Quote:
Originally Posted by reason808
Everybody raves about how seamless Omnifocus is with their sync – but I’m reluctant to pay for a glorified dropbox sync option. Writing notes to yourself about a GTD app inside a GTD app is ridiculous, and I don’t want to do this again.
How is Thing's dropbox sync different than OF's cloud sync? How can I reply on a cloud sync solution with a slower/erratic internet connection at home?
Thanks for your help.
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I was also reluctant about OF's cloud sync but decided to give it a try. It is such a delight to use it. It's almost invisible to me.
I just have to remember to click the sync button to transfer any changes on one computer and have it sync to another computer.
I would make changes on my Mac, click sync and then open up my iPod touch or iPad, click sync there and all the changes just appear. If I'm out and about, I can check off or change an OF item easily. Then when I happen to be near a wifi hotspot, click sync and feel confident that my stuff will also sync back home without having to worry about losing or corrupting data.
I wouldn't worry about a slow internet connection. There isn't a lot of data that is being transferred when you're syncing changes. It's just small nibbles of text that takes a matter of seconds.
As for transitioning from Things to OF, I think there's no way around it. It may not be easy to transfer stuff from Things to OF. What I would usually do is to just keep Things around as an archive of my completed tasks and projects and then just start fresh with OF. Yes, there is a resistance from THings to OF because it just feels like a huge shift in thinking and workflows but it is well worth it. Start entering currently active tasks and projects into OF. Then start entering the "Someday/Maybe" projects/tasks.
Re: Tags..... I think tags are best used in moderation. I can recall a time when I went tag crazy in Aperture and started tagging everything. Eventually I had hundreds of tags. Later I started rethinking the process and refined my tags to about 25 relevant tags.
When I started using OF, I really ached for tags. But then after using OF for so long, I really don't miss tags. All of my tasks are already organized in sets of folders and projects.
I have my home projects, my personal projects, my office projects, my family projects, and my personal development projects, my community projects.
Sure, some projects may fall in more than one tag but I just picked the most relevant tag that I felt was the better fit. For example, I may have my "soccer dad project". This could fall under personal development (coaching kids and learning to interact better with my own children) or I could place it under community projects (where I put my own personal contribution to society). Or I could place it under family because I wanted to create a closer bond with my wife and children. Ultimately, I placed it under family because that was where i wanted to put the most emphasis.
Now that I've said that, I do look forward to the day that tags will be implemented. By that time, I'll probably find new ways to use tags in moderation. But for the meantime, the absence of tags isn't stopping me from getting stuff done.
I know that using OF is definitely a jarring experience and required a lot of major rethinking on my part to get it to work. But now I can see how these changes to my original workflow (which I thought was natural) has benefited me now.
I had to learn how to use perspectives to replicate many of the features and workflows in Things. I learned to create my own "Today" perspective. Then I set out to create a "Due" perspective. I used folders to create my "Areas of Focus/Responsibilities". These are all features that are automatic in Things but I had to figure out how to recreate them in OF.
The beauty of OF was that it allowed me to be flexible and allow me to create a design different workflows that may suit me this year but possibly not next year. My workflows have definitely evolved over the years. That's where OF's flexibility and power has helped me.
I used Things to originally get me started in the practice of GTD. But I eventually move over to OF when I finally decided that I outgrew THings and couldn't wait for cloud syncing and other features like the Weekly Review that were missing in THings.