[brianogilvie]

As a counterpoint, let me set out the reasons why OmniFocus should not nag us to get things done.

The habit of regularly reviewing action and project lists is essential to GTD. Anything that can only be done on a given day, or at a given time, goes into the calendar as "hard landscape." Other tasks or projects may have a deadline (due date) but can be done any time before that date.

Since GTD emphasizes capturing your open loops, rather than depending on your memory to capture them, you might well end up with a whole lot of them. I have over 50 active projects in OmniFocus, some with fixed due dates, others without. If each of these projects nagged me to get something done, I'd spend a lot of time being interrupted by nags instead of concentrating on getting something done.

It's better, I think, to deliberately focus on acquiring the review habit. Every day I aim to spend the last half-hour of my day reviewing: I review my actions by due date and flag those that need to get done. I then review projects and flag anything that needs my attention because otherwise it will become urgent (since it's best to work on things before they're urgent!). The next day I look at flagged items and determine what I need to do and where (or with which tools). Once those are out of the way, I can use my context lists to decide what to do next, filtering by available time if it's limited.

If something absolutely has to get done, I can set a QuickSilver or iCal reminder for it. But the review habit is crucial.

Thoughts?