Getting Things Done discussion

So - It's time to fess up - how often do you do your weekly review? Every week? Every other week? Only when you see your trusted system is groaning and parting at the seams?

Me? Well often weekly but also often bi-weekly I'm afraid. I tell my self thats ok because I do a mini-review every day or two but I know that this is not the proper way to do GTD.

As DA says 'If you're not doing the weekly review you are not doing GTD'

So, how well do you do?

I'm not to bad on the reviews, it's the doing the actions that I struggle with.

I use omnifocus on the Mac and the iPad. The iPad has a great review section and I use that quite often. I prefer using the iPad for the reviews over the desktop app.

In Omnifocus when you set up a project you can also tell it how often you want this project reviewed and each project can have a different review period. OmniFocus will allow you to set up a review period by x Days, Weeks, Months or Years So you can have one project being review every 2 days, another project could be set to every 4 months. Whenever a project is ready for review it shows up in the review section of the app, so I just check this every couple of days and review what ever projects appear in the list. Once the project is check you just click the Marked Reviewed button and it disappears from the review process until next time it's due.

That sounds really good. I have OmniFocus on my MBP and on my iPhone but do not use them ATM. From our conversations on the UK KUF I know your situation is similar to mine - PC at work (ie no access to OF) and Mac at home.

How do you manage your GTD in OF without access to it at work? I would love to use OF but cannot see how I can make this work. So many of my Projects and Next Actions come from work rather than home so I really need a system that I can use at work.

I currently use www.toodledo.com This is useful as I can use the web interface, forward emails to it, and use the iPhone app - At home, at work or when I'm out and about.

But the advanced review capacity in OF are really enticing.

Any advice/insights would be most welcome.

I have Omnifocus on my iPad (3G) so I use that when at work.

I also use the mail clipping feature of OmniFocus. Where I have OmniFocus configured to intercept any emails which have +omnifocus added to my email address. This allows me to send myself an email which then automatically adds the action directly into OmniFocus. During the day at work I regularly just forward emails to phil+omnifocus@... and they appear in my inbox within OmniFocus. You can if you format the mail correctly autoassign contexts, project, due dates, start dates etc directly by email.


as an example sending the email

Pass OmniFocus info to John >GTD @online #fri

would create
an action "Pass OmniFocus Info to John"
in the Project "GTD"
with a context of "Online"
due on "Friday"

These emails arrive on my home computer, and are automatically picked up by OmniFocus on the desktop and then synced to the iPad. I could pick up the iPad and type them in by hand, but with the tasks which arrive via email at work I tend to just forward them to home+omnifocus. This also causes the body of the email to be added as the notes section of the OF entry so I also get the email available to me on the iPad when reviewing the action.

I don't think the review on the iPhone is the same as on the iPad app. The desktop app will likely get the same review process as the iPad app but this will probably be an OmniFocus v2 feature.

Phil,

Thanks for the great response. As usual I now have more questions!

For mail clipping to work do I need to use (and have running) the Apple Mail app? I've read the manual but it's not clear from there if OF has it's own little mail server build-in or relies upon the Mail.app. It might be more clear this evening when I get to my Mac and take a look at OF.

I don't tend to use it but I could. As I have my own domain I can set up an email address of of@*******.co.uk and use this, as you do, to send items from work.

Toodledo.com has a similar facility so I'm familiar with the process. I even have an Outlook macro to send items to toodldo so I could re-work that.

As you say there is no 'review mode' on the iPhone app and with the lack of screen real estate I don't see how it could be usable there anyway.

I've read great things about 'review' on the iPad and seen a few videos of it to - Don McAllister did a great one here: http://www.screencastsonline.com/inde...

I'm certain that OF 2.0 will take a queue from the iPad interface - let's hope there is an affordable upgrade path.

So all I really need to understand is how to configure the mail clipping feature - any help you can give would be appreciated.

Again thanks for the feedback, think I'm going to give it a try.

I think you do need to use Mail.app yes.

I use my own domain as well, but my mail provider doesn't handle the +omnifocus correctly so I ended up creating a gmail account just for OF and my work calendar. I don't use it for anything else but I have myname@gmail.com and it's allows the addition of + keywords so I use the +omnifocus and it's works well.

Omnifocus will also allow you to set it up to look for -- at the start of the subject line in which case it doesn't matter what your email address is. You can also select which "From" addresses are valid to prevent spam ending up in your OmniFocus listings. I may switch to this format at some point as it avoids the need to use gmail.

If you look in Omnifocus - Preferences - Mail you can see how to set it up.

I've just had a look at it and it's basically using a mail rule to look for the +omnifocus in the recipient list. the rule moves the message to the receipts folder, marks it read and runs an applescript which does the work of moving it to Omnifocus. So it should be easy to copy this rule to whatever mail client you use. you would just have to tweak the applescript to use your mail client not Mail.app

Well, I've got the email snipping working. I had hoped that OF was more flexible in how the Mail rule was set up - I had intended to simply have a nice short email address (form my own domain) that Mail.app would forward. Maybe I can do this by tinkering with the applescript but I don't have the time at the mo.

On the upside I have been able to use the *+omnifocus@*.co.uk trick. I think this is possible because I pipe all my email through google apps. So happy times there.

I'm going to run my personal (ie not work) GTD through this system for the week and see how it works out. One downside might be that I will have to leave my MBP running (with Mail.app and OF running) if I want to have instant access to any tasks I have sent to my +omnifocus email address. This is fine from Friday evening to Wednesday morning as the MBP is permanently running during these time. Less convenient from Wed morning to Friday evening as it is generally not running. Not sure this is a show stopper though.

When using the mail formatting for project, context etc, like your example:

Pass OmniFocus info to John >GTD @online #fri

does all that info need to be in the subject line or can it be in the bod of the email?

Cheers.

No the tasks can also be in the body of the email, in fact you can add multiple actions within a single email.

-- is an action
> is a project
@ context
# due date (or #mon #tue would give a start date + due date)
blah blah blah would be a note

--next action
etc

I don't tend to do this as I really only use the email for a collection tool for future tasks so I tend to just forward mails with only a brief subject line. I hardly ever add the project or context at that point. Using just a single subject description forces them to stay in my inbox and allows me to keep them all together to sort out later when I process my inbox.

I also don't tend to worry about having the computer on at home. All of the tasks I email are for future actions so they sync up when I get home each night. Tasks I plan to do straight away I wouldn't enter into OF anyway, and those for later in the day I'd just manually enter a brief action, project & context, more as a reminder just incase I do forgot about them. I normally wouldn't be too worried about the support material as it would more than likely be to hand away if I've only just found out about it. If I thought I might need something I may throw a pdf in my Project folders within dropbox, which I can then get to from the iPad (iPhone) straight away or from my home PC later.

The iPad is a little expensive and delicate to carry around in the job I do so it normally stays on my desk. I work in a chemical plant so whilst I'm out and about on site I tend to just use a small pocket notebook. If I need to, I make notes in there to process later.


PM me your email address on KUF and I'll send you an article I have on this emailling process.

Thanks Phil. I've PMed you on KUF.

Just re-watching the Screencasts Online videos as a refresher.

Hi. I hope you don't mind someone from the US joining your group.
I do my weekly review weekly. When I was working (I'm retired now.) I did two WEs, one for work and one for the real world. I know that The David says you should combine everything in your life, but because of limited computer access I had to keep them apart.
The main stumbling block in my system (paper and electronic) is that I don't always update Projects. For instance, I have a Medical Project where I track general health, doctor visits, etc. I went to the doctor on Tuesday, but didn't update the project. Now it's time for my WE and I have to think back and remember what was discussed, etc.

Hi Cjl

I have similar issues but I do tend to either have a notebook or iPad with me and I try to jot reminders down. The iPad is great but it can be a bit bulky and fragile so I sometimes leave it at home or in my office. At work I also tend to email things to myself so the actions automatically end up in my system.

In Omnifocus I really need a project note where I can keep an overview of a project, I often find I've added notes to an action which I've now completed which causes the action and the note to disappear and I quickly start to wonder "did I do ...?" I use applescripts to create project a folder and note for each Omnifocus Project but it would be good to have it built in.

I guess with multi action projects I should really add all my notes to the project header rather than the individual actions. That way the the notes stay available until the project ends.

Last weeks review took two days! I stopped working, so all my work related projects had to be deleted. Plus contact info in Outlook related to work.
And all the Someday/Maybes related to getting my house ready to sell became active projects.
I think I have more things to do now that I'm not working.