Simplicity Is Bliss

Use Case: How I use OmniFocus to organise my life

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 17:57:30 +0100

Use Case: How I use OmniFocus to organise my life:

In his post from October 2010 Tyler Hall provides some insights into how he uses OmniFocus on a daily basis to “get shit done”. While the post obviously is a few days old, it remains inspiring how people put OmniFocus to work in the context of their individual lives, jobs and hats they wear.

I have recently decided that my planned OmniFocus ebook will centre around real-life use cases describing how people put the application to work for themselves. Over the coming weeks I will try to collect as much input and inspiration from all the well-known and less-known OmniFocus users out there and would appreciate any support I can get.

Watch out for more insights how different people use OmniFocus on real-life.

Adding actions to OmniFocus from Terminal

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 20:47:35 +0100

Adding actions to OmniFocus from Terminal:

A while ago the great Brett Terpstra, well known for his Markdown tools, has released a Command Line Interface (CLI) tool for adding tasks to OmniFocus. It’s not straight forward to setup as you need to install a few Ruby gems first. If the last sentence sounds like from a different planet, this tool isn’t exactly for you. If you know Ruby, gems and Scripting Bridges, you may actually also have a use case for CLI tool that adds you stuff to OmniFocus.

Hi, great post on the "Daily Review" a while ago. I'd really like to try the "Verify that next actions exist for all projects"-Script You mentioned, but the page where You found it is no linger online. Do You have it (the script) in handy, perhaps?

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 13:21:02 +0100

Sorry to hear the link is broken. Please find the ‘Verify if Next Action Exists’ script for download here. I need to mention that I no longer use the script myself as OmniFocus view bar options now include a ‘Stalled’ filter for projects that does about the same thing.

How do I script the OF database? is there a published object model, or do i have to reverse engineer this myself?

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 13:16:40 +0100

To my knowledge there is no documented object model for OmniFocus’ database. I understand it is accessible with SQL queries and if you take a look at some of Rob Trew’s scripts on the OmniFocus forums, you will find some hints how to interact with it. Rob is the only one I have seen so far directly accessing OmniFocus’ database in his scripts.

However, as a word of caution, it is clearly not designed for 3rd party interaction (otherwise there would be an API), and you may get yourself and your data into trouble. Make a backup before hacking away.

More on TextExpander and OmniFocus David Sparks, a man of many...

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 13:09:00 +0100

More on TextExpander and OmniFocus

David Sparks, a man of many trades and fellow blogger, picked up on my recent screencast about combining TextExpander and OmniFocus, and posted one himself. He definitely has some time-saving snippets for OmniFocus on the Mac, which he also made available for download in his original post.

In his post he also covers the use of iOS text shortcuts for similar applicaton in OmniFocus for iPhone and iPad. Something I haven’t got to use yet, but if David uses it, I better should as well.

Export a list of active OmniFocus projects to a text file

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 11:46:00 +0100

Export a list of active OmniFocus projects to a text file:

Not really sure why I didn’t post about it here, but Justin Lancy of Veritrope scripting fame has picked up on a tweet of mine asking for help exporting a list of all active projects in OmniFocus. His script takes it as far as an alphabetically sorted text file you can save to any location you chose. While I originally wanted an export to OmniOutliner, I believe this solution is more universal and I can find my own way from here.

My use case for this list is my Weekly Review. I like having a simple overview of all my current commitments to see if I am focussing in the right direction. Getting a similar one page overview in OmniFocus is difficult and highly depends on the theme you are using.

Update: Chris Brogan with help from OmniFocus scripting legend Rob Trew extended the script to generate a weekly report. It groups projects by folders and sub-folders, skips single action lists and also shows all items completed in the last 7 days. Chris actually uses it to send a report to his boss. If you need more sophistication then this script is for you.

Quick Entry for OmniFocus on iPad & iPhone

Sun, 22 Jan 2012 21:01:05 +0100

Quick Entry for OmniFocus on iPad & iPhone:

Great post in the OmniFocus forums about creating a better and faster capturing workflow for OmniFocus on iOS (works for iPad and iPhone). It makes use of the OmniFocus URL scheme, which triggers the Quick Entry when you add enter ‘omnifocus:///add’ into Mobile Safari.

Adding in some magic by iShortCuts and you’ll have a one-click-to-capture experience straight from your iPad’s/iPhone’s home screen.

Better OmniFocus integration with GMail by Mailplane

Sun, 22 Jan 2012 14:19:46 +0100

Better OmniFocus integration with GMail by Mailplane:

The popular Mac OS X desktop client for GoogleMail, Mailplane, has been updated to v2.5.5 and sports a significantly improved integration with OmniFocus now. Get the latest version of Mailplane and download the OmniFocus plug-in.

The plug-in allows you select text within an email and invoke the OmniFocus quick entry, populated with the selected text in the notes field as well as a link back to the email in Mailplane. Read the installation documentation

Using TextExpander and OmniFocus for tracking actions &...

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 19:00:05 +0100

Using TextExpander and OmniFocus for tracking actions & projects

In this short screencast I am demonstrating how I use TextExpander inside of OmniFocus to track projects, which I have delegated and where I don’t want to track individual actions.

Basically all these projects are tracked as individual entries in a Single Action List called ‘Delegated Projects’ and I use the note field and TextExpander to capture easy to read status updates. I get these updates either through weekly status calls or meetings I have with the project owners or via email.

Whenever I am asked to provide an update myself or meet anyone associated with the project, I can quickly and easily engage on the subject.

I also use TextExpander to capture single Waiting For actions I record during meetings or calls. TextExpander helps me to reduce the time and the typing required to capture these while I still want to follow and remain engaged in the conversation. Querying my Twitter followers that seems to be the most common use case amongst them as well.

Stressing out with your iPhone

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 09:06:33 +0100

Stressing out with your iPhone:

I can definitely confirm the results of this study. Sometimes, unfortunately, for myself, but clearly for a lot of my colleagues and customers.

Stress was directly linked to the number of times people checked their phones on average, and people with the most extreme levels of stress were troubled by “phantom” vibrations when no message had been received, the survey showed.

Simple solutions include turning off notifications for email, text/iMessage, Twitter and IM. You can also configure your email account on your iPhone to not get messages pushed, but only polled on your explicit request. Calms you down significantly and let you be in the moment, e.g. the conversation you are having, the meeting you are in or the dinner you are enjoying with someone who is important to you.

Adding files to OmniFocus with Alfred

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 08:58:00 +0100

Adding files to OmniFocus with Alfred:

Another fine piece of OmniFocus extension work by Don Southard allowing you to add the current selected file from Finder to your favourite productivity application via your favourite application launcher Alfred. Check out Don’s blog for more helpful Alfred extensions and OmniFocus hacks.

OmniFocus Statistics for the productivity geek Robin Francis...

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 23:02:00 +0100

OmniFocus Statistics for the productivity geek

Robin Francis Trew, aka RobTrew well known AppleScript guru in the OmniFocus forum, has released this little application that provides you with detail statistics about what lives in your OmniFocus database. It won’t help you the get any work done or make the world a better place, but if you ever wondered how many projects you have it’ll tell you the naked truth.

Uncluttering in the real and in the virtual world

Fri, 06 Jan 2012 21:14:00 +0100

Uncluttering in the real and in the virtual world:

What looks like a very standard post about getting your ducks in a row as you start into a new year (purge stuff, file, organise) intrigued me a bit. Read the below (or the entire post)

Once all the purge and other items are handled, take a look at all the objects you have in your keep pile. Do you need to do another round of uncluttering? If you’re feeling more courageous about purging items, now is the time to do it. When you are satisfied with your keep pile, sort the objects into new piles of like items — pencils with pencils, envelopes with envelopes, jeans with jeans. When everything is in piles by type, examine what you have and compare it to your storage systems. It is only at that this point that you should consider going out and buying organizing systems. Before you do, though, look through your house or office to see if you already own something that could hold and organize your objects. If you do, you don’t have any need to go out in the cold to buy anything.

Now read it again and don’t think of your desk, home office or kitchen, but about your ‘trusted system’, be it OmniFocus, pen and paper or some cloud-based, ultra-funky, collaborative to-do app.

Lots of parallels between the real and virtual world when it comes to uncluttering!

I am a big Alfred fan and it has replaced LaunchBar for me....

Fri, 06 Jan 2012 16:08:00 +0100

I am a big Alfred fan and it has replaced LaunchBar for me. Although I am using it for quite a while now, the above free ScreenCastsOnline video tutorial by Don McAllister also taught me a thing or two about Alfred’s PowerPack features.

Great mind at work: no OmniFocus, no iCloud and no...

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 16:38:07 +0100

Great mind at work: no OmniFocus, no iCloud and no distraction-free writing environment!

idonethis:

John Lennon’s to-do list varied from meeting guys with HBO, to buying marmalade, to errands around the house.

Even rockstars get stuff done! We wonder how he recorded his accomplishments.

(via brainpickings)

Getting Creative Things Done

Wed, 04 Jan 2012 15:15:00 +0100

Getting Creative Things Done:

Great article describing a common problem many people face who think their work isn’t primarily creative, but actually turns out to be.

To-do list creatives advance in their careers based on the quality of their creative output. Our logistical responsibilities, however, fight against this goal. Most to-do list creatives cannot drop everything to spend days lost in monk-like focus. But the result of instead squeezing creative work into distracted bursts, driven by deadline pressure, is mediocrity.

Cal Newport comes up with an approach and a set of rules similar to the ones I use whereby I try to block at least one 90 minute block per day out of my schedule to focus.

At the beginning of each week, decide on the one (or, at most, two) big creative projects that will receive your attention over the next five days. Ignore the temptation to make a small amount of progress on a large amount of projects. Creative work is hard. If you want high-quality output, you have to focus your energy.

Block out time for these projects on your calendar. The increments should at least 1 hour long, and preferably 2 to 3. When you block these hours out depends on your schedule for the week. What’s important, however, is that you treat these blocks like you would any other important appointment: the time is inviolable, and you must work around these blocks when scheduling meetings or other work.

Set rules for your creative blocks. The rules should describe what is NOT allowed during creative work. For example, I have a strict ban on email during creative blocks.

Focus on process, not goals. The final piece is arguably the most important: don’t set goals for your creative blocks. Creative work is not a task to be checked off a next actions list. If you decide that you need to complete a particular project by the end of a block, for example, you’re likely to either be frustrated by your lack of progress or rush out something mediocre. Instead, focus on process. Decide how, exactly, you are going to approach the work. This focuses your energy. High-quality results will follow naturally from this focused work.

iPad, iThoughtsHD, iAWriter and iCloud: A relationship made in...

Tue, 03 Jan 2012 16:04:27 +0100

iPad, iThoughtsHD, iAWriter and iCloud: A relationship made in heaven and kept together by Markdown.

This is a great setup for writers, bloggers and people working on concept since you can mind map and structure things in iThoughtsHD, export it as Markdown straight into iA Writer (on your iPad or Mac) and develop the details.

Seems I need to move from Mindjet iPad back to iThoughts to make this great workflow work for me.

We are all sitting and lying around too much. In this...

Tue, 03 Jan 2012 09:20:45 +0100

We are all sitting and lying around too much. In this beautifully illustrated video, Doctor Mike Evans talks about the single best thing you can do for your health. Spoiler: You will need to invest less than 2% of your time only.

There isn’t much sense on being hyper-productive if it is at the expense of your health.

Get more out of meetings with TextExpander

Mon, 02 Jan 2012 13:08:00 +0100

I am on a manager’s schedule as opposed to a maker’s schedule. Whether you think this is a bad or good thing, it certainly means that I have a lot of meetings each day. Given that I work in an international cooperation that has a complex, multi-dimensional and geographical distributed organisation, many of my meetings are either audio, web or video conferences. It comes as no surprise that many of these meetings are poorly prepared with no clear agenda or objective. If you have five of these on a day, you really look back and ask yourself what you have achieved other than burning valuable lifetime on the phone. But you either accept the status quo or the responsibility to change it. Changing it means you need to set an example, independent of where in the hierarchy you sit. For those meetings that I host or which I at least co-host or influence, I have changed my approach from the typical “let’s wing it” to more conscious preparation. It surprisingly doesn’t really take much more time, but delivers significantly improved results.

Spend a couple of minutes thinking about each meeting

As part of my morning routine (Daily Review) in OmniFocus I scan my calendar for meetings I host or co-host and spend about two minutes each thinking about the following questions:

What can I realistically get out of this meeting?
Which topics need to be discussed?
What do people, including myself, need to prepare?

The way I reflect on these questions has a very practical application: I actually send out reminder emails to the meeting participants as a result of this process.

Simplify the process to make it happen

However, if I would have to craft each email from scratch, I would likely find myself procrastinating on the task one morning. Consequently I wanted to make it as easy as possible to get these emails out every morning - and consequently reflect on the related meetings. The way I went about it was to employ TextExpander and it’s fill-in functionality to help me out. Since I have basically two meeting types I can prepare this way, I created two fill-in snippets in TextExpander that I use.

One-to-Many & Many-to-Many meetings

These are meetings I either host or co-host and involve at least two other people, very often much more. The snippet I use looks as follows:

%fill:recepient%,

We have a session planned for %fill:today-tomorrow% with regards to %fill:subject%. As part of the session, I'd like to discuss the following items:

* %fill:agenda-items-1% * %fill:agenda-items-2% * %fill:agenda-items-3% %|

I hope this helps you prepare for the meeting. Looking forward talking to you.

Cheers, -Sven

Depending on the number of attendees I might use their names in the greeting, otherwise I use the universal “All”. I then remind people of when we have the meeting so they can make sure they still have it in their agenda and at the right time (you still see scheduling issues across multiple timezones, even though we live in the 21st century).

I then proceed to typically provide three agenda items, which also summarise objectives/desired outcomes and owners, if applicable. In the TextExpander snippet I position the cursor directly after the third agenda item in case I want to add more or reduce to two.

One-to-one meetings

When I have one-to-one meetings, be it with one of my staff, a peer or my management, the snippet I use is slightly different. Mainly because you use slightly different language. However, the idea of reminding people of the meeting and set out a few topics to be discussed (and prepared) remains the same.

%fill:recepient%,

We have a 1.1 session planned for %fill:today-tomorrow%. As part of the session, I'd like to discuss the following items:

* %fill:agenda-items-1% * %fill:agenda-items-2% * %fill:agenda-items-3% %|

I hope this helps you prepare for the meeting. Looking forward talking to you.

Cheers, -Sven

My best practice again is to send the email in the morning, or the evening before, with a subject “[TODAY] Our 1.1”.

Using universal language

The single aspect I thought most about when developing the above snippets was the language I use. These mails go to very diverse audiences, very often involving my management up to Vice President levels, and consequently need to effectively address the meeting contents and preparation in a language appropriate for everyone. Instead of using “Please come prepared.”, which I would use with my staff and peers, I choose “I hope this helps you to prepare.”, which should resonate with every level. Considering a universally applicable language is quite important in order to make any canned emails work.

Add it to your routine

So when I go through my morning routine, I will find the below entry in OmniFocus

Which causes me to fire up my calendar and go through all my meetings for the day or early the next day. I then open an email for each meeting I host or co-host, add all meeting attendees, chose a suitable subject (typically I use “[TODAY] Meeting subject”), and invoke one of my TextExpander Snippets. I decided to label them ’smeeting’, for standard meetings, and ’11meeting’ for the one-to-ones. Fill the fields, which automatically forces me to think about the meeting and it’s best possible outcome, hit send and done. It takes two minutes per meeting and you will find people becoming more prepared, at least mentally, and with the agenda in mind. Makes all these conference call a bit more useful.

Give away & plans for 2012: A OmniFocus ebook!

Fri, 09 Dec 2011 17:29:00 +0100

With 2012 around the corner lots of productive people or people that just pursue goals in their life are starting to think about the next year: What to focus on, what milestones to target and what dreams to turn into reality.

For 2012 I am focussing my writing efforts on an ebook which I will release in the course of the year. Being the OmniFocus and GTD practitioner that I am, the plan definitely is to write a book for “advanced usage” of OmniFocus.

Help me write my OmniFocus ebook in 2012

While I am in the early stages of outlining the ebook’s content, I’d love to get some outside inspiration from my readers. Which chapters or content in general would you like to see covered in the book? I’d appreciate you leaving your ideas as comments to this post.

Chance to win a original David Allen GTD Coordinator Paper Planner

As a return favour and to help you getting ready for 2012, I am giving away an original GTD Coordinator 2012 Paper Planner from the David Allen Company.

It comes in junior size and with all sections you would expect from GTD gear from the origin.

If you leave a comment and a tweet referencing this post and @simplicitybliss, I’ll contact you in case you are the lucky winner. Give-away contest runs until December 20th 2011.

Help getting more ideas and inspiration to make the content of the book even better by tweeting about this post. Thank you so much.