Cheatsheet: moving from Things to Omnifocus
 

I've just spent the last week researching and finally doing the move from Things to Omnifocus - and now find myself using a system that has the niceties of Things such as a Today list, but with lots more power under the hood and a setup that lends itself to GTD much better.

As I have to post before being able to add url, here's my first post

Cheatsheet: moving from Things to Omnifocus
 

Second time lucky now if i can add urls:

I've just spent the last week researching and finally doing the move from Things to Omnifocus - and now find myself using a system that has the niceties of Things such as a Today list, but with lots more power under the hood and a setup that lends itself to GTD much better.

So here is my cheatsheet to make the move to end up with something that looks like this:

[ATTACH]1772[/ATTACH]

Here we go:

1. In Things first go through your tasks and project and delete anything thats hanging around, no need to transfer more than you need (Take a backup before you start doing any of this of course!)

2. Use the script here [url]http://snipplr.com/view/40156[/url] to import your data into OF. First run it as it is, the change the line:

from: repeat with aToDo in to dos of list "Scheduled"

to: repeat with aToDo in to dos of list "Next"

so you get both lists in from Things.

3. Now go and read the 5 advanced topics found here [url]http://kouroshdini.com/2009/04/23/how-to-use-omnifocus-a-guide-for-the-advanced-user/[/url] - it'll get your head in the right space before you do any organisation and will save you lots of time.

While your at it, read this [url]http://simplicityisbliss.com/2011/01/02/making-sense-of-single-action-lists-in-omnifocus/[/url] - it'll really complete your training - remember, OF lets you organise the system as you want - I found doing the extra research made it really rewarding when I went onto the next stage..

4. Now begin to organise the Library area in Omnifocus - typically this will have some relationship to Areas in Things, but its much more flexible - so take the time to read [url]http://www.omnigroup.com/ftp/pub/software/MacOSX/Extras/OmniFocus/GTDandOmniFocus.pdf[/url] . I left all my projects and areas imported from Things at the bottom and started building my Folder/SAL/Projects/Tasks at the top - as I brought items up into my new system I then went and deleted the equivalent in Things so I could double check everything was brought across

Move your Scheduled tasks over manually.

5. Now organise your contexts - list all your tasks and go through each one assigning a context.

NOTE: My contexts look like this:
[ATTACH]1773[/ATTACH]

Some people complain that you cant have multiple contexts, i.e. as you could using tagging in Things. IMO it can be useful having less here. For good GTD any tasks should be boiled down to a pretty simple context - an email, research, a phone call. Any task that doesnt fit into a simple context like this is put into my 'Omni Focus' context which is a context I go into to further plan/split that task/project so it does fit into normal contexts.

For me I'm normally online and near a machine - so I tend to split mental or software modes - for example, I have to boot up a windows box for our Quickbooks software, so I'll make sure thats given a context.

6. So now add your Someday/Maybe and your Housekeeping folders if you want to. Also think about checking all your projects have review dates defined, its a OF feature you'll want to take advantage of.

7. Now we get onto the really important stuff :) The 'Today' list. Just follow the video tutorial found here:

[url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIu8JI4rKQM[/url]

Most of the important stuff is in the second part, but its worth watching it all first time round. Also, once you have created your new perspective, if you want to give it that familiar Star icon, here's the one I used - its easy to upload that in the 'Show Perspectives' dialogue box:

[ATTACH]1774[/ATTACH]

[I]UPDATE: After using this for a few days I found I preferred to have it so that it does not pop up a fresh window. So I resaved my Today perspective with the icon bar showing - and also saved the other perspectives so that when they are reloaded they maintain their apearance (i.e. the side bar re-appears when you come back from the Today view). Personally I prefer one window where you flick between modes at the top as you do in Things, I dont like lots of windows floating around that can become out of date)...[/I]

8. Now you have a Today list. Right click on the icon bar at the top, and add your today list. Changing the icons to 'use small size' makes the UI look a bit sleeker in my opinion.

You'll see I've also added a perspective called 'Planning' - that just shows a context view of the items I've put into the 'Omni Planning' context, and are items I need to review and develop to plan how I'm going to do those tasks effectively.

9. Last but not least - go into preferences > style - and click a couple of times on the "Change all font sizes" button to make the fonts a bit smaller - puts it slightly more in line with Things UI sleekness. I adjusted the headings slightly too. There's quite a few themes about, but after playing with them found that making a few minor adjustments myself to the default theme gaves the best results.

And there you have it. For me its a system that lets me organise projects and tasks more effectively - the custom perspectives are fantastic, and it was particularly nice seeing my custom Today icon appearing in my iPad app - which was all done via a quick and painless cloud sync.

OF can put you off as the learning curve is steeper, and out the box doesnt look nearly as nice as Things - but once you delve in you'll find your dealing with a different beast that - if you're truly into the business of improving your productivity - will make a big difference.

Hope this is of help.

Steve

Thanks for a great tip..... Wished I knew this a long time ago......

Good news - am pleased to say OF is getting better and better for me as I peel off and get into the additional features it has over Things.

That's what I've found too. Having multiple contexts sounds nice but it just layers on more layers of complexity. I try to keep my contexts to a minimum. It expands and shrinks dynamically from week to week. So I'll be adding some new contexts as needed and then deleting contexts when they are no longer relevant.

Adding multiple contexts seems to just muddy the waters for me and forces me to keep track of more things that I really need to.

i always believe in applying the relevant context to each task. Sure there are other subcontexts but in the small windows of free time during my day, I can look at the most relevant context and then make a snap decision about whether I want to do a task based on my current conditions.



[QUOTE=stevenjohn;92495]
Some people complain that you cant have multiple contexts, i.e. as you could using tagging in Things. IMO it can be useful having less here. For good GTD any tasks should be boiled down to a pretty simple context - an email, research, a phone call. Any task that doesnt fit into a simple context like this is put into my 'Omni Focus' context which is a context I go into to further plan/split that task/project so it does fit into normal contexts.

[/QUOTE]

Woah, this is an amazing resource. Thanks, Stevenjohn!

Nice!
 

That's a nice listing, stevenjohn!

You Tube video has no sound....?
 

I really got a lot out of this. I wanted to construct the today view, but the YouTube video had no sound and so I couldn't understand any of it.

Does anyone know a place that the video has sound or would be so kind as to post how to construct this Perspective?

Thanks,

Bryan

Bryan, when I watch the video it seems to include sound. Maybe sound got muted in the YouTube player? (The second button from the left in the bar below the video.)

Weird....
 

OK that is really weird. I get no sound from this video in Safari on my Mac, but I do get sound in Firefox on the Mac and Firefox on Windows. The sound isn't muted (good thought though) and other videos have sound.

I noticed someone else posted a comment below the video saying something like "what no sound?"....

I don't get any sound with Safari either while the sound works fine with DEVONagent on the same Mac.

Didn't undestand the video...Do Today Perspective
 

I can't seem to get this Perspective to set up the way it is in the video. I have studied up on Perspectives, read a lot of posts on the web, but I can't create a Perspective that works for me. Maybe someone would be so kind as to provide some assistance.

Let me lay out what I am trying to accomplish, but first an aside. I set up some contexts but I don't find them that useful for what "normal" GTD tells you they are for - the tool, condition, place, person, or frame of mind needed to work on the task. They just don't apply to me. It might be better to use contexts as prioritization, as I think that is what the author of the video is doing.

Also, I understand it may not be possible to do EXACTLY what I want to do, but just a reasonable approximation thereof. Maybe someone has a perspective that is very close to this and it will work.

I want to construct a "Do Today" view that I will always have open on the right side of my monitor. It will be the list of things I work on throughout the day.

I want it to include anything that is "Due Soon" and "Flagged". So that seems pretty straightforward, there is a selection for that.

I want to sort things by prioritization.

First would come things that are repeating tasks (I have daily, weekly, biweekly, and monthly). These are things to get out of the way so I can get on with real work. So I would give these some sort of Context that would appear at the top of the Perspective (I would sort by context).

Second, flagged items. They could be mixed in the above. That would be fine.

Third, anything with a due date, sorted by prioritization (which I think I would set up in the context).

Any suggestions would be most appreciated.

Don't bother. You've got distinct clumps of items. Make a perspective suited to each one, and do them in order. Assign a keyboard shortcut to each of the perspectives, or a toolbar button, and you can easily flip between them.

[QUOTE=Bryan;93123]I can't seem to get this Perspective to set up the way it is in the video. I have studied up on Perspectives, read a lot of posts on the web, but I can't create a Perspective that works for me. Maybe someone would be so kind as to provide some assistance.

I want to construct a "Do Today" view that I will always have open on the right side of my monitor. It will be the list of things I work on throughout the day.

I want it to include anything that is "Due Soon" and "Flagged". So that seems pretty straightforward, there is a selection for that.

I want to sort things by prioritization.

First would come things that are repeating tasks (I have daily, weekly, biweekly, and monthly). These are things to get out of the way so I can get on with real work. So I would give these some sort of Context that would appear at the top of the Perspective (I would sort by context).

Second, flagged items. They could be mixed in the above. That would be fine.

Third, anything with a due date, sorted by prioritization (which I think I would set up in the context).

Any suggestions would be most appreciated.[/QUOTE]

It seems like you basically have it. Organize your contexts according to prioritization, with your context for your repeating items at the top. Group by context, order by due date, set the view to due or flagged. Doesn't that get what you're setting out to do?

Got it!
 

You were right, writing it out helped. I just started from scratch and was able to construct the Perspective that I want. Overtime I may refine it or my process, as it seems there are possibly too many things on it.

Here are some of the mental obstacles that I had to overcome.

1. It took me awhile to figure out that the order the Contexts are in in the Context Perspective is the order they are in when you sort by Context in another Perspective. This was nice because it meant I didn't have to put in bogus letters to get them to sort the way I wanted.

2. It really is not possible to construct one perspective to run EVERYTHING by. I like having this main one but then I have several others that are useful at other times. The "Today" perspective [that is what I call it] gives me an overview of things to do over the next 24 hours. When I need to drill into a project I open a different perspective.

3. I have been wondering why OmniFocus is so difficult to "get". This is not a criticism really, but an observation. I have tried about a dozen GTD programs and the general pattern is that they are really easy to START using but once you want to do something a little bit more complex or sophisticated (repeating tasks, linking to a trusted reference database) etc. then you find you are stuck. OmniFocus is just the opposite. You are presented with lots of options, terms that might not have any meaning to you (if you are not steeped in GTD, and maybe even if you are). Putting in one project with a few tasks is easy, adding a context or two is easy, and so off you go entering 100 things. But then things get lost; how do I use perspectives, they are powerful but what do they do, what's a review, etc. I imagine many people quit the program after a week.

This is not necessarily an argument for two "modes" but perhaps for a smoother climb from novice to advanced features. IMHO, the iPad version is easier to use - I love the +1 Day +1 Week etc. buttons in the date tab - and probably lessons learned form developing for the iPad will blow back into the Mac client and make it even better.

Finally, it seems to me that the conceptual difficulty with Perspectives is that how you use them or how you *can* use them depends on how you have set up your data - your projects, your contexts, whether you use start dates, if due dates are *hard* dates, what flags mean to you (or if you even use them). That why I wasn't able just to re-use some Perspectives that I found on the web. I would find one that seemed good but it had 3 uses for the above (flags, contexts) that were different than the *next* Perspective I found.

So that led me to work backwards from the few Perspectives I wanted to how I would have to set up projects, contexts, flags, etc. Now this is somewhat dangerous I think in that you have to be careful not to get too far off the GTD ranch, but I don't think I have.

So after all that, here is what I did.

1. Contexts became priorities for me. My contexts are

InBox
Periodic
High
Free
Medium
Low
Waiting For
Writing
Reading
Someday/Maybe
Not Applicable

InBox is at the top so I can see what is in my inbox and either do it (2 minute rule) or process it.

Periodic maps also to a Project called "Routine Maintenance" [I cribbed this from someone else on the forum or someone on the next] which has 6 Projects within it (Daily, Weekly, Bi-weekly, Month, Quarterly, Yearly). This is where I put routine stuff I need to do on a periodic basis.

The idea is that stuff I have to do everyday will appear at the top of the "Today" view and I can get it out of the way. Some actions can't happen until a certain time, so they have a start time. I just keep an eye on this stuff at the top and get it down when needed.

High
Free
Medium
Low

High are things that I really have to work on. A due date in a project that is high is a hard date and I MUST get it done. If there is something that I need to work on in June, it will be in the Low context but when I get close enough I switch the context and it will appear higher in the list.

Free are things that I need to get done sometime but have no real start or end date. Free to do them when I want. Arguable whether to put them below Low or between High or Medium. I like them there because if I knock off 3 tasks in the High context I can cherry pick something in Free that I can get done and it will act kind of like a break.

Waiting For
Writing
Reading

These are all arguable. I have 2 articles that are actually in High cause they are due soon. Reading is stuff I am reading for my career. I list each chapter and try to make progress every week (check during the review). Waiting for is going to be for things that I can wait a week for - going to pick those up in a review.

Someday/Maybe
Not Applicable

Someday/Maybe I think is self-explanatory. Again, I cribbed the list that someone else had, so I have 8-10 single action lists with some things in them that make sense. For example I have a Read/Watch/Listen SAL with books or movies, or stuff like that in there. All the SAL are on hold.

Not Applicable is the context that I am most unsure of. Probably don't need it. The reason I wanted it as a catch all is for Projects that don't fit anywhere else and I DON'T want them appearing in the list. For example in my Routine Maintenance folder I have those "Daily", "Weekly" and so on Projects that I don't want to appear in my Today Perspective if one of the actions does. But I must admit I am not sure if they will or not.

ANY feedback would be greatly appreciated. I am sure there are some pretty stupid things in here, and room for improvement.

Thanks to everyone in this thread and to others who wrote great web posts!

Bryan

Great Process!
 

Thank you so much for posting the script to transfer everything!

Refining the Today view slightly
 

A minor adjustment I've made to my Today view that I find really useful.

As an ex-Things person, making sure you have a good Today list is important. With a minor change I feel that the Today list I have now is actually better than the Things today list.

The only change I've made to instructions in the initial post is just to untick the "Expansion" option for my Today perspective.

Then, I create my Today list as usual by reviewing tasks. However, when I come to my Today page I typically close Contexts I am not working on, and just leave the one Context I am involved in. So I have a Today list where *all* I see is my Phonecalls for example or Emails which keeps you really focussed on the tasks at hand.

Unchecking the Expansion options means if you go elsewhere in OF and come back, your Today view, it retains the same expanded/contracted Context mode, the same sub-focus so to speak.

It means as you work in your Today view you only ever focus on a small number of items (within a context which is what you should be doing in GTD), but you always have visibility of all the unexpanded Contexts you know you need to work through during the day.

Very minor change, but its made the Today view work much better for me.

Steve.

Thanks so much for this stevenjohn! Awesome work. I've got a couple points to add.

[QUOTE=stevenjohn;92495]
2. Use the script here to import your data into OF. First run it as it is, the change the line:

from: repeat with aToDo in to dos of list "Scheduled"

to: repeat with aToDo in to dos of list "Next"
[/QUOTE]

I would add that you can also use this to move your Someday todos over by changing it
[INDENT]to: repeat with aToDo in to dos of list "Someday". [/INDENT]
Also, the current Applescript originally has Next, not Scheduled. So it should read:
[INDENT]First run it as it is, the change the line:

from: repeat with aToDo in to dos of list "Next"

to: repeat with aToDo in to dos of list "Scheduled"[/INDENT]
That means the below quote should read
[INDENT]Move your [B]Repeating[/B] tasks over manually.[/INDENT]
instead of Scheduled tasks

[QUOTE=stevenjohn;92495]
... I left all my projects and areas imported from Things at the bottom and started building my Folder/SAL/Projects/Tasks at the top - as I brought items up into my new system I then went and deleted the equivalent in Things so I could double check everything was brought across

Move your [B]Scheduled[/B] tasks over manually.
[/QUOTE]

Setup OmniFocus like Things
 

Hi all, I chose my wife easier than deciding between OmniFocus and Things and that's the truth. It's so bad that I've been running both in parallel for months. That means every new task, every due date change, every everything gets done twice, oh joy. :)

The reason is this... I think. I much prefer the way Things works and looks but love the power of OF. What I think I would like it to have OF setup to mimic Things as much as possible. I don't need 12 contexts and 12 projects. In Things I have a couple of projects and several Areas but the same data in OF has many contexts and many projects. One reason is Perspectives on iPad/iPhone only work with contexts, bummer. Could I use Contexts like Areas maybe? Any other ideas or suggestions would be greatly appreciated, I need to choose one once and for all!

Matt in Bermuda

Hi,
This probably doesn't answer your question, but what I DO badly MISS in Things are:
- impossibility of creating sub-tasks (no indenting)
- no sync at all

Would it be "only" for those 2 reasons, OmniFocus is so far the best and UNIQUE (sorry) choice.

Matt - a former Things user made a thread along these lines not too long ago. Once I locate that thread, I'll move these posts over there. Hope that helps!

Edit: found the thread, moved Matt's post and the one that followed into the thread these posts now appear in.

Thanks Brian but I think my main confusion lies that in Things I don't use contexts, just Areas and Projects so to have a similar setup in OF am I wrong or do I need a context for every project, probably even the same name? I don't see how I can see only items in one area or project on the iPad without doing this? Of course you can drill down under projects every time but that is not convenient or intuitive. Also my task workflow is not complicated, I probably have 150 tasks in 7 areas and contexts are not import to me, the area is. For example I don't care "what can I do at home" as I'm now at home. I want to know what needs to be done in "website redesign" project. Hard to explain I know....

Ah, I see! The general equivalent of Areas in OmniFocus would be Folders.

For example, I have an Omni folder, with all of my work-related projects going in there. Similarly, I have a "Personal" folder that holds the majority of the remaining projects. (There are a few sub-folders in both of the ones I mention to supply some more organization.)

You shouldn't need to create contexts for each of your projects, though. That's going to create a ton of clutter that won't actually help you get things done. Based on your description of your current workflow, it sounds like you're mostly going to be working out of project mode. I wouldn't worry about contexts at all yet. You're likely to want to learn about it later, but for now I wouldn't sweat it.

If you want faster access to some of your important projects, I'd suggest flagging them, then using the top-level "Flagged" list as a shortcut to jump to those items. To flag a project or action, tap it to bring up the editor, then tap the button in the lower left of the "Info" tab.

Thanks to stevenjohn for the original post and script link , but when I run the script, I get:

error "OmniFocus got an error: AppleEvent handler failed." number -10000

Any idea what this means specifically? Are there any other scripts I could try that bring items from Things into OF?
Thank you.

Okay Johnny Google pointed me to : [url]https://gist.github.com/hvolkmer/4020468[/url] and I will try that out and report back