Tag: task management

How I Structure My Day & Why I Don’t Timeblock

Leave a comment

It’s been quite a few months since I’ve posted here. Life just gets in the way sometimes, but have no fear, I’m back, at least for today. In the time since my last post, I’ve gotten rather used to my hybrid work schedule despite initially struggling with it.

To recap, since August, I’ve been alternating working two days (Mondays and Fridays) or three days (Tuesdays-Thursdays) in the office every other week. While the schedule definitely has its benefits, it also has its downsides. The biggest downside is my days spent in the office are far less focused due to various interruptions and distractions throughout the day. To account for this, I looked for ways to add more structure to my weeks and accepted that depending on where I was spending my time, some weeks would just be better suited for certain tasks than others depending on the level of focus they required.

I’ve since begun adding more structure to my days as well, probably because time-blocking (and time-tracking) seems to be a rather popular topic in the circles I find myself in online at the moment.

But… time blocking doesn’t work for me.

As much as my Type A mind really appreciates the detail that comes with planning days out like Cal Newport. I usually end up abandoning my perfectly time-blocked calendar at the first sign of the day deviating from my plan. A part of me even rebels against having a plan for every hour of my day. (Don’t tell that to my other half who’d probably jump for joy at the idea of me not having things planned out in excruciating detail.)

Instead of scheduling out my days, I think of my days as conceptual time blocks starting with morning, afternoon, and evening. This actually harkens back to my Erin Condren Life Planner days which used the exact same blocks of which, surprisingly, I wasn’t a huge fan at the time. From there, I batch my tasks according to how I know I best work, while also adding some variety to make sure I’m not doing one thing for too long.

A typical day might look something like this:

  • Morning
    • Administrative Tasks – This block includes things like ordering my tasks in Things 3 making sure things are tagged into their appropriate morning, afternoon, or evening blocks; checking my email; checking my budget in YNAB; and lastly, checking into our ticketing system to triage any support requests that came in overnight.
    • Personal Administrative Tasks – (Note: If I’m working in the office, I do this first because I need to do these before I get into the office.) This block includes things like getting ready for the day, making the bed, feeding our ancient 18-year-old cat, meditating, and also grabbing a bite to eat.
    • 1st Project/Meeting Block – This is when I work on my 3 tasks for the day. Most of my meetings also tend to be scheduled around this time as well. I get through as much as I can.
    • Break – Around this time, I start getting restless from sitting. If I’m working from home, I’ll do a quick workout on Apple Fitness Plus. If I’m in the office, I go for a short walk, preferably outside.
  • Afternoon
    • Admin Check – I usually circle back to my email and any other communications during this time. Not mentioned above, but I continue monitoring our ticketing system and phone lines constantly throughout the day.
    • Lunch Break – Self-explanatory, but I also try and fit in some sort of activity in here as well – usually another walk.
    • 2nd Project/Meeting Block – If I haven’t finished my 3 tasks from the morning, I keep working on them here until I finish them. I also get the occasional meeting scheduled around this time.
  • Evening
    • Exercise – If I haven’t finished my exercise by this point in the day, this is where I do my scheduled workout (using Apple Fitness Plus).
    • Evening Chores – I use this time to wrap up any chores I still need to complete for the day. I also use this time to shower, get ready for the next day, meditate, feed the cat, and start dinner.
    • Evening Shutdown – This is where I look over my to-do list in Things, rescheduling anything I might not have gotten to and scheduling my three tasks for the next day.
    • Dinner & Free Time – With everything done for the day, I’m free to finally sit down on the couch with something to eat and relax however I please.

The beauty of this structure is it’s easy to start each morning with a general idea of how I’m going to approach my to-do list without scheduling tasks or my calendar being so rigid that any slight deviation throws my day out of wack. It also takes into account how I best work – giving me time during the mornings to work on things that require the most focus, allowing for movement and mental breaks throughout the day, and also allowing for buffer time if things take longer or come up throughout the day.

I’m not sure if this is helpful to anyone, but if it has been or you have any questions, feel free to reach out.

Improving my Weekly Planning with Things 3

Leave a comment

In a recent blog post, I wrote about how I’ve been looking for ways to add more structure to my weeks after finding that switching back and forth between working from home and working in the office was throwing my productivity out of wack.

I’ve spent the last month or so soaking in all the advice I could find online in terms of weekly planning. Special thanks goes out to Peter Akkies and michelleb who I found particularly inspiring during my search.

I’d also like to give a shoutout to the Cultured Code team. I didn’t know it at the time, but what they had in the works for their iPadOS 15 update turned out to be a huge help as well.

So what’s changed with how I’m planning out my tasks?

First things first, let’s talk about what Cultured Code added to Things 3 in their iOS 15 update – namely the extra large “Up Next” widget. This widget shows your to-dos for Today, Tomorrow, and the two days after that. This was actually something I had tried to create on my own in just about every productivity tool (TeuxDeux, Trello, AirTable, Notion, etc) but abandoned because it felt like I was wasting time duplicating content that was already in Things 3. Now that it’s built into Things 3, problem solved.

I’d honestly prefer to see a full week (XXL widgets in iOS 16 maybe?), but three days has worked just fine. Seeing my tasks in listed out for the next few days horizontally makes it easy to see days when I’m overcommitted or, on the rare occasion, not committed enough so that I can go into Things 3 and reschedule some things.

Seeing what’s on my plate this way has led to some other changes in how I approach my planning as well.

I no longer try to schedule additional tasks more than one day ahead. I found that scheduling tasks out for the entire week rarely worked for me. I’m much more likely to accomplish what I set out to do if I plan the night before.

When I am planning out my day the night before, I try not to schedule more than 3 additional (not scheduled/routine) tasks from Anytime for the next day. Three feels like the right number in terms of feeling like I’m making progress without feeling like I’m waking up to a daunting to do list.

I also have a repeating project called “Priorities for the Week” that I use to set three priorities for the upcoming week during my weekly reviews. The priorities I list in this project are tasks that link to other projects or tasks in Things. For instance, one of my priorities for this week, is to finish this blog post, so I have that listed in my priorities project, and the task itself links to the corresponding “Post to Blog” project to make it easy to check off both I do post this blog post, and the priorities project itself is set to start every week on Monday where it then stays in my Today view until I check everything off.

I’ve nested this project within a new area, Goals, which lives at the very top of my areas list so that Priorities for the Week shows up at the top of Today. The goals area also has a project for this year’s goals so I can clearly keep track of them, and I’ve already started on planning 2022’s goals in their own project as well.

Having been using these methods for the past several weeks, I can confidently say they have helped me feel like I’m actually making progress on my goals rather than responding to whatever comes my way.

Mind Like Water

2 Comments

First of all, wow it’s been a long time. Sorry for not posting since May. I feel like I blinked and now we’re already more than halfway through 2021. Full disclosure though, I also haven’t had a lot of inspiration to write either. Posts that seem to do well on here are typically related to Things 3 or note taking, and quite frankly, my system doesn’t really change all that much to have new things to write about.

When I found Getting Things Done (GTD) in high school, it was life changing. The methodology just clicked and I never looked back. Whether I was using Things 2, a Filofax, Omnifocus, or now, Things 3, GTD has always been the backbone of how I manage life.

My concept of GTD has changed significantly over the years. GTD is one of the few books I reread every few years. Each time I read it the book seems to hit differently and I grasp the concepts a little more. Every so often I also find myself having small breakthroughs where a concept clicks just a little more. While the breakthroughs seem to be fewer and far between these days, I do have occasional moments where I still find my GTD practice changing.

In the past, examples have included fully understanding what capturing everything actually entails (It’s more than you think!), why something that takes more than one step really should be a project and not a single action, and why it actually can be sufficient to only have a single next action in a project rather than planning every detail out at the start.

My most recent breakthrough is understanding mind like water.

For much of the past year and a half, I’ve run myself ragged, stressing about all the projects I was responsible for, many of which I had never encountered like managing a remote team, setting up a socially distanced office, planning a return to the office when the conditions seem to be shifting daily (go get vaccinated folks!), or dealing with a sick pet.

In every one of these cases, most of the stress was due to simply not knowing what to do next, and as more and more of these piled up, the overwhelm set in hard.

In a recent chat with my therapist, we discussed how one of my coping mechanisms for stress is creating systems and solving problems. Sadly I usually do this out of desperation rather than regular practice. Rather than feeling helpless in a situation, her suggestion was to shift my thinking and problem solve at least one thing I could do to make me feel more at ease – to make a stressful situation a little less scary.

In writing this, I find myself realizing this probably sounds a lot like next actions, but I actually think about it a little differently.

For next actions, I ask myself the question, “What is the next thing that needs to get done to move this project forward?” This question is all about progress and completion.

For mind like water, I’m asking myself, “What is something I could do to feel more at ease?” Here I’m more concerned about what’s going to make me feel better.

In some cases, the answers to these questions might even be the same. In my sick pet example, the next action was to clearly call the vet to schedule an appointment. However, I found myself stalling because I hate making phone calls, how busy my vet is, how much my pet hates going to the vet, and how scary the diagnosis could be. All of these things were overwhelming, but what was more overwhelming? Knowing my pet was sick, not knowing why, constantly telling myself I should be calling to schedule an appointment, and beating myself up for not doing it because I’m a responsible pet owner. Without question, the thing to put me more at ease was to just make the call.

It’s a small mindset shift, but in cases where I’m truly feeling stressed, it’s that small shift that takes me from feeling like things are out of control and helpless to seeing a path through.

Trouble with Task Managers

4 Comments

I’ve been using Omnifocus for over 3 years now. It’s effectively become my second brain at this point. But lately, I’ve been running into a few hiccups.

Design

For anyone interested in GTD or task management, I doubt I need to mention how gorgeous Things 3 is. Looking at Omnifocus feels like I’m looking at a complicated spreadsheet now. I’d switch to Things in a heartbeat, but it’s lack of sequential tasks or perspectives are deal breakers. I also find that the sidebar gets quite overwhelming fairly quickly if you use a task manager to the extent that I do. If they’d add the ability to have headers in Areas, I’d be thrilled.

Sharing Lists

Now that I’m sharing tasks with another person, mainly my grocery list, I’ve had to look elsewhere and abandon my wonderfully organized list in Omnifocus. I’m back to using Reminders for now. For a brief time, I explored GoodTask and 2Do which both sync with Reminders, but found GoodTask lacking in features and 2Do just too complicated.

Tags

Testing out Things 3, GoodTask, and 2Do really opened my eyes to how valuable a tagging system could be. While not critical to my workflow, I do think there is value in being able to assign things like energy levels, priorities, or people to certain tasks in addition to just their context. Multiple tags is on the roadmap for Omnifocus 3, but it is yet another thing to be desired in my current set up.

For now, I’ve resigned myself to keep using Omnifocus. Tags are at least on the roadmap, and sharing of lists has at least been hinted at so it seems like my best bet is to keep waiting. Hopefully, the next version will feature a simplified design as well and the wait will be worthwhile. Until then, it seems like I’ll be dealing with a little more friction when it comes to my task management system then I’d like.

Using Omnifocus 2 – My Workflow

Leave a comment

It’s been a bit since my last Omnifocus posts, and I’ve been asked some questions about my general workflow which I seemed to have miseed in my previous posts that went over more of the structure and why I use Omnifocus.

Background about life: I’m the coordinator for a university help desk. I manage around 10-15 students as well as a full-time employee each semester, and that means I’m responsible for everything from hiring them, scheduling them, training them, and answering their day to day questions. I’m also one of two full time employees in the office, so I’m responsible for triaging nearly all of the support requests coming through our office for the entire university. Outside of work, I’m also getting my Masters in Human-Centered Computing, and for those of you who’ve been following along with my Condo Project, I just bought my first condo, which I’ve been renovating for the last 3 months, and recently moved into. I also take care of three demanding cats, and I try to have a social life if there’s time left over.

So let’s dive in with how I use Omnifocus (or better put, what earned a spot in my sidebar/home screen).

Note: I have the Pro version of Omnifocus. The ability to create custom perspectives like the ones below is not available in the standard version.

screenshot-1Most of my time is spent at work, so let’s start there. When I’m at my office, I use Omnifocus on my Mac, and it’s usually open to my @Work perspective. This shows anything available that has to or can be done while I’m at work (based on context) grouped by project. These are things like discussing something with a coworker or cleaning up my desk, but can also include things I can do in the background like updating my operating system because the download speeds are much faster. Phone calls I need to make during business hours also fit into this category just so that I can remember to call during my lunch break.

Outside of the office, I primarily work with Omnifocus on my iPhone, and bounce between two perspectives:

Like my @Work perspective, my @Home perspective shows anything available that has to or can be done while I’m at home (based on context), but this time grouped by context (primarily where I’m at in the house, but my Mac/Phone are also included). By having things grouped by room, I’m not constantly running back and forth between rooms.

The other perspective I use outside of the office is my Errands perspective, which shows the available tasks I need to do when I’m out and about also grouped by context. These are things like getting my car washed, picking up something from the store, etc.

@Work, @Home, and Errands are enough to cover all my tasks in Omnifocus, and give me the ability to see everything I can do at any given time depending on where I’m at. I also use the Defer feature heavily, so the number of tasks that appear in each of these perspectives is usually not too high. If the lists do get long, I usually go through and defer any tasks that I can that I can so that it’s clear what I need to focus on for that day.

When defer dates aren’t enough and I’m feeling overwhelmed, however, I have my Available perspective, which shows all available tasks regardless of context or project. This perspective doesn’t have any sort of grouping, so it’s literally just one big list of everything currently available sorted by anything that has a due date. I don’t normally use flags, but it’s from this perspective that I usually flag things, but only as a last resort when I’m feeling frazzled.

The very last perspective in my sidebar is Waiting which holds any tasks that have been assigned the “Waiting for…” context grouped by when they were added to Omnifocus. This lets me see everything I’m waiting on others for in order of newest (at the top) to oldest. I try to periodically check into this perspective just to make sure I’ve not missed any tasks that I’m no longer waiting on that might be holding up a project.

For those of you who hate reading, or maybe just wanted a summary:
– If I’m at work, I open up the @Work perspective on my Mac which shows anything I can do while I’m at work grouped by project.
– If I’m at home, I open up the @Home perspective on my iPhone which shows, you guessed it, anything I can do while I’m at home grouped by context.
– When I’m running errands, I have an Errands perspective that shows me all the things I need to do while I’m out grouped by context.
– My Available perspective shows *everything* currently available in Omnifocus sorted only by due date.
– And the Waiting perspective shows everything I’m waiting on others for.

Omnifocus is an incredibly powerful tool, and figuring out how to best set it up for your own use is an ever-changing process. Hopefully, this has given you some ideas into setting up your own perspectives in Omnifocus.

Signature Update

Custom Perspectives in Omnifocus

4 Comments

One of the hot topics in Omnifocus world is whether the Pro version is worth the extra $40. My opinion on the matter can be summed up with, “YES! Absolutely yes!”

Omnifocus Pro comes with the ability to use the Focus feature, AppleScripts, and custom perspectives. Custom perspectives are a feature I don’t know how I’d live without. Quite honestly, it’s the one thing that sold me on Omnifocus because there isn’t anything else like it.

Omnifocus has it’s default perspectives, Inbox, Projects, Contexts, Forecast, Flagged, etc., but custom perspectives are where this app shines.

I have 4 main perspectives I work from:

  • @Work shows me everything I can do while I’m at work. {No surprise there.} It shows me only available items in my Campus and Devices contexts, grouped by project, and sorted by due date {if there is one.} Essentially it’s a list of tasks I have to be at the office to do and any tasks I can do while on the computer since I sit in front of the computer for 8 hours a day.
  • @Home shows me everything I can do while I’m at home. It shows me available items in my House and Devices contexts but unlike the @Work perspective, it’s grouped by context, not project, and sorted by project. Grouping by context means all my tasks that are in the basement are grouped together which makes it super simple to batch tasks when I’m in a particular area of the house and not have to constantly walk up and down the stairs.
  • Errands shows any available items in my Errands context sorted by project. This list shows me anything I need to pick up from a store or do while I’m out. Grouping by project lets me quickly see whether something is for my room remodel or just general shopping.
  • Waiting is my last perspective and it shows any tasks that have a “Waiting for…” context. If I’m waiting to hear back from someone or waiting for a particular item in the mail, I can quickly move the task to this list which I periodically review. It’s extremely helpful in making sure nothing falls through the cracks.

So there you have it – my 4 perspectives. I work primarily out of these contexts unless I’m tweaking how something is organized in Omnifocus. In that case, I’d right click and choose Show in Contexts or Projects depending on what I’m trying to do. Being able to see only what I can work on while I’m at work without being reminded of all the things I can’t do at home is an incredible feature of Omnifocus 2, and it’s well worth every bit of the $40 even if you aren’t planning on using the other features {which I don’t.}

And it looks this post wraps up my long winded series of how I use Omnifocus. I hope you’ve enjoyed it, and as always, if you have any questions or you want to hear more, feel free to ask.

Up next on the blog radar… I’m going to get back to posting about how my room remodel has been going.

Until next time,

Signature Update

Creating Checklist Templates in Omnifocus

Leave a comment

As a planner person, I LOVE checklists. I enjoy checking things off, but I really enjoy the feeling of knowing I haven’t forgotten anything. I’m also an efficiency junky, and I try to streamline things wherever possible which is probably why I like checklists even more. As David Allen says in his book Getting Things Done, “There is no reason ever to have the same thought twice, unless you like having that thought.” There are very few things I enjoy thinking about over and over again, and checklists mean I don’t need to waste my time and energy thinking about planning things I do regularly more than once.

Most of my checklists are for things that repeat regularly like finalizing the schedule for my student employees which happens every Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter or getting new pay rates approved twice a year. These happen pretty regularly, but there are a lot of moving pieces involving different people, so if I don’t get moving on them by a certain time, I run risk of having an office without employees scheduled to work. I don’t want that, nor do I want the stress of missing something in the process that looming over me especially when these things all happen at the most chaotic times of the year. These checklists are set as repeating list in Omnifocus and help to make my life *slightly* less stressful.

Much to my dismay, some things in life happen over and over again but not regularly. Having the checklist saves me time, but having it repeat regularly wouldn’t work. These are things like a preparing for trip or bringing a new employee on board. The process is pretty much the same every time, I just don’t necessarily go on a vacation every 6 months {although I may try…} or bring a new employee on board exactly every 3 months.

In the past, I saved these lists randomly with no rhyme or reason. I had checklists saved as a Google documents, others in Microsoft Word, and some in Evernote. Trying to remember where one might be was a task in itself. Having to create a task to find a check list was silly, so in an effort to simplify, I wanted to have them in one place, and since Omnifocus is my place for tasks, it made sense to keep these checklists of tasks there as well.

In my last Omnifocus post, I went over my project hierarchy in detail, but I skipped over the “Templates” sections promising to go over them later. My templates folders are where I keep my randomly recurring checklists. I have separate template folders for both work and personal tasks, but you could also keep them all together in one folder. Each template checklist is saved as its own project, and I set the status to “On Hold” since I’m not actually working on them which prevents them from showing as available tasks.

To illustrate how I use them, let’s consider the following scenario of hiring a new student. After I’ve decided to hire a new student, I simply go to my “New Employee Checklist” template, right click it in the sidebar and select Copy to make a copy of it, and paste the copy into my Student Management single action list. From there, the only change I make is to add the new employee’s name in parentheses to the end of the checklist title. Once I’ve done that, I have a ready made list of everything I need to do from getting that new employee’s payroll paperwork submitted all the way up to making sure they’ve got all the required accesses for their first day on the job within just a few clicks.

I use a similar process when taking a trip, but this checklist is a bit more detailed. My “Taking a Trip” template includes sections for preparations, packing (broken down into categories), and things to do when I get back like unpack. The packing section includes the standard items I normally take with me on every trip, but also includes placeholders so I can list clothes for each day of the trip, and placeholders to remind me of extras I might forget like a bikini and flip flops for a hotel’s indoor pool or gear for snowboarding. The beauty of this is I get a generic list of everything I need to do before and after I leave that I can add to as I see fit. It’s also a place to keep all those things I always forget to do like turn the alarm clock off before I leave.

My use of templates is fairly straight forward and simple – just a project on hold that I copy and paste as necessary. They are there to serve mainly as reminders that I don’t mind tweaking here and there. For uber power users of Omnifocus that are really interested in the idea of templates, I’d recommend checking out Chris Suave’s Templates.scpt which lets you set variables and all sorts of crazy fun things that show you the power Omnifocus has. (Note: These were made for Omnifocus 1. I’m not sure if they will work with Omnifocus 2.)

Signature Update

Omnifocus 2 is Out Today!

Leave a comment

In honor of Omnifocus 2 being released today, I’ve decided to post a quick summary of all my Omnifocus posts so far:

If you’re interested in trying out Omnifocus 2, head over to Omnigroup’s site for a free trial. They also have a wonderful Inside Omnifocus series featuring some of my favorite Omnifocus power users that’s definitely worth checking out.

Happy organizing!

Signature Update

Organizing Projects in Omnifocus

2 Comments

Today’s post is going to be all about projects in Omnifocus. Here’s where I probably deviate a bit from GTD mainly because I haven’t really gotten a good grasp on David Allen’s “altitudes” concept. I’m currently reviewing his book so that I can hopefully get a clearer understanding, but for now, what I have works.

Omnifocus is great in that it lets you put projects in folders and even nest sub-projects inside projects {something Things surely lacked}. Even better it has different types of projects and lists.

  • Single-action lists are great for those collections of things you have that don’t have a clear end like a shopping list {because let’s be real, when is a girl ever done shopping?}
  • Parallel projects are good for projects with a clear end in mind that don’t need to be completed in a specific order.
  • Sequential projects on the other hand do have an order. For instance you can’t complete turn in a paper if you haven’t even written a first draft.

Now onto the fun part – how I’m actually using projects and organizing them.

For an updated look at how I’m now using projects see my new post.

Overview

I’ve broken things down into my three main areas of responsibility. I tend to see my life in terms of being a graduate student, employee, and everything else so my three categories are Work, School, and Personal – listed in order of importance. I do this so that they show up in my perspectives in order of importance automatically.

It’s also worth noting, I try to arrange my projects and lists so that general single action lists are at the top, followed by specific projects, then Someday/Maybe lists and templates. Having things in this order pleases my OCD tendencies. The one exception to this arrangement is my folder for personal 2014 Goals which I have above my routine tasks purely because I like seeing them before my mundane tasks like clean the bathroom floor.

So let’s look at how I have my Work section organized.

screen-capture-1

  • Single Action Lists:
    • General Work Tasks – This list is for miscellaneous tasks that don’t have a specific project. Things like turning in my timesheet, re-charge my mouse, or wipe down my desk periodically would go here.
    • Student Management – This is where I keep all my supervisory tasks to keep me on track for semesterly performance and pay rate evaluations, scheduling, tracking the hiring processes of new employees, and fun things like bringing in treats for special occasions too.
    • Agendas –  I’m a big believer in saving up my miniscule thoughts and questions until I meet with someone or have enough to make sending an email worthwhile, so I keep track of those things here if they don’t fit in a specific project below.
  • Projects
    • User Support Meetings is a sequential project to track a new departmental bi-weekly meeting I’m chairing. Realistically speaking, once this gets going it will become a single action list as these will hopefully not end.
    • Remote Support Solution is also a sequential project to track the work I’m doing to research a new remote support solution for our department. Tasks here involve working with the vendor as well as members of our department to find something that works best for all of us.
  • Someday/Maybe is simply a list for things I want to do at some point, just not now.
  • I’m going to save discussing Templates for a separate post.

screen-capture-2

Moving down to School, I honestly don’t have much to say about this one right now as I’m currently taking a break from school. I was planning on applying to a new program for the Fall, but there were complications in getting my third recommendation letter submitted and I’ve missed the Fall deadline. Even though school is technically on hold,  I’m still tracking my application process for the Spring so I’ve left it active. When I’m taking classes, you’d find a project for each class. Within each project, I break down the semester into sub-projects by week and list any assignments within that.

Personal is undoubtedly my largest area, so let’s break it down:

screen-capture

  • General Tasks is a single action list for one-off tasks that don’t fit anywhere else.
  • Shopping List is another single action list where I track things I want to buy. (Items on my wishlist also go here but with a “Someday/Maybe” context.)
  • Next I have a folder for 2014 Goals. Inside you’ll find:
    • Run a 5K, a parallel project that contains a sequential project I’m using to track my training progress.
    • Read 52 books in 2014 is a sequential project where I’m checking off my reading progress. {I’m also tracking this in Goodreads, but I like checking things off.}
    • Room remodel is a parallel project where I’m tracking all things room remodel related.
  • My next folder is Routine for things I do on a regular basis broken down further into:
    • Cleaning
    • Computer Tasks
    • Finances
    • and Personal Care
  • Up next is Blog which I’ve broken down into
    • General Blog Tasks (things like reminders to post on a regular basis
    • Post Ideas
  • And of course these are followed by Someday/Maybe and Templates as with the Work section.

So there’s my Omnifocus Project set up. What I love most about writing these set up posts is that they give me a chance to be really critical about how I organize things. Certain projects or contexts seem to make perfect sense, but when you try to explain them to someone else, you realize they really fit better in another project or context. For instance, I had a single-action list for tracking what I set my DVR to record in my personal routine tasks section, but there’s nothing routine about recording a movie once, nor do I do this enough for it to need it’s own list.

Up next I’m going to discuss templates as promised, and then to the fun part, perspectives.

Until next time,

Signature Update

How I’m Using Contexts in Omnifocus

Leave a comment

I’m going to preface this post, by saying that this is by no means how someone has to use contexts nor is it a permanent set up of contexts for my system. In the world of paper planners, a lot of people refer to the idea of radically changing your set up as “planner fail.” In the world of Omnifocus, I find that many people feel that tinkering with their setup is the norm. It’s not seen as failure but as improvement. Some even have dedicated Omnifocus “maintenance” or “ideas” projects and/or contexts. {I have to say, the idea that making changes isn’t because I failed, but instead learning how to make my system better has been a nice change of thinking for me.}

Today I’m going to give you an overview of how I’m using contexts in Omnifocus.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with David Allen’s GTD, the way I perceive contexts is that they basically define a certain location or thing you need to have in order for you to complete a task. For instance, if you need to call someone, you need to have access to a phone.

Now needing a phone to make a phone call seems pretty obvious, but when you add up all the things we do on a regular basis, it can get a bit more complicated. I find contexts extremely helpful for 2 reasons:

  1. Contexts help identify what I can do at any given moment. For example, it’d be pointless to try and complete a phone call if I don’t have access to a phone or I’m out at a concert late at night.
  2. Contexts help to batch tasks together. If you have 5 items to pick up at IKEA, it makes more sense to pick them up in one trip than to go five separate times. This also works for batching other tasks like phone calls or emails.

This is my current list of contexts in Omnifocus.

OF Contexts

  • House – This context is for any task that requires me to be at home to complete. I’ve broken it down further to categorize tasks that can be done in a particular place in the home
    • Outside – These are garage-related tasks or things like taking the trash out.
    • Basement – My basement is 3 floors away. I typically try and tackle as many basement tasks in one trip as possible.
    • Bedroom – Given that my bedroom functions primarily as a studio apartment, this is where the majority of my tasks happen.
  • [Campus]* – These are either work or school-related tasks that require me to be on campus. *For privacy reasons, I’ve chosen to rename this context and edited the screenshot above accordinly.
    • If I have more than a couple tasks that involve a particular colleague, I’ll add them as a sub-context. When I’m meeting with that particular person, I can quickly go to their context and see any agenda items I need to discuss.
  • Errands – This context is for tasks that require me to be out and about.
    • Shopping – This context is specifically for items on my shopping list which I’ve broken down further into:
      • IKEA – Gotta love IKEA right?
      • Online – Many of my online purchases can also be made in a store, so I’ve kept this context under Errands so that if I’m out, I can pick up items on my list rather than buying them online. {This will come in handy when I describe my Perspectives in a later post.}
  • Devices – It’s been said many times over, the idea of “email” or “internet” contexts have become somewhat obsolete with the myriad of internet connected devices we all carry around. This context is for tasks that require some sort of digital device but not necessarily a specific one. For tasks that do require a specific device I’ve added sub-contexts:
    • Phone – Phone calls do require a phone {and a reasonably quiet environment}, so does installing an iPhone app, so these get their own context.
    • Mac – While I can do most of my “digital” tasks on any device, there are some that do require a computer or I prefer to do on a computer. These tasks get assigned a Mac context.

My last two contexts are maintenance contexts. I’ve put both of these contexts on hold so that they do not show up in my active tasks:

  • Waiting for… holds my tasks that I’m waiting on someone else for. For instance, if I’m waiting for a product to come in the mail or I’m waiting for someone to reply to an email.
  • Someday/Maybe holds my tasks that I don’t plan on doing right away but may like to do in the future.

So there you have it, my Omnifocus contexts. As I said in the beginning, this list isn’t set in stone. I see my contexts as dynamic, and they constantly change. I do, however, have one rule – If I find that a context has only 1 task, I heavily consider whether it really needs to be in it’s own context. More often than not, it fits better in one of my other contexts.

If you’re struggling with contexts in GTD or how to set up Omnifocus, I hope this has helped. I’d be happy to elaborate a bit more on any of the contexts above if they weren’t clear, and while I’m not an “expert” at Omnifocus, I’m also happy to take a stab at trying to answer any questions you might have.

In my next Omnifocus post, I’ll be going over how I’ve decided to organize my projects.

Signature Update