Mind Like Monkey

Using Flags in Omnifocus

One of my favorite things on OmniFocus are the Flags. OmniFocus allow you to put flags on Projects as well as in Actions. In my particular case, I only used Flags for Actions, but let me explain the concept as I understand it for Projects.

 

Using Flags for projects generate that all actions bellow that project contain the flag, if you are wishing to have a way to make the project or all their actions different or easier to filter, this may be a way to go. As you can see in the image bellow, when you flag the Project, all actions get flagged, therefore is you use a FLAG filter, all will show.

 

 

As I said, I don’t use flags for Projects, but I use them extensively for actions. I had said before that in the morning I do a review, every morning, and the first things I do is remove all the items with flags on it. In order to do that I open a the Flag Perspective, and if any item is there I just remove the flag. After all flags are removed, I begin my morning review. The morning review consist on read all the actions that I have on my list, and mark three to five actions with the respective flag. The result is a short list, of things that will show up on the different perspectives, because they are flagged.

 

Somedays after I review, I end up with more than five, I am not counting how many flags, I am just trying to set priorities on the day. When that happen, I just clean based on the final list and leave three to five. In the great days, those in witch I mark those flag items as complete, if the speed allow me, I go and do another mini review, and select more items to be flagged, other times, I just work on my lists based on the contexts. One of my favorite things of this method, is that I can consider my self successful when I finish those things that I mark on the morning, even if it’s only nine am, and can evaluate my day at the end of the night or the next morning when I didn’t finish. 

 

Another trick I have learn is to be kind with myself, even if you mark three things, the day can go crazy, insane and in the opposite direction of your original plans, the cool thing with a complete system is that you can be sure that everything is captured, and even if you couldn’t accomplish anything on that list, you can build a new one the next morning and continue playing, for example if you mark three items, for witch context is @Office, and at nine in the morning you got the call that your kid is sick. Well you will pack the computer, go home and those items will not be done that day, even if you accomplish many more, those will be there in the morning, you just need to learn the difference between that, and procrastination.

 

The final trick, is to remember that the list is nothing else than that. You can go in the morning, mark three things and do other three in your list, and it’s fine, you make a different decision based on later feedback, and that happen, and it’s ok.

 

'Mark Complete when completing the last item' on OmniFocus

There is this little feature in OmniFocus called: 'Mark Complete when completing the last item’.  This give you the option to mark a project complete when the last item is done. It is one of those trick options that OmniFocus provide for you. As I said before OmniFocus is a great tool, but you need to be careful, because there are certain things that if you are not careful will bring you in the down spiral fast; you know the crash and burn one.

Why do you want to click the project automatically. In my book, is because you are absolute sure that there is no way this project will be alive after that, and even if it is, you will have an easy reminder that this project is alive, but for me is only on the first case.  In general, I don’t advise people doing this, I don’t think you should automate the thinking process, but if you do, this is a really cool feature.

When I have use this feature. Let’s say I create a project that is called “Buy Groceries for Friday Dinner” This assume that I will not cook, or do anything else than buy the stuff for the mentioned dinner, bring them home, and forget about it. In case of doubt I am really good about the last part, the forgot part.

Let’s get back to the creation of the project. I create the project and add the list of things that I need to buy, in the Context (Errands, or Groceries, or the appropriate one) and when you are done creating, populating, then I go and click on the Inspector  (Yes that inspector is kind of helpful and useful.)

When you do that, you will see an option to “Mark Complete when completing the last item” click it, and a soon as you finish that last item, your project will be mark as complete.

I may insist that this is something that you or I should not use all the time, because have the risk that you will have more stuff coming relevant to this project that you will not be able to use, but in many cases is a cool feature.

 

The problem with automating the process that you should think about, is that instead of be part of a system that will create silence in your mind, and allow you to move faster the chance that things will get back into your head, are incredible high, because sadly, most of this automated process will not take into consideration other factors. For example, I have a recurring task in my system for every monday that reads: Wash baby’s Clothes. It is a recurring thing, and comes every monday. When that happen I need to think and choose, if it’s or not. Sometimes, especially when I was potty training her, I was doing so much laundry than coming monday there wasn’t nothing to wash, others, I made the decision that she didn’t have enough clothes to make a load, and I will wait until next week. The problem is you don’t think about this, and renegociate in a conscious level, is that will get back into your head, and if it is in your head, the only thing that it’s creating is stress and anxiety. (At least if something is in my head, thats what tend to create.)

 

So we aware of those things you automate, in OmniFocus or anywhere else, you want to automate only those things that are not going to bite you back, and are going to allow you to continue moving as fast as you really need to move.

 

Have a default Context for a Project in OmniFocus

Continuing in our path to learn to create a solid system using OmniFocus, today we are going to talk about assigning a default context to an specific project.

There are projects that will be done in an specific context all the time, there are no others, there is in general only that, so you can configure OmniFocus to create all the actions for that project for default in an specific project.

Let me provide you with an example. You have a project called Buy Groceries. (Last week we talk about creating an Grocery List on OmniFocus, if you didn't read it you can go there by licking here) you can then set up that all the actions in that project for default go to an specific contexts, for example, Errands-Groceries.

Let m give you another example, I had in the past a project that was Double Sales for Customer Y in Q4. By default all the actions there were set to be part of a context called @Work. If things need it to go to a different one, I just manually change it.

Let's go on how do you accomplish that. First select of create a new project. Then hit the Inspector  button. You will see after Type and Status a drop down menu that said 'Context'. By default is set to none, and thats the reason when you create a next action in any of you projects they do not come with a context created. If you click on the drop down menu, you will see the whole list of current contexts. From there you will select the context you want for default, and after that, every time you create a new action under this project will populate the context area with your default context. Remember, you can change it, to another one, but this can be really useful if you know you will be creating many actions and you want them to be to that context.

For example, I have a project called 'Things to share with my wife' is a single action list project, but because i have really bad memory, I add to that project all those things I want to share with my wife, at the end of the day, or if/when we talk, by default, the context for anything created there is @Agendas-Wife. Works like a charm, and allow me to create a list of action that may or may nor need a full project, but because I can populate it so fast get's to be used more than what sometimes I should do that it's create. Project. I try to avoid bad habits, but sometimes, they are faster and easier to do than the good ones.

 

Using Context to make a Cool Grocery List on OmniFocus

The last time I came here and talk about OmniFocus, I was talking about Contexts, about the Context View. By now you should have a set con basic contexts, and even others more complex and even interesting. Please share with us those, you may be giving us ideas.

When I did the GTD Seminar, (I was lucky enough to be able to attend) I sit next to a lady that I have never met before. She wasn’t a beginner, she had her Palm, her lists, and seem to me to be in the top of her game. We begin talking about contexts, and we came to errands. I should remind you, that in the old days, Palm allow you only to have 15 contexts, so you need it to be really careful how you use them.

She was telling me all about until we got to her @Errands context and then she just bluntly said, this one is a mess and I am never ever able to accomplish anything. I ask her why, and she explain to me that she had there all the errands, from groceries to stuff to do, and it was impossible to see it, so she was missing stuff all the time, and she gets mad and frustrated. I ask to see the list, and I give her a little idea, (that I was using in my lists at the time to create more contexts). Why don’t you begin the task, with the main area,  GROCERIES, TARGET, HOME_DEPOT, that way, they will sort automatically and get all together. She begin doing that, using instead zGROCERIES, so they move to the bottom. Her face change a soon as she finished, her system or more specifically her @Errands Context was functional again.

The reality is that we all have more things to do, than the time we have to do them, that’s a fact of life, in part for the agreements that we do ourselves, and the ones that came to us and we can’t choose not to do, and the ones that simply are part of life, your list are going to be in constant chaos if you don’t work them, and learn to control them, Context is the way I KNOW to control them, the way it work for me. I am sure they are others, Weekly review help me too, but to get CONTROL AND PERSPECTIVE, I need to handle my contexts.That’s the reason I have been an advocate of have the context you need, even the temporarily ones, because is using those that I can establish  control on my own chaos.

Today I am going to show you a cool trick on OmniFocus. This trick I learn from my good friend Mark Denu, and it’s one that I have use so much. I keep in OmniFocus my grocery list, and for a long time, every week when I plan the menu for next week, I write down everything again. The system wasn’t bad, but wasn’t automated. Talking to Marc he told me how he did, and I tough he was brilliant, I got the same experience that lady did, when she begin writing zGROCERIES before her list.

Let me begin showing you the contexts (categories) of my list of things to buy:

This is the list of things to buy, everything, from food, to candy, to medicine. Notice that the list has 3 levels, Level 1 “THINGS WE NEED TO BUY”, level 2 “GROCERIES & MEDICINE” and level three the actual category of stuff.

To this moment, the problem seems on how you make them show in the proper list. Be careful, here comes the geeky stuff. 

At the Project Perspective or view you are going to create the different levels, as show in the image above. After that, you are going to begin  to create each item as follows: Let’s imagine that you need Formula for the Baby. Well under Baby Stuff, you create a project called Formula. Under it, you create a Task called Formula and another one called also Formula. 

Notice that the first Formula is on the Context of BABY STUFF, or really THINGS_WE_NEED_TO_BUY>GROCERIES>BABY_STUFF. The second one you put it in your context for Groceries. 

Then let’s see the detail:

If you don’t know how to access the panel, select the project or action and click the Inspector Button: 

 

It’s important to notice that the project need to be Sequential, (set that in Type) that means, only one action showing at the time. Where the project is contain is irrelevant, and then set the context. 

Next Important thing is to mark the project ‘Complete when when completing the last item’ since that way the project will regenerate again, after is mark of.

Finally you want to set an initial Start Date, so when the project regenerate doesn’t show, and you will at the end set them to start again X days after completion. In this case 1 day.

This way, you can go to the specific context of things you need and just mark instead of create the whole groceries list again.

Of course this work well too, if you use it for anything that need to be repeated, like for example change the Air Filters in the Summer, or bring the trash to the curb on Monday morning.

Next week, we will work more into OmniFocus, for now, be productive and enjoy your weekend!

 

**Update: My Friend Mark remind me that I should have write his name Mark and not Marc... Shame on me! 

Part 1: Learning to use the Context View. (more cool stuff)

Two Weeks ago we work on a definition of Contexts, and it’s important to cover the definition again:

Context refers to all those physical places or tools, such as software and specific equipment, or people with whom you need to interact, to accomplish an action

Remember the important thing is to Accomplish the Action, you can cut the pie, make it smaller, divided, re-organized, make it small lists or a new big one, but if you don’t Accomplish the Actions, nothing else matters. We were working into make a list of the Places, Tools and People you deal often with, in order to begin working on contexts today. I hope you did. Otherwise, lets look on the definition of these again.

From the old post:

Places: This are the physical locations you need to be in order to accomplish an action. This is the first kind of Context people understand, and actually the one I ask you to set at the beginning of this series, @Home, @Office and @Errands. 

Tools:  These are the tools, such as software, or specific equipment you need to accomplish an action. For example, if you have a laptop and a desktop computer, there may be certain actions that can be accomplished only on one or the other, but not in both; this situation creates two separate contexts: @Laptop and @Desktop. Think now on this, you may need internet access to accomplish certain actions, but you are not connected all the time, so internet might be a tool context for you.

People: This can be an individual, or a group of individuals, that you need to make decisions or have conversations with to accomplish actions. The “people” context is also referred to as Agendas in the GTD and people tend to understand this without much trouble. 

If you spend sometime working into those categories, Places, Tools and People you may be able to create a really complete list of Context. I particularly try to keep my context to around 10 actions. The reason is simple, more than 10 actions, make me go and look somewhere else. When I notice that I am getting over 10 items, I quickly revise the action inside and evaluate. Sometimes, it’s just put a little time in the context, like for example right now is a context I had call @Home_Stuff to Fix. It had around twenty actions, so instead of create a new one, I decide to clean the list this sunday. Other times, this happen on my @Mac list, if clean up soon isn’t possible, then I work on create a new Context to reduce the number of items on the list, and make the context more Manageable.

The number or Context you should have, vary, really on what you do, what places, tools and people you interact in the day to day. 

Mine had change, evolve, and progress over the years.

My advice is play with it, move them around, until you find a mix that it is right for you.

The important thing this week is to create the context, work with them, and begin populating. Find your number, again mine is around 10, one of the reasons is that the screen on my iPhone, as well as my previous PDAs usually had 10 items, when you have more you need to scroll, that means I usually don’t, but your number may vary. 

After you feel you have a complete list, then let me show you the Sub-Contexts. Remember you can drag and drop the contexts you already created here.

OmniFocus allow you to have context inside other contexts, or sub-contexts, so you can have Office, and Office_Mail Room, Office_Warehouse or Office_Accounting Building., that way if you click Office you will see everything inside, all the actions including Mail Room Actions, Warehouse Actions and Accounting Building Actions, but if you click an specific one, like Warehouse, you will only see now the Actions that are in that context.

This is something that differentiate OmniFocus with others, it’s not the only one that can do this, but it can create a difference in how you manage your Contexts, just remember, keep it simple.

This Sub-Context can really be use to your benefit, and over time I will get into more detail and useful examples, like Grocery Shopping, Errands, Computer, and more.

Until now, enjoy Contexts, and Play with your OmniFocus… but more importantly, remember to begin accomplishing actions.

Defining Contexts

If you’ve ever been on a ride in Disney’s Magic Kingdom, you have heard the following:

 

“Keep your arms, hooves, tusks and tails (and your hands, feet and legs) inside ride vehicle ”

 

When you hear that warning, you know you are getting ready for a fun ride. That’s what the next three weeks are going to be like on Mind Like Monkey, so quoting Disney’s Magic Kingdom again:

 

“On rides, stay seated with your tail down (you get this one right?)”

and enjoy this ride.

 

Contexts are one of those mysteries in the GTD world; they are complex and ambiguous and everyone is entitled to interpret them in their own way. That flexibility is one of the most fabulous things about contexts and also one of the trickiest., 

 

In Getting Things Done, David Allen defines Context Lists as: “the set of tools available or by the presence of individuals or groups for whom one has items to discuss or present.”From reading this definition, I am sure all your doubts are gone now and you’re asking yourself why you had trouble with this concept before. I’m kidding. Defining and understanding contexts was one of my biggest wins in GTD, and I made a huge leap in effectiveness from that moment on. To help you make a similar leap, let’s work on the original definition and create a new one.

 

First I’ll divide it into two parts:

 

1. “the set of tools available” 

 

2. “by the presence of individuals or groups for whom one has items to discuss or present.”

 

If we cut this definition in two, you will see that a Context can be a place, a tool or tools (this is what the first part refers to) or people (this is what the second part refers to). 

 

• Places: This are the physical locations you need to be in order to accomplish an action. This is the first kind of Context people understand, and actually the one I ask you to set at the beginning of this series, @Home, @Office and @Errands. 
• Tools:  These are the tools, such as software, or specific equipment you need to accomplish an action. For example, if you have a laptop and a desktop computer, there may be certain actions that can be accomplished only on one or the other, but not in both; this situation creates two separate contexts: @Laptop and @Desktop. Think now on this, you may need internet access to accomplish certain actions, but you are not connected all the time, so internet might be a tool context for you.
• People: This can be an individual, or a group of individuals, that you need to make decisions or have conversations with to accomplish actions. The “people” context is also referred to as Agendas in the GTD and people tend to understand this without much trouble. 

 

As you can see, the importance of the contexts is to accomplish an action. Nothing else matters. The reason you want to have contexts is to accomplish your actions as fast as possible, and in the best way possible.

 

Let’s see based on what we just said, a new definition and understanding for contexts.

 

Context refers to all those physical places or tools, such as software and specific equipment, or people with whom you need to interact, to accomplish an action.

 

 I hope that this new definition sets a better fundament  how you set your contexts. Remember keep your contexts simple. If you stop checking a context, you need to revise it, and most likely morph it into something else. For example, if you never check your @Home Context, you should ask yourself why not? Is it because you don’t want to do any of those actions, or because you don’t want to ever read again ‘Clean Garage’? If it’s the latter, then move ‘Clean Garage’ to someday maybe or another context if it’s relevant.

 

Now that the concept of contexts is clear (or at least less confusing), I would encourage you to spend some time thinking on the contexts you use. List all the physical places you frequent and make a list like this:Home, Mom’s Home, Office, Tool Shed, Garage, Walmart, Trader Joe’s, Target, Farmer’s Market, Wife’s Office, In-Law’s Home. You can even combine reasons you go to a particular place such as , Bank: Personal, Bank: Work. Basically any place that you go to often and where you need to be to accomplish actions.

 

After you make this list, do the same for the Tools (Laptop, Desktop, Phone, iPad, Table, Printer) the Software (Accounting Software, Excel, Word, Internet RSS Reader, Scrivener) and specific equipment that you use. (Laser Printer, Wood Cutter, Press, Power Drill).

 

Finally, list the people or groups of people, people that you need to talk on the phone, or face to face to accomplish actions: your wife/husband/significant other, kids, parents, bosses, direct reports, clients, customers, friends, school teacher, and more. Take time to think about this.

 

Once you have your three lists: places, tools, and people, we’ll move to the next step. Otherwise, please make the list, before continuing, I will be waiting…

 

Now that you have three lists, you want to identify the contexts that are key to accomplish actions, for example, you may have two contexts: Desktop and Home. Your desktop is at home but you don’t have that many actions on the desktop or at home to justify two separate ones, or you find that you never check a desktop list, but will check your home context. This is something really personal, and it’s worth to spend a little bit of time. You may have a work desktop and office context, but you only use the desktop when you are at the office so separate contexts of work desktop and office are redundant.

 

After you do thing through all your contexts in this manner, merge the three lists to make one lis;, this will be your tentative context list. After you have the list, try to purge it, remembering that you want as many context as you need and will use but no more than that. 

 

Finally, work on this list during the coming week on paper, when you do any planning, think about the context you will be using, that way you will be ready next week to create them in your system. Remember Albert Einstein said: “If I had twenty days to solve a problem, I would take nineteen days to define it.” So you have 7 days to define this list, and make it work for you.

 

One more important thing:

 

From now on, I grant you permission to create and stop using contexts as needed as well as name your contexts in attractive ways. If @Home doesn’t inspire you, but @MyCastle does, use @MyCastle. Be creative and have fun--that’s really important to keep the system working. Disclaimer, if you are going to use nicknames for people, make sure you keep that part private, calling some one the ScareCrow and showing them the list, may not be in your benefit.

Part 2: Learning to use the Project View (more cool stuff) (Updated)

*** Thanks for the comments. I miss two important details in this post, and thanks to the feedback I decide to add them to leave a complete post. The 2 updates are at the bottom as well as in the part they should have been. Thanks again!

 

Keeping your system simple is the key, and I cannot emphasize this enough. The key to a functioning system is not in having more than you need, and for sure is not in having less than you need, but in having enough of what you need so you can move fast.

This week, we will be covering a little more on the project perspective (view) of OmniFocus. I was originally planning to cover the Context Perspective this week, but after further consideration, we will wait until the next week to cover that. Again, keep it simple, you will survive one more week. 

I want to begin with were I finished last week: The Successful Outcome. This is one of those things that you may be sure you already understand, and because you think you already know it, you skip out on defining the successful outcome of most projects. Often, people who skip this step are busy and feel they don’t have time to “waste,” especially on something they think they’ll remember. If this is you, then you’re lying to yourself. Albert Einstein famously said: “If I had twenty days to solve a problem, I would take nineteen days to define it.” The problem is you are going too fast to define what it is you’re attempting to get done. 

Lewis Carroll in ‘Alice in Wonderland wrote: “If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there” That’s the problem of not defining a clear outcome, not setting aside the moment or moments to define what you need to get there, to make sure that you take the best road possible.

Let’s embark some fun stuff with Projects. Take a look at the screenshot on the right, and you have never seen this window, please stop reading, open OmniFocus. and create a project (or open one of your existent ones) and click on the ‘Inspector Button.’  You’ll find it on the upper right of any window.

. 

(Update 1) One of our readers, mention, that in reality the first thing you see is not the part that mention Type, Status and Context but this one.

The first thing you will see is a series of four icons. When you hover your cursor over each one, you’ll see their names appearing in the bar at the top of the window, to the right of the triangle that allows you to expand and minimize the Inspector window. From left to right, these icons are Action, Group, Project, and Context. For today’s post, you’ll want to choose the Project icon.

The next thing you’ll see is the Type of project, which we covered last week: Sequential, Parallel and Single Action. To change a project from one type to another, you can simply click on the appropriate Type. Next you will see Status, which you may also change here:Active, On Hold (Waiting), Completed and Dropped. If you want to learn more about each one of these types, please see last week’s post.

Below Type is a drop-down menu for Context. For now, I recommend that you keep this simple and limit yourself to 3 contexts: @Home, @Errands, and @Office. From the Inspector, you may only choose pre-defined contexts.

OmniFocus allows you to define a default context for your projects. For example, you may selected as a default that all the actions on a particular project are “@Office,” and OmniFocus will populate the context automatically of any action in that project as “@Office.” If some action does not belong in your default context, you can change it manually. I don’t use default contexts very often, because I believe you should not automate the thinking process; taking those seconds to think about the context tends to make a great difference for me.

(Update 2:) I forgot to explain how to select the ‘Default’ context, even that I talk about it, I didn’t explain how to make this default Context. 

In the drop-down Menu that said ‘Context’ select the one you want to be the ‘Default’, you wish to use for this specific project.

 

Below the Context drop-down is  a checkbox: “Mark complete when completing last item.” This is something I use constantly; there are many projects on my list that reach a point in which the project can be mark as complete automatically. For example, when I order something online, I will create a project and select this checkbox. . I recently got a present for my wife, and after the Waiting For item (which indicated the item was ordered and in route to me), was another action: Wrap present for my wife. After the item was received and the gift was wrapped, I didn’t need the project anymore,and in completing the last action, the project was automatically marked complete.

The next section in the window allows you to define timeframes of your project: when the project will start and when the project is due, as well as when it was completed. OmniFocus will fill the Completed date automatically when you the project is marked complete.

Start: The Start date of a project is to be used when you have planned the whole project or the beginning steps of it, but do not want the project or its contents to show in your Context Perspectives (Views) yet. For example, you want to order a gift for someone, but you don’t want to order the item until next Friday after you get paid. You can create the project, and list its actions but put the ‘Start’ date as next Friday, so nothing in the project shows in your system until that date.

Due: This is the date that this project will be due. I don’t tend to use due date for projects, but understand that if you select a due date, all the actions that are not finished in the project will come due on that day, and display in your system. In the future, we will talk more about due dates, but my recommendation for now is to avoid them, unless that due date is truly necessary.

The next section of the Inspector window, is the repeat section.

OmniFocus allows you to set a project to be repeated at various intervals, you set a project as Repeat every, Start again or Due Again.

Repeat every: This is used for projects that are repeated after X number of days, weeks, months or years. This allows some automation, if you are looking for that, so you can create a project that repeats every year to buy flowers for your wife for her birthday, for instance.

Start again: This is use to restart a project after completion. For example, if you need to send your accountant your monthly expenses for your company, you can create a project that contain all the steps required to do that, and set it to Start Again every X amount of days or weeks.

Due again: This is used to set a project due date at a certain interval. For example, you know that you need to submit your expenses before Wednesday to be paid on Friday. You can set this project to be due every Wednesday morning, since after that day, it’s going to be irrelevant until the following week.

 

Finally, at the bottom of the Inspector window is a review section which we are not going to cover today. We will get it at a later time, when we begin working with the review of your projects.

Next week we will begin working with Contexts, and it’s going to be fun. I hope that these posts, have allowed you to get a better understanding of what it’s possible with Projects in OmniFocus.

 

________

Update:

One of our readers, mention, that in reality the first thing you see is not the part that mention Type, Status and Context but this one.

This is the first thing you see in the Inspector Window, for this post, we should be in the third button, the Project one. The Others in Order are: Action, Group, Project and Context. We will get later on into more detail of these ones.

 _______

Update 2:

I forgot to explain how to select the ‘Default’ context, even that I talk about it, I didn’t explain how to make this default Context. 

In the drop-down Menu that said ‘Context’ select the one you want to be the ‘Default’, you wish to use for this specific project.

 

Part 1: Learning to use the Project View

Last week I advised you to keep it simple, I advised you to begin with only 3 contexts, @Home, @Errand and @Office. I also suggested that you to put everything in the Someday-Maybe list, because if you are not acting, those tasks are already someday/maybe. I said all this because we need to make an effort to reduce the noise in our systems. I remember how nice the FM radio sounded back the old days. The difference was simple: FM then had no static. The same is true for your system, if you reduce the static, you will move faster, with less drag, and will be able to accomplish more of what you want to accomplish.And that last part is the key: Accomplish more of what you want to Accomplish.

 When people begin having productivity systems that allow them to move faster and more efficiently, they discover that they can do more, and they push their system until they break it. They’ve become highly efficient, but are in the same place they were before they had their system:with a set of stuff that is like static noise, useless and annoying. In all the systems I have had the honor to see and peek in, I have found that systems are cluttered with tasks that are no longer relevant, (hey my system is sometimes full of these, too) and that clutter generates an unnecessary noise that make us want to quit the system.

To avoid the clutter and noise, it’s important to know what you want, and that’s part of the reason the project list is so important. Today I’ll cover the Project View. I think you should be able to keep your contexts in a minimal way for another week and make the biggest effort to avoid the static on your system and in your lists. 

I should also clarify that this is not an advanced or intermediate view of Projects. This is a beginner view of Projects, and over time, we will be learning more and more. The idea of this week is to give you some basic tools so you can continue learning.

What it is a project? In “Getting Things Done,” David Allen defines a project as: “any commitment that takes more than one step to complete.” 

So basically anything is a project. On installation, Omnifocus gives you 3 kinds of projects and four ways to classify project status.

Let’s begin with the kinds of projects.

• The Sequential Project: This is the kind of project that you will use, when steps must be taken in sequence or in a particular order one after the other. For example, to send a document to someone, you might be waiting for the original, signed document to arrive.
• The Parallel Project: In this sort of project, actions can happen concurrently or in any sort of sequence. For example, you might be doing the final corrections on the file, but can also looking into printing options.
• The Single Action List: Omnifocus recognizes that there are things that are not technically projects, but more a list of actions. For example, moving the trash out to the curb on Sundays for Monday pickup.

 

Omnifocus projects (especially long ones) can begin as sequential and then move to parallel, and back to sequential.

 

Now let’s take a look the project status.

• Active: These are the projects that you are currently working on.
• On Hold (Waiting): When marked as on hold, the actions in a project are no longer considered available. Omnifocus grays out the project name and all it’s actions when a project is put “on hold.”
• Completed: You get to enjoy marking projects as complete when you decide that the project is done and no more actions are needed. 
• Dropped: Rather than simply delete projects that are no longer relevant, Omnifocus gives you the option to mark these are “dropped.” All the information about that project is still stored in the system in case you want to retrieve it later.

 

Finally, Omnifocus allow you to organize your project in Folders, which can be useful, but because we are looking to begin this system in a simple way, we are going to skip organizing your projects in folders for now.

For the next week or two, we are going to concentrate ourselves in the Project Perspective. Omnifocus, use the word Perspective instead of View, that I understand confuse people, so understand that the Perspective of Project is just a View of the Projects.

The next step is simple: begin populating all those projects that are relevant, that you are working on, that are active. Everything else should be kept in the Someday/Maybe, as we said.

After you list your Projects, make sure you use that you use the note function on the project and add the successful outcome. 

The Successful outcome is basically what will mean for you to be done, or to remove it from your list, how it will be fantastic, it will be incredible.

After you populate your Successful Outcome, begin with the actions, remember if possible to keep the context to a minimum and as simple as possible.

Next Week we will cover more advance stuff in the Project side and then we will begin to cover the Contexts and how to use it as effective as possible. In the mean time, have fun, creating your Project list and the basic actions. Over time, we will teach you what to do with Everything, and how to trow anything to your system and continue going were you want to go.

 

Creating a Solid Omnifocus System

This is the first post in a series of tips and tricks on how to create a solid Omnifocus system. In case you are not familiar with this piece of Software, Omnifocus, is defined by the Omnigroup (the creators of the software) as:

I should point out, that I don’t believe that Omnifocus is the Holy Grail of Productivity, you can be productive and get things done, with a napkin or much more complex software, the reason I talk about Omnifocus is because it is what I use today.In the past, I’ve used Palm Pilot Software, Outlook, Toodledo and Index cards. Since February 2009 I have been using Omnifocus. I love it, and I have so much to learn, but without a doubt it has been a powerful addition to my Batman Belt.

I have said many times, that the tool will not bring any more productivity in your life, and that is the most common mistake of people that are looking to feel more organized and more in control, they think to get a new tool. The result of that “I will get organized” is a massive failure, not because of the tool, because the lack of a system that can support your new idea, if you are out of control and treat the symptom instead of the problem, the problem will continue to be present. In order to solve the problem, you need to work on it, then the symptoms will fix themselves. That is my ambition with this set of posts, to help find readers find the answer to that problem, and how to use Omnifocus at the same time.

I’ve said often that the biggest problem with Omnifocus, is that it’s too much rope, and if you are not careful you can hang yourself. I hope to help you tame the rope, and use it effectively.

If you are coming here, because you are thinking about getting Omnifocus, or hoping to compare Omnifocus with other tools, you have come to the wrong place, if you come here because you want to use Omnifocus, or learn a trick that allow you to get a little more out of your Omnifocus installation, welcome.

My Goal is to bring people form the most basic implementation of Omnifocus, and little by little add and show all the possibilities that this great software has. My plan is to begin from the Mac, and build a solid system in the Mac, in other words, begin from scratch and add every Friday something new to the system. Some weeks will be a couple of things; some weeks will be only one. At the end of this series, the system that will end up being created in Omnifocus should be a robust one. After that, the plan is to move to the iPhone and finally the iPad versions.

The next step depends if you have a solid system or not. If you have a solid one, you don’t need to do anything, if yours is not that solid, print everything, delete all and begin from scratch.

My advice is to clean your Projects and Contexts. After you do that, it should look like this:

 

 
  

After you get to this point, my advice is to begin populating your system, but be careful. For the next weeks, you may want to wait, or you may want to keep it in a minimal way, just enough for your needs.

       I advise you to begin with three contexts, @Home, @Errands and @Office. Many people use contexts as place holders, as someday-maybe’s and for that reason they never look into those contexts, so reduce to three Contexts, in due time we will add more.

       Give yourself the space, and the freedom to put everything on hold, eventually; your system will be able to handle more.