The Omni Group Forums

The Omni Group Forums (http://forums.omnigroup.com/index.php)
-   Applying OmniFocus (http://forums.omnigroup.com/forumdisplay.php?f=51)
-   -   Entrepreneurs! Looking for work flow suggestions (http://forums.omnigroup.com/showthread.php?t=23658)

isadore.braun 2012-03-11 08:58 AM

Entrepreneurs! Looking for work flow suggestions
 
Hi folks.

I wear many hats (therapist, stay at home dad (1 day per week), musician, etc), and work in multiple locations... office, home, coffee shops. Clients cancel and reschedule so my days/weeks can be inconsistent (and hard to plan for).

My franken-system is a hybrid of GTD (mostly weekly review), Mark Forster's ideas & the Pomodoro technique. My tools: Omnifocus & Vitamin-R (used for metrics and time slicing i.e. Pomodoro technique - though I prefer 15 min intervals).

Question: For those of you with similar (inconsistent) schedules, how do you plan your day via Omnifocus? Looking for habit suggestions.... tools, etc.

Thanks a bunch.

wilsonng 2012-04-02 06:31 PM

It was a tough go for me. I learned to sleep early and get up early. My wife understood that this was "just how I am." I wake up at about 4 AM to 5 AM and get to work on a big rock or big project that I want to work on without interruption. The wife and kids are asleep. I don't have any customers with a new dilemma to interrupt the "flow" when I am in the zone.

Oftentimes during the workday, I usually have to handle immediate situations - a phone call, a customers walks on to the sales floor, an emergency situation arises (the bathroom is flooding). I usually have to tackle them immediately or I'll delegate the task to my assistant or my wife.

At work, I won't be able to find the time to get the non-urgent but important projects done because of all the interruptions. Non-urgent but important could be something like "research a new shopping cart software package for the web site." At the moment, I'm fairly happy with my current shopping cart program. It works but I can see room for improvement. I'm looking at new software packages that can offer me different features that I don't have in the existing package. Another project could be to re-arrange the sales display cases. Not exactly a life or death situation but something I envision that will probably help with displaying new product lines.

In regards to OmniFocus, I usually look first at my calendar for appointments and events that I need to take care of today. These are all scheduled things. Then I'll look on at my Due Soon perspective or the forecast perspective on my iPad and check the forecast perspective to see any new projects are tasks that will start or or due in the next 7 days. I take care of the items on the calendar and the forecast first. These are time-sensitive projects/tasks that has the immediate urgency and should be done by today or the next 7 days.

After I can get through as many of the tasks on the forecast view or due soon view, I'll get to the flagged items. The flagged items are particular projects/tasks that I would like to get done this week. I try to get as many of these as I can today or in the next 7 days.

When I think I've gone as far as i can with the flagged items, then I'll look at my general context for "Next Actions" which contains EVERY Next Action for every active project. I rarely get this far but it's always a nice fallback to hit when I've gone as far as i can in the calendar, forecast, due soon, and flagged views.

Omni Clint 2012-05-18 07:02 AM

I would caution against getting to complicated. I speed read through every project folder every day and flag things i know i want to do on that day. then just look at flagged throughout the day. the secret for me to having a manageable amount to do that with (I also wear 10 hats) is to use start dates and a perspective that doesn't show me things that i haven't said start yet.


All times are GMT -8. The time now is 11:46 PM.

Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.7
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.