May 2012
15 posts
Your own work first →
At the beginning of the day, faced with an overflowing inbox, a list of messages on your voicemail, and the to-do list from your last meeting, it’s tempting to want to “clear the decks” before you start on your own most important work. When you’re up-to-date, you tell yourself, your mind will be clear and it will be easier to focus on the task at hand. The trouble with this approach...
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A contrarian view of procrastination →
I have a contrarian view of procrastination: in most cases it’s a good thing. It’s your mind’s way of telling you it doesn’t see a smart plan. Either the goal doesn’t make sense or you don’t have a believable way of accomplishing it. Successful, productive people don’t blithely choose a goal and then charge after it. They take time to gather evidence; they study those whose have succeeded and...
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“Facing a sea of infinity, it’s easy to despair, sure that you will never...”
– Seth Godin on ‘Dancing on the edge of finished’
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OmniFocus date manipulation with AppleScript →
The extensibility of OmniFocus is nearly unlimited and AppleScript is the way of leveraging it. Ryan Davis posted a nice overview of AppleScripts that help him manipulating task dates.
Defer takes the selected tasks and shifts their start and due dates by a user defined number.
Skip filters on the selected repeating tasks, marks them as done, and then deletes them.
Stagger Dates takes the...
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“Complexity is a chronic infection. Once you’ve got it you spend lots of...”
– Jason Fried (37signals)
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nvALT tips →
Just as the new SimpleNote client Justnotes is out and endorsed by people like John Gruber and Ben Brooks, Gabe from Macdrifter reminds us what great functionality there is to discover in nvALT.
JustNotes is a great client, but it is the equivalent of the iOS Twitter app where nvALT is more like Tweetbot. A number of Gabe’s tips were new to me and reassured me that I am using the right...
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A Super-Efficient Email Process →
Everyone has their way to deal with email. I have covered mine lately. Peter Bregman shares his approach on the HBR blog network.
Send: I start my timer and begin by writing emails I had planned to send. This often includes follow-ups to meetings, thank-you notes, questions, and scheduling and other requests. I do this first so that if someone gets back to me immediately I have time to...
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Purging OmniFocus backups automatically with Hazel →
Please have a look into OmniFocus backup folder now. It is typically at ‘~/Documents/OmniFocus Backups’ unless you configured differently it in OmniFocus’ preferences.
How big is it? 500MB? 2GB or even 16GB? Mine was 2GB yesterday since I didn’t clean up old backups since half a year.
There is of course a more efficient way that doesn’t even require you to...
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Clipping from nvALT into OmniFocus
I have started to use nvALT again to take my notes during meetings and calls. Yesterday was a rather epic call day with 8 out of the 10 hours I worked spent on the phone. Consequently many notes were taken and lots of actions had to be clipped from nvALT to OmniFocus for processing and tracking.
When I finished hitting my OmniFocus clipping hotkey (⌘⌥^-C) about twenty times, I was shocked...
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Spring Cleaning OmniFocus' Look & Feel
When I did the radical revamp of my OmniFocus setup last weekend, I also followed R-Miguel’s idea of refreshing the look & feel of the application I look at every day.
Until last week I was happily using the Light ‘Solarized’ theme by Ben Brooks, which is very good theme. But it was time for something fresh and hence I went out to OFThemes.com and checked out what was on...
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Spring Cleaning OmniFocus →
I really went numb with my OmniFocus library recently. There was too much of everything: Tasks, projects, single action lists, folders, someday/maybe items and contexts. As a result OmniFocus became less trusted to me since I could not see the important stuff in all the clutter. Consequently I started procrastinating at my to-do list.
First thing to do when you fell of the bandwagon is to get...
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“The key benefit [of Getting Things Done] is freedom – freedom from the sources...”
– David Allen on the essence of GTD
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My two most important inbox rules
The way I process my email is as simplified as it can be. It is really designed to help me focus on the message itself to understand what it means to me i.e., action, information or nothing.
However, I work for a huge American company and email is, as in most corporation of similar size, out of control. Consequently I cannot allow everything to enter my inbox, at least not if I want to have a...
April 2012
11 posts
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Meeting notes, date math and TextExpander
You really save time and increase productivity if you identify those things you keep doing over and over again in the exact same way. ALso all of us have better things to pursue during on our time on earth than do monkey work.
I am currently looking at the way I take notes or produce minutes from meetings and calls I attend or host. It turns out that there are a few elements I type over and over...
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Tagging in OmniFocus →
Great hack by Jan-Yves Ruzicka to introduce the concept of ‘tagging’ to OmniFocus. He leverages the saved search functionality in Perspectives to do that.
There’s one more thing I can do to make this process easier, and that’s set up a perspective. Perspectives remember search terms, so I can take a snapshot of this view as it stands, and use it whenever I need to refer...
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OmniFocus and Basecamp →
Amongst all online collaboration solutions Basecamp is the best one I ever came across. 37signals is putting a lot of thoughts and efforts into the platform to keep it simple, purpose driven and extremely user-friendly. Unfortunately I am required to use a different platform at work which has yet to adapt the design principles of Basecamp.
Those that manage their personal tasks in OmniFocus and...
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Managing Email with Smart Mailboxes and MailTags
Email is not your main job, at least for most of us. But likely it is an important part of your job. Email has become a substantial part of our communication and unfortunately also a primary source of distraction.
You don’t need to like email, I certainly don’t. But you need to deal with it and since you may not like it and it is only a tool to get your real job done, you should deal...
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OmniFocus Mail.app rule with attachments →
Bryan Kyle had an itch and scratched it.
One things that has always bothered me about it is that it doesn’t do anything with attachments. If you create one of these specially formatted messages and attach a file, you would expect that the attachment would be added to the newly minted action.
With his modified AppleScript Mail.app will now honour the attachments in any email being processed...
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OmniFocus project templates on iOS →
Nice little hack worked out in the OmniFocus forums and summarised by Robert Agcaoili.
To Create A Project Template
Create project for template purposes
Put project “On Hold”. Project is now a template.
The iOS Workaround For Copying A Template
Set template to repeat everyday.
To duplicate, change project from “On Hold” to “Complete”.
New copy of that Project will appear.
...
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Two lists to look at every day →
Just to keep drilling on the theme of flexibility vs. discipline
List 1: Your Focus List (the road ahead)
What are you trying to achieve? What makes you happy? What’s important to you? Design your time around those things. Because time is your one limited resource and no matter how hard you try you can’t work 25/8.
List 2: Your Ignore List (the distractions)
To succeed...
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Applying discipline to email routines
When I recently reflected on flexibility vs. discipline a number of things came to my mind where I am not applying enough discipline, at least not by my own standards. One of them, with little surprise, is email.
There are days where I simply live in my inbox, waiting for the next batch of emails to come and respond to them in the most flexible manner. Email is a prime example of everything that...
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“The truth though, is that doing what you’ve been doing is going to get you...”
– Seth Godin on ‘Extending the narrative’
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Collecting and Processing →
Turns out that Aleh Cherp writes a great blog about workflows and productivity on the Mac for academics. While I am no academic, I still found tons of useful and relevant posts on Macademic. The most recent one is about capturing and processing with OmniFocus.
March 2012
11 posts
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Dosed Weekly Project Review →
If you take the GTD idea of what constitutes a project (spoiler: More than two physical actions required to achieve desired outcome), you are likely to have between 60-100 projects in OmniFocus simultaneously like I do. Because you are having that amount of projects, you are likely a consistent GTDer and also engage in a review once a week. David Sparks, aka MacSparky, did so as well until he...
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A typical set of OmniFocus perspectives →
Jeff Hunsberger shares his OmniFocus perspectives and how he uses them on his different devices.
Clear Inbox - something I click on at the start of the day and at the end to keep things organized.
High Priority - the aforementioned, often-used perspective.
Work Contexts - the locations and resources I deal with at work.
Home Contexts - things like Pets, Home computer, etc.
...
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Flexibility vs. Discipline
You have goals and you have them because you want to achieve them. They might be big, hairy and audacious, but they are something you strive for.
At the same time you are accepting every meeting request, respond to every email and agree to every project or initiative handed to you. You are just what the business environment expects and life demands you to be, extremely flexible.
If you get to...
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How OmniFocus Can Make You a Better Person →
Cigar smoker, author of the Evernote Essentials ebook and blogging buddy Brett Kelly shares a great story around OmniFocus which, for a change, does not talk about productivity improvements, but how OmniFocus can help you in becoming a more thoughtful person.
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Signs of modern (un)productivity →
Most professionals are still using their subjective, internal mental worlds to try to keep it all together, but that’s a poor way to navigate the new work environment. It results in unclear, distracted and disorganized thinking, and leaves frustration, stress and undermined self-confidence in its wake.
Workers need a set of best practices that is sorely lacking in the professional world....
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Evolution of Contexts →
Nice take on GTD contexts by Roberto Mateu based on my ‘A Fresh Take on Context’ post. Interesting integration of the Pomodoro technique for those that use it.
Pomodoro: this is digital real work. I sit my behind on the chair and for 25 minutes focus on the task. You break for 5 min and then another set. I try to get at least three sets done on a stretch.
Melo: usually digital...
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OmniFocus and Teams →
Jonathan Christopher from Monday By Noon discusses one of the most common issues between personal task and project management across teams
I’m at a crossroads though: is it better for only me to know everything about what I’m working on by sticking with my very personal and personally preferred system, or better to foster an essential ‘team’ aspect of a project. Naturally team cohesiveness is...
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The Precious Hour and the Faux-Zone →
This Rands in Repose post is likely to be the most honest thing I have ever read about productivity of managers like me. It’s also one of the best pieces I’ve read about productivity recently as it reflects more than it gives you bogus tips.
As a frequent occupant of the Faux-Zone, I can attest to its fake productive deliciousness. There is actual value for me in ripping through...
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OmniSyncServer out of beta - OmniFocus web... →
What started in April 2010, long before any major competitor of OmniFocus even wrote blog posts about the complexities of syncing, is now out of beta: The OmniSyncServer. It’s reliable, it’s fast and it’s free.
There’s always a seat for you on our little red wagon. To everyone else: if you were interested in using the server but didn’t want to sign up while it was in in a...
February 2012
20 posts
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Getting better at using keyboard shortcuts →
Working with keyboard shortcuts is undoubtedly the most efficient way to get work done fast. While some keyboard shortcuts stick quite easily - mostly because they are common across applications - others are more difficult to remember.
The post by Macdrifter provides help by offering an easy way to pop-up a cheat sheet that reminds you of certain shortcuts until they stick. Whether you start...
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'Creating Flow with OmniFocus' audiobook by... →
Kourosh Dini has turned his popular ebook ‘Creating Flow with OmniFocus’ into an audiobook, which is now available for purchase on his website.
I can only recommend Kourosh’s book and you should buy and read it. He covers many aspects of OmniFocus and gets you setup right. The book I am working on will be different and not focussing too much on how to get started.
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The problem with daily todo lists
Every morning I sit down to plan my day. I first look at my calendar to see how many meetings and conference calls fill my day and how much time is left to do other work.
Many consider conference calls, meetings and at times even email as disruptions of their actual work. I came to understand that these things are part of my work as well. I try to manage them and balance them with the creative...
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Linking to Mail.app mailboxes from OmniFocus →
The notes field in OmniFocus is got for more than just text. My daily routine article had some suggestions about how to link in applications, folders or documents to OmniFocus tasks or projects.
Christopher Mackay’s post covers a very specific use of the note field.
With some Finder magic, as explained by Christopher, you can access individual mailboxes of Mail.app and link to them...
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Chrome URL to OmniFocus task →
Nice little hack from Aaron Hockley
Next time you’re on a web page in Chrome and want to create a related OmniFocus task, just invoke the OmniURL item from Alfred (you could also set a hotkey). A new item will be created in your OmniFocus inbox with the page’s title as the item text and the URL in the notes field.
While leveraging Alfred, the solution is based on this AppleScript hosted on...
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Better repeat options in new OmniFocus for Mac... →
Something many OmniFocus users have been waiting for.
Repeat every weekday.
Or repeat every weekend day.
Or every Tuesday and Thursday
Or …?
If you set up a “repeat every” action and choose a week-based interval, you can now pick which days of the week it should happen on.
More options to come in a future release and subsequently feature parity in...
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A Brief History of the To-Do List and the... →
But the list, it turns out, might also be the origin of both our highest happiness and our dreariest dissatisfaction.
Yep. Great write-up and apparently an interesting book, which goes a bit deeper than “6 reasons why your todo list doesn’t work” posts.
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Getting down to work on my OmniFocus eBook
I have posted late last year that I want to publish an ebook about OmniFocus for Mac in 2012. Throughout the last months I pondered what approach I will take to make the book as useful as possible to as many as possible readers.
Real-life examples and use cases
After querying my dear Twitter followers it became clear that people are mostly curious how others use OmniFocus to get work done. Of...
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