This post is the second in a series where I talk about my productivity system. The first can be found here.
In the first post in my series on how I keep productive, I talked through an overall view of my productivity system, including the main steps and rules that I use to keep me at my most efficient. I spoke about Omnifocus in some detail, mostly touching upon how I integrate it into my everyday routine.
In this post, I would like to delve a bit deeper into Omnifocus and talk about some of its best and most helpful features and how this helps me maintain high productivity day to day.
So, what is Omnifocus?
OmniFocus is an awesome piece of software available for your computer, iPhone and iPad. It is a system that helps you to process all your thoughts into actionable to-do items, making sure that you never forget to do anything, and allowing you to see easily what needs to be done and when. By using OmniFocus and its myriad of great features, everything that you need to get done is organised in 1 place, making sure that you can easily stay on top of all the things you need to do. Once you become familiar with Omnifocus and the more it becomes a regular part of your everyday routine, the less you worry that you have ‘forgotten to do something’ and the more you just Get Things Done!
Key Omnifocus Features
QUICK ENTRY
I don’t know about you, but I am often sitting at my desk, or on the train, or even just walking down the vegetable aisle in the supermarket, and a thought about something that I need to do or remember will enter my mind. Before Omnifocus, my usual response to this would be to think “Ah, better remember that!” and then carry on with whatever I was doing. Occasionally, if it was really important, I would try and write the thought down on whatever I could – a notepad, a spare piece of paper, as a text message on my phone, the back of my hand. However, I would mostly forget all about the thought later on – even if I had written the thought down somewhere, I would often forget that I had written it down in, or I would lose the piece of paper anyway. This started to become a serious problem and something HAD to be done. Having Omnifocus on my computer (for when I’m at home) and on my iPhone (for when I am out), means that this need never be a problem again. Entering these random thoughts into Omnifocus is quick and simple with its Quick Entry system – it puts all your entries straight into your inbox, where they stay until you are ready to process and organise them properly. Now, when I think of something I need to do/remember, all I do is take out a minute of my time to record the item in Omnifocus, and I know that it’ll be there waiting for me when I am ready to deal with it.
CONTEXTS
Another big problem that I have is focusing on one kind of task at a time. There are some tasks that are just meant to be grouped together – for example, household chores, that, if you did them all at the same time, would save you a lot of running around. To help with this, Omnifocus allows you to assign each of your to-do items with a context. For example, one of my to-do items is ‘Finish editing About page on blog’ – this item was assigned to the context of Blog, together with any other to-do items that relate to my blog. This means that all my to-do items are categorized by their context, incredibly helpful when I just want to see all my to-do items from a particular sphere of my life. This means that instead of checking out all the to-do items I have on my plate today, I can just focus on everything I need to go done on my blog by clicking on the Blog context in Omnifocus to filter out everything except the blog-related items. Simple, but genius.
SYNCHRONISATION
Being able to simply and quickly synchronise my Macs/iPhone/iPod Touch so that I have the same information at my fingertips no matter what device I am using or where I am is a must-have feature for any productivity system. With Omnifocus, you do not need to do anything to achieve synchronicity; Omnifocus does this all in the background for a really simple experience. It is really an amazing feature that I can be entering a task into my iPhone when I am on the go, and access it later at home on my iMac without even thinking about it.
ACTIONABLE NEXT STEPS
The thing that would always put me off just writing to-do lists would be that there was nothing intrinsic in a to-do list that would make me actually remember to do the item. I’d end up with list upon list of to-do items, many repeated accidentally, and I’d just sit there, forgetting about every single one of them. The luxury of entering items in Omnifocus means that you can just as easily give each task a start date and a due date. Due dates are especially important for me. I do not allow myself to leave an item in Omnifocus without a due date. Being able to see clearly when I have to complete all my tasks by has done wonders for my time management skills – now I can properly prioritise and plan my time.
NOTIFICATION BADGE
One of my favourite Omnifocus features has to be its notification badge feature; the red circle that tells you how many overdue items you have got going on at any one time. I like how its all red and in your face and shouting at you to be more productive (‘You’ve got EIGHT! overdue items, missy. And you want nap time? You cannot be SERIOUS!) Having the notification badge there constantly really does give me a kick up the ass – always being incredibly aware of all the things that you have really got to do, as opposed to my usual modus operandi of ‘out of sight, out of mind’, will be a bit of a freak-out at first, but in a good way. Oh and the satisfaction watching it slowly creep down as you cross items off your list? Amazing.
Productivity Benefits
Having this system in place has seriously and quickly upped my productivity. Now, I always know what is on my plate, how long I have to complete all my tasks, and how many new tasks I can practicably take on without swamping myself – all at the click of a couple of buttons. I can do things like go shopping, and bring up my ‘To Buy’ project on my iPhone, and I can actually remember to buy everything that I need to. Or, I’m waiting for a train, and I can bring up my ‘To Call’ project, and I spend my waiting time making my way through my list of people that I need to speak to. Having tasks like these at my fingertips cuts through all the stress and annoyance of actually having to think about what I need to be doing and helps me actually just do it.
Additionally, being able to filter my to-do lists into home/work contexts means that I am much more focused on one area of my life at a time. Now, my life feels like I have specific ‘work’ times when I can focus on getting all of my work tasks completed, and specific ‘home’ times, when I can just bring up all my home tasks and get through those. Before, without being able to easily delineate between the 2, I was spending a whole lot of time flipping between the 2, wasting my time and resources as I remembered one random task at a time.
Lessons Learned
Two big lessons that Omnifocus has taught me are:
Even when I’m not specifically looking at OmniFocus, just the fact that I am used to capturing and recording to-do items means that I am instantly more aware of everything that I’ve got to do and less likely to forget things. Additionally, just because I can capture and record my items efficiently now is all very well, but the fun does not end there. After all the organising and writing tasks in Omnifocus, the most important bit is still yet to come – actually DOING the tasks! Whilst entering it all into Omnifocus will make you feel really great and productive, you have to be able to cross the tasks off when you need to as well.
I hope this in-depth look into the features of Omnifocus and how it helps me as been helpful. For more information, check out the Omnifocus website.
