Get Everything Done

Over at the OmniFocus forum someone said: "I am deeply impressed by the AutoFocus method. The admin of this forum should merciless kill all entries discussing it: This method has the capacity to put all developers of time management software out of business. AF might very well be the next GTD – only that it won't create much business, because all you need is a cheap notebook, a calendar and a pencil, read 8 rules and 10 minutes later you're up and running."

http://forums.omnigroup.com/showthread.php?t=11373

Just to amuse you, too...

Actually, I am quite a fan of most of Omni's software, and my experience is that they are more driven by the desire to make great software rather than commercial considerations (thought of course they do need to make a living). OmniFocus is not particularly tied to GTD. I have been using it very successfully for a year as an electronic implementation of DIT and at the moment am experimenting with running AutoFocus within it since for me AF doesn't work terribly well within a notebook format. OmniFocus does have the great advantage that it synchronizes easily with an iPhone.

I have always found the Omni developers receptive to suggestions, and it wouldn't surprise me that if AF takes off the way it deserves to, they would either add features to OmniFocus that make AF easy to use within it, or even produce a new AF specific application.

Jaroslav,

Would you mind to share your DIT setup in OmniFocus? I am a "switcher" ;) from GTD to DIT and trying to organize a digital DIT setup, using same tools as with GTD (OF + iCal).

Thanks
Ksenia

Ksenia,

I try a variety of set-ups (I love to tinker) and in the end found that the precise details didn't matter. Here is what I do currently.

1. I don't use iCal. My calendar is still entirely in Palm Desktop. This may change if I get an iPhone.

2. I do use Projects within OmniFocus to organize tasks in hierarchical fashion, either for actual projects, or just areas of activity (eg teaching v research). In retrospect, if I was starting again, I am not sure I would use Projects at all since I am not sure I have gained much by this.

3. I don't use Contexts at all in the GTD manner and instead use the Context functionality within OmniFocus to implement DIT. The current basic structure is to have the Contexts:

Today
Tomorrow
Recurring
Current Initiative
Scheduled
Delegated
Waiting for Information

The last three are in fact sub-contexts of a more general Waiting context to make it a little easier to pick out tasks further down the line. For these I set the Due Date, since this turns the item orange a day or two before the actual date and then red, allowing you to move them into the Tomorrow context. I have Recurring and Current Initiative as sub-contexts of Today. Tasks in these are automatically repeating, so when they get done, they create a new version of the task for the next day.

The basic work process is to work on the Today context, enter new work into Tomorrow and then last thing in the evening move everything from Tomorrow into Today. If you deal with something by delegating or requesting information, you enter it into the appropriate Waiting context and set a due date.

Finally, I also really liked the ideas in Mark's books on deciding on what you were definitely going to do the next day and then keeping track of either how many days in a row you managed this, or giving yourself + or - points. I found the Flag in OmniFocus a great help in doing this, and kept count in a simple Excel spreadsheet.

All this is of course much more complicated than AutoFocus, but at least for me was very helpful in getting going with DIT.

Let me know if this makes sense and you have any questions.

Jaroslav,

Thank you for the detailed description! I like how you use Today and Tomorrow contexts, it helps to accomplish the "closed list" concept more than just assigning everything a due date I guess...
Question: am I understand it correctly that tasks in Scheduled context are not delegated, but belong to "Waiting" context because you are waiting for the due date?

Ksenia,

that is exactly right. However, as I said, I found that the precise set-up wasn't that important and if you prefer to keep Scheduled completely separate and just have Waiting for those actions that are waiting for someone to either do something or provide some information, I think that would work just as well.

For what its worth, I also use Scheduled for automatically repeating tasks that have a long (eg monthly) repeat period, (eg the few monthly bills which are now not on direct debit).

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Who knew that spambots had decent insight into the world of AF.

This recalls the halcyon minutes when AF was the Second-Coming. Unfortunately, like the First-Coming it was quickly abandoned, re-written, and tweaked to fit neatly into what it tried to overcome.

Great camera lenses too FWIW.