Multiple tags first came to OmniFocus 3 for iOS in May of this year. I hoped that multiple tags would mean drastic improvements to my workflow, but with most of my Omnifocus work done on a Mac, I was stuck waiting until tags also came to OmniFocus for the Mac.

As of last Friday, I was invited to test the beta version of OmniFocus 3, so my wait is officially over! For the rest of you, it should be out later this month.

Looking back to my initial tag list for OmniFocus for iOS, much of my tag system is still intact.

Part of this because I restrained myself from going crazy with tags and opted to stick with tag groups that mapped to David Allen’s four criteria for determining priority: context/location, energy available, priority, and time available. (Note: For Time Available, I use Omnifocus’s estimated duration field, not a tag.) I also have two “On Hold” tags for tasks I’m “Waiting for” or any “Someday/Maybe” tasks I’m considering.

In addition to traditional GTD tags, I’ve also added a few additional tag groups related to people (e.g. boyfriend, boss) and actions (e.g. call, email, read), as well as, one called “Today,” which I’ll discuss in more detail later in this post.

To be honest, my hopes of tags significantly altering my Omnifocus workflows and therefore supercharging my productivity didn’t really pan out.

Despite all the improvements to custom perspectives, there still isn’t a way to create the perspectives I was hoping for. I had hoped to create perspectives that show any tasks I can accomplish at a specific location (e.g. Home, Work, Errands) but also have them grouped by another tag group (e.g. by Energy Level or Priority).

Unfortunately, there is no way to filter by some tags and also group by another. A perspective that shows tasks tagged with Location:Home or Location:Anywhere and also tagged with Priority:High or Priority:Low doesn’t give you a list of tasks sorted by priority. Instead, it gives you a list of all tasks grouped by ALL tags given to those tasks meaning you actually end up with groups like “Anywhere, Today, Read” and “Home, Today”) which actually isn’t that helpful.

Because of this limitation, most of how I use OmniFocus has remained relatively the same. Multiple tags simply provide additional ways to filter my tasks within my existing custom perspectives on an as needed basis.

There is one aspect of my OmniFocus workflow that tags did change for me though.

I’ve mentioned in past posts that I work from 4 main perspectives (Today, Work, Home, and Errands). These perspectives show me any tasks I need to work on based on where I’m working from. With Omnifocus 2, this meant a perspective that showed any due or flagged task within a certain set of contexts grouped by project.

With Omnifocus 3, my 4 main perspectives now show any available tasks that are due, flagged, or tagged “Today”, grouped by project and sorted by flagged. Essentially, the Today tag has replaced how I was previously using flags, leaving flags open to be used for what they’re truly made for, denoting importance. Sorting by flag means my most important tasks are at the top of every project. Using flags to denote importance also means I can look over my perspectives, and quickly see what’s most important (e.g. flagged and or due soon).

So the jury’s still out on Omnifocus 3. I don’t plan on switching applications any time soon, but until perspectives can be customized at the level I’m looking for, I probably won’t be seeing any of the drastic improvements I had been hoping for.