![]() ![]() ![]() While it can be fun to dabble in some early planning, I do not need to see that project on a weekly basis. For example, I am contemplating a trip to Europe in 2015 or 2016. So how can we deal with all this lead in the saddle bags?įirstly, use your regular GTD™ review to place ‘on hold’ any project that you will not be working on for some time. If an estimated 60 per cent of my tasks are not very important and not really urgent, that means that I would have to plough through some 420 tasks in my regular GTD™ review for very little purpose. Strategy 2: place projects on hold and defer start dates Worse, you may overlook a genuine deadline as you get used to all that red in the forecast view… You will see several tasks turn red every day for no other reason than that you thought you would have completed them by today, and without any real consequence other than perhaps a slight dip in your self–esteem. If you use due dates for ‘aspirational deadlines’ you will clog up and devalue the Omnifocus ‘forecast’ view and give yourself a lot of extra work in the process. A due date will typically be required for non–negotiable and date–specific tasks, such as bill or contract payments, travel arrangements or critical path items in project management. Only use a due date for a task that has a deadline in the outside world rather than in your head. I want to show you now how I draw on those tools in managing the high volume of tasks in my Omnifocus file. not important and not urgent: defer dates, place project on hold, weekly review.important but not urgent: flags, defer dates, focus view, weekly review.urgent but not important: due dates, forecast view.urgent and important: due dates, forecast view, focus view.Omnifocus provides a number of tools that effectively let you manage each of those categories: ![]() not important and not urgent: routine or low priority tasks and non-action items (such as lists)-around 60% of Omnifocus entries.important but not urgent: my priority tasks-around 20% of tasks.urgent but not important: other people’s priorities-around 15% of tasks.urgent and important: my top priorities-an estimated 5% of tasks.If I were to run my 700 tasks through a priority matrix they could probably be triaged as follows: So read on if you are interested in the strategies that I have developed to manage a high volume of tasks in Omnifocus 2. Including these makes the file bigger, but also ramps up the fun factor: I do not just fire up Omnifocus when there’s another bill to be paid… Not all of these are to–do items in the narrow sense: some ‘projects’ contain lists of books to read, movies to watch, places I’d like to travel to. My Omnifocus file typically holds around 700 entries in some 60 projects. The downside of following the great GTD™ guru’s advice to the letter is that you end up with a lot of ‘stuff’ in your trusted system. The two most compelling features of Omnifocus 2 for desktops are the review function and the Forecast view-both adapted from the groundbreaking iPad app. Is there an existing tool that can easily import the OmniFocus data from multiple users, or can OmniFocus itself be used conveniently in this way? Some of our colleagues use Merlin and Jira - both of which seem more robust than I really need.The first principle of David Allen’s Getting Things Done™ (GTD™) approach to task and project management is that you should capture every task or project that comes into your head in what he calls a trusted system.įor me, Omnifocus has provided that trusted system since 2009 and the rollout of Omnifocus 2 for iMac in June 2014 has further strengthened what was already a powerful, versatile and reliable app. I can imagine having each individual export a file on a weekly basis for the manager to review. If so, what is the workflow? Is the workflow dependent on data in the cloud (which will generally be challenging in our work environment)? Before I urge the rest of this team to adopt OmniFocus, I'd like to understand if people have had successful workflows with multiple OmniFocus users sharing their projects and tasks. I've read through threads bemoaning the lack of OmniFocus integration with OmniPlan, and have seen that collaboration is in the 2019 product roadmap. My manager has asked whether there are ways to use OmniFocus to help track, and possibly manage, the open projects and priorities for a small team (~6 people). I'm relatively new to OmniFocus and am loving it for organizing projects and tasks at work. ![]()
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