Essential OmniFocus Resources
If you came to SimplicityBliss to learn about OmniFocus or refine your setup this page is a good place to start. Although not associated with the OmniGroup I write a lot about OmniFocus but also other personal productivity applications and workflows.
Since my OmniFocus posting cadence has been decreasing in the last years, I highly recommend the following resources for more up-to-date and in-depth OmniFocus knowledge and tips:
- The “Learn OmniFocus” training platform with screencasts, articles and web seminars by OmniFocus power user Tim Stringer
- Joe Buhlig’s excellent video tutorial about “Working with OmniFocus” which is chockfull of practicals workflows and tips
- If you use Evernote in conjunction with OmniFocus you should check out Brett Kelly’s all-time ebook classic “Evernote Essentials”
Basic & Structure
The posts listed in this section are designed to help you getting off the ground with OmniFocus by understanding the various components and designing a solid and sustainable structure into the application from the beginning. If you already use OmniFocus for a while but feel like Folders, Projects, Lists and Contexts still provide more friction than flow this is definitely worth a read as well.
- How to effectively use Folders in OmniFocus
- Making Sense of Single Action Lists
- Defining and Managing Contexts in OmniFocus
- A Fresh Take on Contexts
No matter how simple or complex your OmniFocus setup is, consciously creating and maintaining control of its structure is possibly the single most important aspect of obtaining the productivity gains you are after.
Perspectives
One of the key features you will get when you purchase OmniFocus Pro are custom Perspectives. The standard version already comes with some pre-defined Perspectives — and these are covered in the following articles as well — but the real power comes with the ability to configure the view on your Action and Project data to your individual needs.
- Perspectives for Planning
- Perspectives for Doing
- Perspectives for Project Centric Working
- Perspectives for People & Meetings
- Using Focus & some bonus Perspectives
The possibilities of custom Perspective are incredible but can also be overwhelming and distracting. Be careful to not sink more time in creating Perspectives than doing the Actions they are designed to display. The Perspectives series above provides you with a set that should be addressing 80% of the typical needs.
Workflows
A tool is only as good as the workflow it is getting used in. OmniFocus is very much aligned to the Getting Things Done® methodology which offers some extremely simple, yet powerful workflows. Implementing certain routines and reviews with a view to turn them into habits is a key success factor of any productivity improvement. This section features a few posts that help with some of these (meta) workflows.
- Staying on Top with a Daily Routine and OmniFocus
- Old, But Good Weekly Review Habits
- Tracking Project and Actions with OmniFocus and TextExpander
- Tracking ‘Waiting For’ Emails in OmniFocus
- Scheduling Tasks with OmniFocus
- Scheduling OmniFocus Tasks in Fantastical 2
Whether workflows live exclusively inside of OmniFocus or involves other applications as well: Pick as few as possible and automate them as much as you can. The less energy and effort required on your end the more likely these things will work and add value. That said, some routines, like Weekly Reviews, you want to carry out as consciously and manually as possible.
Integrations & Scripts
When you say “workflows” you need to say “integration” next. OmniFocus on the Mac has a number of integration points, especially via its powerful Scripting interface. But also on iOS URL schemes, next to other forms of integration, offer automation for large parts of your workflows.
- The Ultimate Guide to Drafts Actions for OmniFocus
- Get Evernote and OmniFocus Talking
- Clipping Microsoft Office 2016 for Mac emails into OmniFocus
- Search an Open OmniFocus Projects with Alfred
- Automatically create OmniFocus inbox tasks from Trello cards assigned to you
- Exporting OmniFocus 2 to iThoughts & Markdown
Similar to Perspectives, integrations yield a lot of value, but also get you fiddling rather easily. Luckily the large OmniFocus community has done large parts of the work already and there are many scripts and integrations you can just use out of the box.
Recommended OmniFocus Resources
There is an incredible number of fantastic, additional OmniFocus resources, free as well as paid ones, around the web. Whether you just like to get a few more tips or receive a full training course on OmniFocus, I can personally recommend the following sites & products:
- Learn OmniFocus — web-based OmniFocus trainings by Tim Stringer
- Working with OmniFocus — Very pragmatic video tutorial about OmniFocus setups and workflows
- Creating Flow with OmniFocus — a comprehensive OmniFocus ebook by Kourosh Dini
- MacSparky’s OmniFocus Video Field Guide — Structured collection of video tutorials by David Sparks
- David Sparks’ OmniFocus Posts
- Inside OmniFocus — OmniGroup’s “Best Practice” collection
- OmniGroup’s documentations and manuals & user forums
The OmniFocus community has developed a great culture of sharing their setups, hacks, workflows and integrations. Beyond this site and the recommended resources in the above list you will find many more posts on the web. They can either help you perfecting your usage of the application or at least offer a great excuse for a little procrastination.
