Category: GTD

I Have Done a Vibe Code

⌘ Permalink

For the last couple of years, I have used Apple’s Reminders app, but over the last few months, it has become clear I needed something with planned dates to better map out future work. Last fall, OmniFocus 4.7 shipped with just that feature, so after years away, I have returned to the venerable application.

When using Reminders, I was also using InstaRemind to add tasks quickly using natural language processing. OmniFocus’ Quick Entry tool is pretty great, but I have found it to be error-prone as you have to tab between multiple fields to enter a task with metadata such as a project, due date, etc:

Continue reading ⇢

My 2020 Tasks, by the Numbers

⌘ Permalink

Thanks to Todoist’s annual reporting, I have found a lot of information about how I worked last year. In total, I completed 4,362 tasks in 2020, which breaks down to these averages:

  • 11 tasks per day
  • 82 tasks per week
  • 363 tasks per month

April was my most productive month, as you can see from these numbers showing how many tasks I completed by month. You can see that March wasn’t very good, and that I put my head down in April to work through the panic:

Continue reading ⇢

Review: OmniFocus 2 for Mac

⌘ Permalink

Background

I’ve used OmniFocus on and off over the years, but I’ve never used it to its full potential. I don’t use Contexts or Start Dates. I use one custom Perspective that has been replaced entirely by the app’s excellent Forecast mode.

All of that aside, I’ve been keenly interested in OmniFocus 2 for Mac’s development. When the initial beta phase ended, I was discouraged. OmniFocus 1 for Mac was aging, but once the betas fired back up, I jumped back in head-first.

Continue reading ⇢

Revisiting Notes

⌘ Permalink

A couple of years ago, I shared how I take meeting notes with a standard form I created. 1

While that post is still one of the most-visited on 512, I thought it was time to revisit the topic after receiving several questions about my notebook of choice:

I know that Field Notes are super popular in our corner of the Internet, but they really are as good as everyone says they are. They aren’t the cheapest notebooks for sale, but they are durable and fit really well in your back pocket. Plus, with special editions — like the new “Night Sky” edition pictured above — there’s an element of fun associated with collecting the notebooks.

Continue reading ⇢

On OmniFocus Contexts ⇢

⌘ Permalink

Michael Schechter:

As you you start toying with contexts or looking at the way others create their own, there’s really no right or wrong way to go about this. It’s more about finding what works best for you and what doesn’t. In my case, I needed to boil everything down as far as I could; others crave a hierarchy that has thought of everything, most will fall somewhere in-between the two. I’ve found tremendous value in determining the contexts that are essential and in naming tasks consistently for recall, but that’s just what works for me.

Continue reading ⇢

Burning Down OmniFocus

⌘ Permalink

Over the last several months, the number of projects I’m overseeing at work has changed more times than I can begin to count. One of the many side effects of this is that my OmniFocus project list — and overall organization — went to hell pretty quickly.

About a month ago, I reverted to using Remember the Milk for critical tasks. I used RTM for years, and really like it as a service. It’s no where near as powerful as OmniFocus is, but it got me by until this weekend.

Continue reading ⇢