What should I do today?
 

I've been really making a lot of use of Omnifocus lately to get my TODO list in order. But...

I'm starting to feel really buried now in all the things I need to do. This is my psychology I guess. But what I really wish there was, was a way at the beginning of the day to take a browse of my list, pick out what to do as an action plan for the day. Preferably, I would be able to order it a bit. Optionally, I would be able to take that list, or the unfinished bits as a starting point for tomorrow's actions.

I don't know if there is some way of doing this already. I guess I could flag stuff, but the reality is, I sometimes flag stuff because I think it is important, then I ignore it anyway, and the flag ends up meaning nothing. I suppose I could unflag everything religiously, then flag at the beginning of the day, then unflag if it doesn't get done, but what I really feel like I want is something that in theory is fresh at the beginning of each day. Basically I want a TODO list within my more global TODO list.

Am I wrong to want this? Is there a way to do it?

You are not wrong for wanting anything you need to get your work done : ) The easiest answer for now is to search for " today list " in the forum archives , there's been much discussion about this topic . Some people have posted work-arounds , perspectives they use to accomplish it .

I have two today perspectives for myself.

I have a "Today" persective set like this:

Context perspective:
Context filter: Active
Grouping: Context
Sorting: Date
Availability Filter: Available
Status Filter:Due or Flagged
Estimated Time Filter: Any Duration


Use due dates sparingly. Only use due dates on projects/tasks that really have them. Things like "File my 1040 taxes by April 15th" or "buy birthday gift for wife" on December 10th. i make use of start dates to delay any projects that don't need to be seen until a later date.

Every week, I flag only a small handful of projects that becomes my Three Big Rocks of the Week. I choose projects that I want to focus on for the next 7 days. I unflag a flagged project when I have lost interest in it or decide to defer it to a date in the future but not in the next month.

Save this perspective and put it in your toolbar. OmniFocus Help should tell you how to create a perspective and put it in the toolbar.


Then I create a second perspective called "Available". This is the same as the Today perspective but I changed the Status Filter from "Due or Flagged" to:

Status Filter: Any Status


Save this perspective and put it in the toolbar.


In the morning, I will automatically look at the "Today" perspective (Due or Flagged).

I commit myself to finishing as much of the Due tasks as I can get done and work in the flagged tasks whenever I can. I stay in this perspective for most of the week. Anything that is due or flagged should be finished first.

Afterwards, I can look at the "Available" perspective to see if there are any tasks that are not urgent or not due and work on those.

The "Today" perspective is always smaller than the "Available" perspective. The Today perspective contains my most urgent (due) tasks and any tasks I want to focus on this week.

The "Available" perspective is much larger and includes tasks from Today but also includes all other tasks that I can work on.

Do a search for Personal Kanban, that's how I beat this problem.

Hi! I'm a new member of the community here. Need some guidelines.Thanks.!