[duodecad]

What follows is a "feedback" email I originally sent to Omni back in late November, when we were still in the beta phase and a lot of new users were just starting to join the forum due to the increase in publicity around that time. It's interesting to see how much of what I wrote then is still true for me after using the app for many months now-- I'd have to say that I feel even more strongly about these points than I did then. Just thought I'd put it out there to see if anyone else is feeling the same way!

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Omni, dear Omni, how do I love OmniFocus? Let me count the ways...

There's been an explosion of activity on the forums from newbies who
are asking for all sorts of non-GTD functionality-- some of whom
haven't even *read* GTD, incredibly. It's interesting that there's
this constant pull on the forum between people who believe that OF is
a GTD app and people who believe that it's supposed to appeal to a
broader audience. Given that I'm in the first camp, and given that
I've been looking a LONG time for an app that will actually help me
implement GTD effectively-- and that OF, so far, has been that long-
wished-for solution-- I just wanted to tell you guys what I love about
the app as it stands right now.

- No "tagging". Oh my god, if you had that functionality, I would cry.
One of the great pitfalls of GTD is that it's often more fun to tweak
your system than actually do any of the Things You Need To Do, as
Merlin has so eloquently expressed for the rest of us. Folks on the
forum who are in the "broader appeal" camp argue that if you don't
want to use the functionality, you don't have to. But that's not quite
true. Who among us can resist the appeal of tweaking? What I love
about OF is that it really is focused on helping me Get Things Done,
without a lot of bells and whistles and "fuzziness" to play with. Yes,
I am admitting that if you had more tweakable "fuzzy" things like
tagging, I'd probably get sucked into playing with that functionality.
If that makes me undisciplined, so be it ;) It's a problem for me and
many others, and so far, OF has been a stellar success at helping me
get that tendency in check by keeping my attention on what I need to
DO, rather than tweaking how it's all organized.

- No "multiple contexts". Again, that way lies madness. We don't need
multiple contexts; we have Perspectives-- which work like a dream and
totally eliminate the "fuzziness" of wanting to put something in more
than one context. Yay Omni!

- No "priority". Again, if you had this functionality, I would cry.
It's the most anti-GTD thing EVER. The flash of enlightenment that
struck me upon first reading GTD was primarily related to David Allen
jettisoning "priority". If I could only get back the wasted hours I
spent prioritizing and re-prioritizing before I started practicing
GTD... man, what a waste of time. I've found that thoughtful use of
Start and Due dates is all the "prioritizing" functionality I need.

In short, I'm loving OF because it is, so far, holding to one of the
great beauties of the GTD system: it's very cut-and-dried. Binary,
even. Either a task is completed, or it isn't. Either you do something
in one context, or another. There's not much capability for futzing
around and wasting time on "gray" areas.

I hope you guys don't get led astray by the folks on the forum who
seem to want OF to be some Frankenstein's-monster-combination of every
other productivity app out there. What's so great about it is how
DIFFERENT it is from all those other apps. Please hang on to that
difference and be proud of it! $100,000 of orders in the first week
would seem to say that there are plenty of actual GTD'ers out there
who are digging OF, without trying to cater to the "non-GTD" crowd.
Stick to your guns-- please! :)