more additional elements on the basis of its own functions, so that the filter can be set more accurately to filter the task that matches. Based on this purpose, you can set up a suitable label system according to your needs. A common missing function of OmniFocus 3 is Schedule. In terms of time dimension, a task should have two elements: Due and Schedule. Due means that it must be completed before a certain day, and Schedule means that it is scheduled to be done on a certain day. Therefore, the following labels can be set to complete the Schedule function:
- Schedule
- ThisMonth: scheduled for ThisMonth
- ThisWeek: is scheduled for ThisWeek
- Today: It’s scheduled for Today
- Receny: What needs to be done these days
For example, if I want to see “Work related tasks ThisMonth”, I can specify “Project” as “Work” and label “ThisMonth” so that the tasks can be filtered using this filter. Specific filter Settings are described below. Another useful setting to use is the energy TAB:
- Energy
- LowEnergy
- MediumEnergy
- HighFocus
We after a long day’s work, for example, for a period of time to go off work, left the energy has dropped to a low value, this time is not suitable for finished that need to be very focused on work, but some chores at work, such as printing, submit reports and other simple job can use this time to complete, this time we can set a filter, Filter out tasks whose Project is “Work” and labeled “LowEnergy”. As we can see, the tag system can greatly expand the content of additional elements, adding more filter dimensions to the filter. The tag system should be set according to their own needs, if the set tag is not used in the filter, then it is just a task to add an additional element that is not used, it is not meaningful. Filter Settings The purpose of the filter is to combine various conditions, filter out the required task, all tasks on the additional elements are set for the filter. Filters in OmniFocus 3 are perspectives. In OmniFocus 3, perspective has been greatly enhanced to support Settings similar to iTunes smart playlists.
But a closer look reveals that OmniFocus 3’s filter Settings are still limited and don’t allow you to manipulate elements as freely as iTunes does.
Still, it’s much better than the disabled filter Settings of OmniFocus 2. If you have used Todoist, you may know that the Todoist filter supports a set of self-defined syntax. OmniFocus 3 is still much worse than Todoist, mainly because it provides too few filterable elements and the filtering conditions are not free enough. However, the combination of the tag system can basically meet the daily use. As with label systems, filter Settings still need to be combined with their own circumstances. I mainly set up the following filters, which are often used in practice.
Routine filter This filter is mainly used for making plans. For example, I have a Morning Review every Morning when I go to the company to plan my work tasks for the day. At this point, I just need to turn on the filter, do the above things in turn, and the schedule for the day is made. The detailed Settings of the filter are as follows:
The “Routine” Folder contains the specific Settings:
This filter is tied to my Workflow, so if you’re not in the habit of doing Morning reviews, you don’t need to set this filter. Today filter This filter is used the most times and is similar to Forecast, but more customized than Forecast. The detailed Settings of the filter are as follows:
This filter will filter out tasks that meet the following criteria:
- Tasks that are due soon or labeled Today
- Tasks in the Available state
- Tasks under the non-Routine Folder
Display mode is shown in the dimension of Project:
Compared with the Forecast Perspective, it only shows the corresponding tasks, which are not as clear as the customized tasks.
If you want Forecast to display tasks for specific tags, you can refer to the following Settings:
Work filter This filter is similar to Today, except that it specifies the project as the task under the “Work” folder. This filter mainly focuses on Work related tasks during Work. The detailed Settings of the filter are as follows:
Except for specifying a specific project directory, the Settings are no different from Today’s Settings. In daily use, I save articles I haven’t read, things I need To write, books I need To read, and things I need To search in OmniFocus, so I need a filter that can quickly filter out these things. To use this filter first, you need to set up a label system:
The detailed Settings of the filter are as follows:
Actual usage scenario: If I want To Read something about Python (a programming language), I can just open the Perspective, pick the label “to-read”, and search for Python keywords from the search box.
Future filter This filter is mainly used for planning and is frequently used in Weekly Review and Daily Review. Need to be based on the following tag Settings:
The detailed Settings of the filter are as follows:
EasyDo filter this filter will filter out some simple or do not require too much energy out of the filter details as follows:
Tasks that take less than 15 minutes to complete or are labeled “LowEnergy” are filtered out. Workflow has completed more than 1500 tasks with OmniFocus this year, and now has its own Workflow. With the OmniFocus 3 update, this Workflow has been optimized. The entire Workflow is divided into three main sections: plan, execute, and summarize. Planning Many people don’t focus on planning and do whatever comes their way. Not only does this result in disorganization, but it also makes it difficult to prioritize tasks. Generally speaking, if you don’t know how to plan, it’s ok to have a long-term plan and a short-term plan. A long-term plan is a general direction, which can be annual or monthly. Short term plans need to be specific about what needs to be done. This can be weekly or daily plans. Weekly and daily schedules are the most commonly used in practice. In OmniFocus, I set up two projects, namely Weekly Review and Morning Review. For Weekly Review, I first write down what I need to do for the week in Evernote, then open the Future filter in OmniFocus, select ThisMonth TAB, Tag projects and tasks that need to be done with ThisWeek. During the Morning Review, I would open the Future filter, select ThisWeek and Recently, and then pick the things I need to get done Today and tag them with Today, You can see what to do Today in the Today and Work filters. Execution should be the most important part of your Workflow. If you plan and the task doesn’t get done, planning is a waste of time. The key to execution is doing the right thing at the right time, which is why there are so many filters, showing only work-related things when you’re working, and easy things when you’re not. If you have a tendency to get distracted, follow the Pomodoro technique. I usually set a focus for 50 minutes followed by a 10-minute break. The default time of 25 minutes is too short and may be interrupted as soon as you get started. Alternatively, try using what is known as Structured Procrastination. Structured procrastination is the practice of ignoring the higher-priority tasks and instead starting with the smaller, lower-priority tasks, so that you slowly get into a working state and then move on to the higher-priority tasks. Summary summary is for better planning. The summary provides more reference conditions for the plan and can be used as a yardstick for the plan. Many times we do plan will see high oneself’s ability to complete tasks, the result is a week past the discovery did not actually able to complete the plan content, if there is no summary, next time to make plans, or plan according to the quantity, must also be completed, as time passes, will lose the power to make plans. If you do a weekly review, you’ll know what was done, what wasn’t done, and why, so that you can make improvements in the next week’s plan. This “feedback-adjustment” mechanism promotes a virtuous cycle throughout the task processing process. On the one hand, if you have a weekly plan in Evernote, you can open the corresponding Project in the weekly Review and select All in the Project view. This will show All the tasks (including those completed) and make it easier to see what was done. And what is left undone.
On the other hand, OmniFocus 3 provides built-in Review perspective, allowing you to choose how many days to Review each project when it is set up. In practice, the Review time will be set to once a day for projects that need daily follow-up in general work, and once a week for general projects. To avoid forgetting Review, add the Review task to Morning Review or Weekly Review. Postscript OmniFocus 2 was used when it was first released, along with org-Mode and Todoist, and OmniFocus 3 was remigrated immediately after it was released. OmniFocus 3 has a few shortcomings, but it works well with the current workflow. The main usage scenarios are mostly on macOS, and iOS is basically just for viewing. The content written in this article is the experience obtained after a long time of practice. A good task system needs constant optimization and iteration. If you feel that your system is not good enough, you might as well think about what needs optimization and then slowly improve it. Once you’ve mastered the nature of task management, you can easily switch to any tool.
Note: If you want to systematically learn how to use OmniFocus, Sainho’s OmniFocus 3 tutorial “Building a Task Management System with OmniFocus 3” is about to be serialized. In this tutorial you will learn:
- Task management theory of systems
- Practical task management experience
- Detailed function introduction
- Keep up with new features
- Advanced OmniFocus technique
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