ORGANIZING CREATIVITY

• Inbox — if I quickly need to capture a task without having the time to sort it into the correct project.
• Projects — all projects (see below)
• Flagged — you can flag action selectively. I use this feature extensively to decide which actions I want to do on that day (and only those actions I want to do on that day!). See below.
• Forecast — beautiful view of the tasks that are due today (according to due dates, not according to flag status).
• Contexts — Tasks have a context, usually used to describe the places or circumstances you need for the task, e.g., some tasks can only be done at home (e.g., repair the roof), others require specific people, etc. See below.
• Map — If you have set locations to your tasks. I do not use the map frequently enough for it to be of use to me.
• Search — like the name says.

Rituals (idea from asianefficiency.com) is the first project I open each day on my way to work. It has six repeating tasks that reappear each day. Going through these rituals helps me to prepare for the day.

As you can see, I review my annual goals (because otherwise I forget them), my monthly goals (work and private — monthly because this is the largest time horizon I can sustain), review my calendar for tasks that absolutely have to be done today (usually meetings or other time critical stuff), review the waiting for context (all tasks with the context currently set to “waiting” are listed there, useful to remind others of their tasks ), process the Inbox (e.g., assign projects and contexts to these tasks) and finally — and most importantly — pick the most important task for the day.

I flag any actions that I want to do on the given day — and only those actions I think I can actually do. Reason being I think if you have all your tasks visible you have to do, it overwhelms you and you are prone to do nothing. Thus I plan each morning after reviewing the information in “Rituals” (see above) what I can actually do on that day. If I finish early, great, if not, I plan more carefully the next day.

Of course, there are other pressing tasks that I would love to do that day but really cannot. So I have a second layer of tasks that are critical. I use a context (see blow) called “Do (soon)”. Each task that I should do soon gets this context, in comparison to the normally used context “Do” (for a task that is not so time critical). Point being, I can quickly see which tasks are also pressing, yet I only see the tasks I have to do today.

Note: I rarely use “Due” dates, because for fixed appointments I use the calendar (which fulfills a different purpose than a task manager) and which data OmniFocus also shows (see “Forecast” below). Other tasks are often time criticalbut not that critical to do on a specific day, so due dates do not make that much sense for me.

OmniFocus shows you the Task and the Project (smaller in gray) below the task. This is usually all you need. You can put in more information, including longer text notes, images and sound recordings in the task entry.

Projects gives an overview of all the tasks, sorted and grouped into projects or project folders. They can be sequential (first task in project has to be carried out before second task, etc.), parallel, or single actions.I use two folders — private and work (see below), a sequential project called “Rituals” (based on asianefficiency.com), and three single actions projects (annual goals, private monthly goals, work monthly goals).

OmniFocus is great in giving you exactly the information you need, e.g., the amount of projects, how many are overdue or due soon, and it allows you a quick view on all remaining actions.

Note that “Annual Goals”, “Monthly Goals (work)”, and “Monthly Goals (private)” are not tasks per se that are integrated into “Work” or “Private”. They are high-level reminders. Whereas they get checked when they are completed, it is the tasks in “Private” and “Work” that I refer to in doing them. The reason for having them as single “tasks” in an extra project folder is that I have a lot of private and work projects, but not all are goals for the given month or year. That is a conscious decision where a simple review of the “Private” and “Work” folder would overwhelm me each day.

I have split the projects in two general categories — private is the first one (I’ve covered some text because — well, it is private).

There is “Single Actions” for all the miscellaneous stuff that does not warrant an own project, some projects that are important to me, and a “Private Someday/Maybe” section for all the future stuff I would like to do. I strongly recommend keeping such a list — it keeps the ‘more distant wishes’ away from the current todo’s …

• Do (soon) — For tasks that are time critical yet not fixed to a given date.
• Do — All other tasks I simply have to do, no matter where.
• Errands — The only location specific task, or rather, the context that specifies that it is neither the office (sorted under work projects) or (most likely) home (sorted under private projects).
• Waiting — Important context, each task where I have to rely on/have delegated the task to someone else gets this context. It’s no longer a “Do” or “Do (soon)” context because I cannot do anything but remember the person to do this task. I check this context each day during the “Rituals” (see above).
• Annual Goals, Monthly Goals, and Rituals have these contexts to prevent interfering with “Do” or “Do (soon)” tasks.
• I do not use “office“, “home“, or “people” contexts, because most of my work tasks I can do anyway, I look at my private projects usually at home (or on my way home), and I love eMail communication so there is no need for a people context because I can reach them anytime and anywhere.

• On top it shows you the overdue tasks (here: 4 in the Past, it doesn’t matter really when they were due, I missed them, that’s what counts), the tasks due today (here: none), and the tasks that are due in the next four days and in the future (here: 6 on Monday — my rituals, 1 on Wednesday, 1 on Thursday, 5 in the Future).
• Due Today would show tasks that are due today if there were any.
• Calendar Events access your calendar and shows the appointments of your calendar. Very useful and very interesting view — if it were a time-frame it would show small bars, giving you a good overview of the day in minimum space.