Omnifocus in Parallel

Oooh. Must. Have. This.

I have every Omni-thing in existence… can’t wait to also have this. (Where’s my beta invitation?!!)

Thanks for the screencast, Ethan. Very helpful.

I’m also looking forward to the screencast on your desktop organization.

1. Have you just removed the Clean Up icon in the toolbar customization, or is it gone from this version. FWIW, I don’t miss the Quick Entry icon much, I’m assuming there’s a keystroke I can use no matter which app I’m currently in, even if I’m currently in OmniFocus.

2. It looks like the Focus view now just opens a new window rather than changing the Focus of the single window. Probably a good decision from a user request point of view…now I can keep a couple of focused views open at one time, but you seem so hardcore GTD, I’m wondering if that decision reconciles with a strict David Allen contruct? It doesn’t necessarily matter, but in the spirit of a “mind like water” that almost makes visualize a pond with multiple splash circles spread out. Maybe I’m not remembering the first screencast correctly, but I like the focus/unfocus (should it be zoom/unzoom) versus the opening a new window, at least as a user option. Am I misunderstanding?

3. I like the fading backgrounds the way they’re working now.

Craig

Awesomeness smothered in awesome sauce - thanks, Ethan!

Great screencast, I’m currently working with iGTD and your screencasts are helping me determine how I might use Omnifocus. Thanks. I do have a question. How did you get the command-keys to display on the screen when you typed them?

Brilliant screencast once again - many thanks.

I plan on buying this the minute it is commercially available, allowing hierarchical projects, tasks, and contexts is one of the first things I noticed was missing from most existing GTD systems.

I’m curious if there are plans to allow collaboration between users - perhaps sharing tasks in some way? A simple way to achieve this might be to make OmniFocus a handler for simple files that describe tasks or projects, which can be shared between users. Of course, different users have different contexts, so this feature may require an elegant way to map another user’s contexts to one’s own.

Anyway, I signed up to the beta list about a month ago, so hopefully you guys will speed up the beta invites (and, of course, I certainly wouldn’t object if you invited me early - I promise to be a good beta tester (ian at locut dot us) ;-)

Thanks for the video! OmniFocus looks pretty awesome. Not too shabby ay.. ;)

BTW good choise of icons for desktop folders. I use the same set for my own (Projects, Tools, Inbox, While…), though individual icons differ a little. Useful idea to reveal folder item info. I wish OsX would allow different color (darker) on item info font - any ideas?

Nice to see another OmniFocus screencast. Looking forward to seeing your “my desktop” premiere too. Just started using PathFinder and realizing my desktop can be put to much better use. Looking forward to your tips. Thanks.

Please do a video about your desktop arrangement next. Most people can’t even use Omnifocus yet.

thanks for the great videos, Ethan.

Could you PLEASE do a short one that shows OF’s file/email integration capabilities? So much of my workflow is both email and website based and I HAVE to have a task management app that allows quick integration of these. Right now I’m using iGTD, which excels at this. I may love much about OF but if it doesn’t allow me to quickly and easily turn an email into an inbox task, then I simply can’t use it.

Also need to be able to quickly turn a website into an inbox task, and to quickly be able to link a file (JPG, pdf, etc…) to a task or project.

Thanks!

Ethan,

Thanks so much for your screencasts. They are helpful and very enjoyable.

I’m not sure you want to become the support center for the OmniFocus alpha, but I have to ask someone, and I think you’re one person who would know: what is up with the “Review” feature? There’s a “Mark projects reviewed” icon, a reviewed option in the filter ribbon, and a review section of the project inspector, but I can’t get my head around how to use this. Is there an obvious way I’m missing? Do you use it? How?

Thanks for any response you can offer!

Cheers, JB

I am looking for a good GTD app and tried a lot of them. I am checking your website nearly every day to see how the project is going on. Would like to have a beta. Really greatest features. Thanks for the development.

Keep up the excellent work Roman

I’m still struggling with the Inbox, and it seems to be working differently with this build than the morning 5/16 build.

When I create a new task either in the Inbox or with the Quick Entry functionality (invoked by keystroke), I get the task in the inbox, but even if I assign it to a project and a context, it still shows up in the Inbox and NOT in the Project specifically, NOR in the Context view. If I “Clean Up” then this is fixed.

Yesterday morning it was showing up in the context and project but was also still in the inbox.

IMHO, it should work like this:

Items added to the inbox directly or by Quick Entry should only stay in the Inbox if they do NOT have a context and a project. I can see that for some users they might still want them in the inbox in order to assign dates or review status, but at least I’d like the OPTION to have these skip the Inbox. In any event, they should definitely show up in their context and project if those were assigned, even if they do show up in the Inbox as well for further processing.

Also, how is Clean Up working. I thought from your screencasts that it would clear the checked tasks; instead, it seems to be taking the inbox items that do have contexts/projects and removing them from the Inbox and assigning them to their contexts/projects. This is too much like requiring a sync, IMHO. I don’t mind having a function that with one click/keystroke takes all of the inbox items with contexts/projects and clears them from the inbox, but they should already have been appearing elsewhere before that click.

Couple of Inbox suggestions (and if this is the type of feedback you DO NOT WANT here on kinkless or even at all, then please feel free to let me know):

1. Have a “Sweep the Inbox” or “Clean the Inbox” button for the toolbar OR to sit inline with the Inbox that serves to do the clearing of items which have been appropriately fleshed out. Or, better yet, build a set of user preferences for the Inbox (and include additional functionality in the Quick Entry panel) like this:

   Inbox items will be automatically removed from the inbox when the following data fields are populated:

   [] Project
   
   
   [] Context
   
   
   [] Start Date
   
   
   []Due Date
   
   
   []Review Interval
   

   The “Sweep Inbox” button will remove items from the inbox when the following data fields are populated:

   [] Project
   
   
   [] Context
   
   
   [] Start Date
   
   
   []Due Date
   
   
   []Review Interval
   

This would require that those fields be added to the Quick Entry Panel, of course, but this would allow for very discrete user prefs on how the inbox is used. If I don’t want to consider dates, I leave those items unchecked, and I frequently am able to bypass the inbox. On the other hand, if I want to maximize the Quick Entry speed and then later process the Inbox, I can be rigorous with these settings. I think there is value in having two sets of requirements because I might only want to totally skip the Inbox if I’ve been very rigorous in defining the task from the get-go, but if an item’s in the inbox and I’ve still not bothered to add a date, I might want to move those out anyway.

1. A better idea than the specific “Sweep Inbox” idea is a functionality to “process” the inbox. As someone who was a David Allen GTD wannabe from the book who only later stumbled onto the web phenomenon, I feel it’s important to remember that the inbox is something which requires processing. I envision instead of a Sweep Inbox function, there is instead a “Work the Inbox” function where a popup window comes up and presents me with each inbox item in turn and allows me to fill out it’s inspector details and then dismiss it, thus functionally clearing it from the inbox and setting it into action or a review cycle. Additionally, this “Work the Inbox” should allow me to simply take the famous DA two minutes and just do the task, so maybe it also offers a button/keystroke to simply say “Task Done” and thus move it directly to an archive/checked off status. The other button that this “Work the Inbox” form could display is one to “Discard” the task as now irrelevant. Does that make sense?

“I just threw together a hastily assembled FAQ with all the apps I used to make the video listed and linked. Maybe I should do a video about doing a video. Recursion! Ahhhh!”

Ethan, this link is not taking me to anything useful. If it’s on the Oubliette page, it’s unclear where. Please clarify as I am interested in this information.

Thanks, as always, for your amazing work and contributions.

Fantastic work, Ethan. Thank you!

Well, I just got my Omnifocus beta — it feels oh so good…

I’d encourage you to keep doing these screencasts, Ethan. I’m sure I can speak for everyone in saying that they really help me out! I’m constantly finding new ways to make myself even more efficient through your videos. You seem to have a bag o’ tricks with OmniFocus, and I look forward to seeing more of them! Keep it up!

Hi Ethan,

Thanks for the second video. Below is an email exchange that I had with someone on the development team for OmniFocus. After watching the new video, I am wondering if the parallel vs. sequential functionality will satisfy at least part of the below. Once I get my invitation for the beta, I should be able to determine if this is case. If it is the case, then it would be cool to be able to choose a default in preferences.

In terms of adhering to GTD, one of the premises is to keep your mind clear. Performing a weekly review, creating context based tasks for the coming week and then executing those tasks thereby draining down those context based lists goes a long way to promoting the mental sanity that GTD is all about. That being said, in the second video that I just watched I actually didn’t care for the next sequential task automatically showing up in context based lists automatically. However, I can imagine that in certain cases it might be kind of handy. What I would like to see is a preference for a default behavior, but then be able to tune the behavior on a per project/sub-probject basis.

Also, in regards to date related tasks, my preference would be to only see events due today or before. Future events would be filtered out and I should be able to show and hide them at will. I have GTD fully implemented in Microsoft Outlook (I customized it and had a developer code in some additional functionality) and it works great! I don’t need to see that I have to get my car inspected until the first of the month in which the inspection is required. I’m not exactly sure how OmniFocus handles this, but I’ve inferred through what I’ve seen to date that the functionality described above is not what is happening.

Comments would be much appreciated!

Can’t wait for beta invitation to show up! Keep up the good work.

Kindly,

James

FROM ME: May 02 2007

Hello there,

very cool - I especially like the sub-contexts and folders idea.

Thoughts:

• About 15 minutes in, filters were demonstrated. When going through this, it occurred to me that the concept of “next actions” is flawed in that OmniFocus defines next actions, not the user. Following my weekly review, what should appear in contexts are only my next actions, the items that I’ll be actively working on throughout the week.* When you demonstrated parallel and linear projects, in both cases only the first item was a next action, and therefore only those items appeared when the next action filter was applied. IMHO, next actions should be determined by the user during the weekly review and it should also be the default view for contexts.* This method would be truer to GTD and have the added benefit of (potentially) syncing only “next action” items to a portable device.

• Yeah, so inline with the above, in the beginning of the video, you flipped between projects view and contexts view and my first thought was - Ooooops! To reiterate what I said above - according to the principles of GTD next actions should be determined by the user during the weekly review and it should also be the default view for contexts. OmniFocus currently forces the user to have to apply a filter in order to correctly view their data. Maybe you could make “next actions” the default filter for the contexts view, but also have it as a preference setting?

Thanks much- keep up the good work!

James

FROM ME: May 9, 2007 Replying to an Email from OMNIFOCUS on May 2, 2007

my replies =============> 

Hi James,

Thank you for the kind words and thank you for taking the time to write us! We really appreciate your help.

This is something we thought long and hard about. We tried to find a happy medium between those who just want next actions chosen for them and for those who’d like the true GTD style. In the video, you’ll notice that the first item in a parallel project is by default the next action. However, OmniFocus works just like OmniOutliner in that you can reorder them to select your own next action.

The next action is just the task at the top of the list. We’re considering additional methods of specifying next actions, however, so if you have a suggestion, we’re all ears. :-) =============> Tell me if I am wrong, but it seems as though you (you being the Omni development team) made a decision between doing it the current way OR doing it the GTD way.  Maybe the right solution is to create a win-win scenario in which users can work using the GTD method, or by simply having OmniFocus pick the next action for them (auto-pick).  You guys are infinitely more creative than myself, so please take my idea with a grain of salt….  What I am thinking is adding in/exposing a next actions flag/checkbox in the main column view.  Using the auto-pick method, the first item of each project (in the video the blue item) automatically has the flag set.  In GTD mode, the user clicks the flag/checkbox for each item in order to set the next action flag.  I am imagining myself reviewing all my projects once a week, looking at one particular project, and probably picking a couple of items in the project that I might flag as “next action”.  Then for the next seven days, I am simply working in my context views as per GTD.

With the filters, by default this is not the setup, but you can specify to only show next actions and have it become your default setting. =============> cool - that is good news!

I apologize if these points weren’t clear in the video. Thank you very much for taking the time to write us and please don’t hesitate to contact me with any suggestions you might have. We really appreciate your support! =============> thanks for making the video and of course for considering my input.  It would be cool if you did another video later on in the development process.

Thanks!

Support Ninja The Omni Group

What’s the “yin-yang” “quote marks” icon in your menubar?

What are you using to display the keystrokes you use in the screencast itself?

HI there,

Have a question regarding omnifocus, how do you get actions stripped when you tick the box. Mine are disappearing…I would like to keep them stripped like you have (more clear for me an I can what have been done.

Thanks

PS great screen-casts, great tricks well THANK YOU!!