Quote:
Originally Posted by PhiDelt
This is golden! I just have some questions . First what's the point of even adding the project to omnifocus if I'm not suppose to focus on it? For instance my goals to pursue balance is
|
We need to focus on what is in front of us. OmniFocus can become your trusted system. You brain dump everything you need to remember into it. Then you can forget about it. It is in OmniFocus and you can always look at your inventory of projects and tasks.
During the weekly review, we have to be honest with ourselves and realize that we have a finite capacity to achieve accomplishments within a certain timespan.
So I'll put all of my new projects to "On Hold" status because I realize that I already have a list of currently active projects. These become my Someday/Maybe projects. I'll get around to it eventually. But the immediate stuff needs to get done first. Those are the things I need to accomplish today (from my calendar), things that I would like to focus on (my flagged tasks/projects), and things that will be due in the next 7 days (OmniFocus forecast view and calendar).
OmniFocus gives you the ability to set projects to "Active" or "On Hold" (Someday/Maybe).
Before GTD and OmniFocus, I would have a difficult time staying focused on what I need to do. There was always something floating around - a scrap of paper with someone's phone number to call about house renovations; movie tickets for tomorrow night; a yellow Post-It note to remind myself about a client's case; a photocopy of a price quotation that needs reviewing.
I would be too unfocused without OmniFocus and GTD.
When you have your projects set to "On Hold", it no longer appears in Context mode which shows a list of all the Next Actions for each Active Project. I no longer have to look at Next Actions for projects that I have placed "On Hold" or set to start at a later date. I have a Next Action for "Prepare 1040 Tax forms by April 15, 2013." But I don't need to look at that project and Next Action until January 15, 2013. So it gets hidden by either setting a start date of January 15, 2013 or placing it "On Hold."
If you have all your projects set to "Active", you will have a long context list that will just leave you numb with fear. There's just too many things to achieve and a limited time to do them.
By focusing yourself on the Active projects, you'll be able to slowly but surely knock off each project one by one.
I also become vicious with my projects during the Weekly Review. It's just a weekly housecleaning. There will be projects that will linger in OmniFocus for a long time but it never gets cleaned out. I'll set the status to "Dropped" and it will disappear from my Active contexts. But I have a record of it forever. I'll often put a note showing the date and the reason why I dropped it. Maybe it is no longer relevant and the time has passed where it no longer makes sense to start or complete this project.
I may have brainstormed a great idea and entered it into OmniFocus. But later, when I am calm and have time to reflect on the project, I may have realized that it will take up too much time, attention, and focus for me to realize this project to completion. I'll either delete it or drop it.
Sometimes my wife and I will talk about some kind of house renovation and we brainstorm new ideas. I quickly enter it into OmniFocus for further exploration. Weeks and months of talking and brainstorming may result in either the project getting cancelled or scaled up or scaled down. Things will morph. Maybe we want a jacuzzi? Maybe a little flower garden is better? Hmm, how about a little fish pond? When I sit down with my wife, I'll open up OmniFocus on the iPad and go over the proposed projects. Then we start dropping things that we really didn't want after all.
If you don't do regularly housecleaning, your trusted system becomes stale and no longer becomes trusted. It is no longer up-to-date.
Eliminate projects with a vengeance and you'll be able to keep your project list tidy.
These are some of the small things we do to keep us focused on what we want to do now (Active projects) and not have to worry about the other things (Someday/Maybe or On Hold projects).
HTH