Comments on: ~Perspective is Everything with OmniFocus

By: Dee Jay Doc

Dee Jay Doc — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 20:37:03 +0000

I love this 5m duration tip. Actually, I do the same thing, except with a twist. I use flags for Today and 5m for my Weekly MIT’s. Omnifocus for Iphone doesn’t allow you to specify duration, and I spend a lot of time during the week checking, adding, and planning tasks to do Today (or tomorrow, if I’m in bed planning the next days tasks) on my Iphone. I usually plan my weekly MIT’s on my Macbook at the beginning of the week, where I can mark them all with 5m duration. The, during the week, I can flag certain items to be done today (or tomorrow). So it works, despite this unfortunate limitation with the Iphone version on Omnifocus.

By: 2010 in review « John Kendrick’s Weblog

2010 in review « John Kendrick’s Weblog — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 04:28:10 +0000

[...] Top Posts ~iPad – the Perfect GTD Solution?~The Five W's of a Weekly GTD ReviewHow to GTD~Journaling Your Way to GTD~Perspective is Everything with OmniFocus [...]

By: John Kendrick

John Kendrick — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 01:11:30 +0000

Rich – glad to hear the posts are helpful, and thanks for reading, John.

By: rich

rich — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 22:23:38 +0000

just wanted to say thanks for this post (and the series). it’s reinvigorated my OF usage.

I was using OF for both work & personal, but the iPhone app sync is just too slow for me. so i’ve just decided to use Things for personal (I think that workflow works better for it). now that I’m only using the OF desktop app for work projects, your posts are helping me get more out of it. thanks!

By: ~Customizing OmniFocus – the Pathway to Power « John Kendrick’s Weblog

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 23:16:59 +0000

[...] ~Perspective is Everything with OmniFocus [...]

By: ~An Advanced GTD User’s Paradise « John Kendrick’s Weblog

~An Advanced GTD User’s Paradise « John Kendrick’s Weblog — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 16:43:50 +0000

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By: links for 2009-09-30 | /dev/random

links for 2009-09-30 | /dev/random — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 18:01:02 +0000

[...] ~Perspective is Everything with OmniFocus « John Kendrick’s Weblog Good tips for using OmniFocus. (tags: GTD omnifocus) [...]

By: John Kendrick

John Kendrick — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 22:56:41 +0000

@Herman – thanks for your support and I’m glad the posts are helping. I use the duration field to avoid setting due dates for every task. Following strict GTD rules, only tasks that are truly due, (meaning that you would need to request an extension, lose money, reduce reputation, etc. to change it), should be dated in your GTD. This is often referred to as the hard landscape. Tasks that you would like to do by a given date should not be put into the hard landscape (given a due date). So to save work, I flag tasks that I would like to do in the coming week. And then, each day, I look at the flagged perspective and give those tasks that I want to do today, the 5m duration. My daily perspective displays tasks marked with a 5m duration, and tasks that have a due date that is due or overdue. The nice thing about this workflow is that those I’ve flagged for this week, will already be flagged for next week if not done. Those that are “flagged as 5m” will be in my daily list tomorrow and everyday until completed. And the best part is that I am not spinning wheels changing due dates that are really not “date certain” – obviously the reason for the hard landscape rule. I hope this helps, and thanks for reading, John.

By: Herman Lintvelt

Herman Lintvelt — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 20:37:20 +0000

Hi John. I’ve been using Omnifocus for almost a year now, but I’m finding I need to use it more efficiently, and your posts are helping :-).

I’m just curious: why do you use the duration field (setting it to 5min) to flag your daily tasks? Is the due date field not sufficient for you?
I find that I am moving the due date on to later dates a lot on tasks as they become due, or during my weekly or daily reviews, so in some way I need to start thinking more carefully when specifying the due date of tasks.