[vauha27]

I'd be glad if some of you would just share their daily review workflow using omnifocus. How did you set up omnifocus, which folders, projects, tasks do you use, are there any special perspectives you use?

Thanks in advance

[curt.clifton]

Originally Posted by vauha27

I'd be glad if some of you would just share their daily review workflow using omnifocus. How did you set up omnifocus, which folders, projects, tasks do you use, are there any special perspectives you use?

I have a morning review that I do at work and an evening review that I do at home. Don't be put off by the complexity. These have evolved over time.

Morning Review:

- [ ] Process Email
- [ ] Empty In Folder
- [ ] Empty In Box
- [ ] Review Today's Calendar
- [ ] Empty OmniFocus Inbox
- [ ] Review active projects
          Step through Active Projects due for review today
    - [ ] Any projects to put On Hold or move to someday/maybe? (Be
          draconian)
    - [ ] Any projects that are stuck?
        - [ ] Planning/clarity needed?
        - [ ] True next action identified?
        - [ ] Attach purpose, "success looks like", etc.
- [ ] Review Next Actions Lists
    - [ ] Important perspective
    - [ ] Urgent Radar perspective

Evening Review:

- [ ] Review Tomorrow’s Ticklers   
- [ ] Check mirror for notes
- [ ] Empty Moleskine
- [ ] Empty Voice Memos
- [ ] Empty In Folder
- [ ] Empty In Box
- [ ] Process Email
- [ ] Empty OmniFocus Inbox
- [ ] Verify Next Actions for all Projects
- [ ] Review Tomorrow’s Calendar 
- [ ] Print Errands tasklists
- [ ] Sync phone

Here are the perspectives I use:

• OmniFocus Inbox Perspective opens in new window, project mode, focused on inbox, sidebar closed, view bar hidden, toolbar hidden
• Active Project Review Perspective opens in new window, project mode, sidebar closed, view bar hidden, active projects, grouped by next review, unsorted, remaining actions, any duration, any flag status
• Important Perspective opens in current window, context mode, active contexts, grouped by context, sorted by due date, available actions, any duration, flagged
• Urgent Radar Perspective opens in current window, context mode, active contexts, grouped by due date, sorted by due date, remaining actions, any duration, any flag status
• Ticklers Perspective opens in new window, context mode, sidebar closed, view bar hidden, remaining contexts, grouped by start date, sorted by due date, remaining actions, any duration, any flag status, all groups collapsed except start today and start tomorrow
• Errands Perspective opens in new window, context mode, sidebar closed, view bar hidden, remaining contexts, grouped by context, sorted by flagged, available actions, any duration, any flag status, just Errands contexts selected in side bar

Additionally, I use a script to Verify Next Actions Exist.

[whpalmer4]

Curt, any significance to the ordering of inbox, in folder, and email processing being different morning and evening?

Do you retain your review checklists for posterity, or just do them and discard?

Always interesting to see the details of someone's thoughtfully designed workflow...one of the things I like best about this forum!

[curt.clifton]

Originally Posted by whpalmer4

Curt, any significance to the ordering of inbox, in folder, and email processing being different morning and evening?

Mostly just to minimize my off-email time by pushing my last email check as close as possible to bed time and my first email check as close as possible to waking time.

Originally Posted by whpalmer4

Do you retain your review checklists for posterity, or just do them and discard?

I keep my checklists in OmniOutliner. I open the checklist, uncheck all items, then work through it. I actually have iCal events configured with "alarms" that open the checklists for me.

[steve]

Curt- What do you see as the advantage to keeping it in OmniOutliner as opposed to having your actions repeat daily in OmniFocus? I suppose one advantage is the ability to have certain checklists fire up on weekdays and perhaps another one on the weekend.

I am hoping for finer grain control over repeating actions, but that topic is in another thread.

[curt.clifton]

Originally Posted by steve

Curt- What do you see as the advantage to keeping it in OmniOutliner as opposed to having your actions repeat daily in OmniFocus? I suppose one advantage is the ability to have certain checklists fire up on weekdays and perhaps another one on the weekend.

I like having the checklist open automatically in a separate window at a specified time. I suppose I could make that happen with a properly focused perspective in OF, but I found a separate OO file easier to set up. (And truth be told, when I set up the review checklists OF didn't have perspectives. Come to think of it, OF didn't exist. ;-)

I don't really see an advantage personally to putting these checklists in OF. I don't need a record of having completed each step, and I complete all the steps in one sitting. Having the checklist in OO lets me Cmd-Tab between OF and OO and flip between windows and perspectives in OF without losing my checklist.

[Christopher]

Originally Posted by curt.clifton

I have a morning review that I do at work and an evening review that I do at home. Don't be put off by the complexity. These have evolved over time.

Curt, these are very helpful. Thank you for posting them. Do you have similar lists for a weekly review? How do you handle that?

[curt.clifton]

Christopher,

I'm glad these were helpful. Here's my weekly review checklist:

- [ ] Collect: Empty your head, brainstorm actions, projects, and
      somedays
          Just dump ideas into Inbox.  If you try to put them into your
          system now you'll just find yourself processing and
          organizing instead of collecting.
    - [ ] Review Monthly Goals for triggers
    - [ ] Review Active documents for triggers
    - [ ] Identify any issues to discuss w/ Lisa
    - [ ] Review past week's calendar to trigger other ideas/actions
    - [ ] Review next week's and month's calendar for actions
    - [ ] Review on-hold projects, any items to make active? to delete?
              Show On-Hold Projects Review perspective
- [ ] Process: Integrate all your notes from the collection phase into
      your system
- [ ] System Review
    - [ ] Review action lists
    - [ ] Review waiting-for list — reminders needed?
    - [ ] How's your balance?
        - [ ] Review distribution of completed tasks across roles

And here's my monthly review checklist, heavily laden with Steven Covey's first-things-first ideas:

- [ ] Go somewhere calm
- [ ] Review Personal Mission Statement.
- [ ] Consider each role
    - [ ] Brainstorm for any projects that should be started or put on
          Someday/Maybe
    - [ ] Are there any projects that are stalled or ideas that keep
          popping up?
        - [ ] Do you need to do some project planning?
                  See Allen's natural planning model (see GTD, ch. 3)
            - [ ] Is the purpose of the project clearly defined?  Why
                  do it?
            - [ ] Have you envisioned what a successful outcome looks
                  like?  What is success on this project?
            - [ ] Have you brainstormed possible routes to success?
            - [ ] Have you organized the steps in the process?
            - [ ] Have you identified clear, actionable next actions?
        - [ ] Need more clarity about what to do?  Move up the list.
        - [ ] Need more to be happening?  Move down the list.
    - [ ] Review Someday-Maybe Ideas
- [ ] Review Past Monthly Goals
    - [ ] Evaluate performance
    - [ ] Consider reasons for success
    - [ ] Determine reasons for failures, plan remediation
- [ ] Review general performance issues
    - [ ] Are you being conscientious about daily and weekly reviews?
    - [ ] Are you keeping appointments with self?
    - [ ] Have you maintained balance across roles & responsibilities?
- [ ] Set monthly goals in each role
    - [ ] Relate to One and Five Year Goals
    - [ ] “What are the one or two most important things I could do in
          this role this month that would have the greatest positive
          impact.”
    - [ ] Big Rocks First
    - [ ] Effective Goals:
        - [ ] are driven by conscience
        - [ ] are often Quadrant II goals
            - [ ] Q1 Urgent & Important
            - [ ] Q2 Not urgent but important
            - [ ] Q3 Urgent but not important
            - [ ] Q4 Neither urgent nor important
        - [ ] reflect our four basic needs (to live, to love, to learn,
              to leave a legacy) and capacities (conscience, creative
              imagination, independent will, self-awareness)
        - [ ] are in our Center of Focus
        - [ ] are either determinations or concentrations
- [ ] Flag monthly goals in project outline
          Show all flagged in project mode, select all, Cmd-Shift-L
          Set more frequent review intervals for flagged goals.

These checklists have evolved over time. My monthly review checklist is particularly detailed, because I need more help to do that well, and it happens less often.

[curt.clifton]

jenniferp asked for more detail about how I set up iCal to open the review checklists. Here's what I did to automatically open my Evening Review checklist:

1. I created a new calendar in iCal called Reminders. Having a separate calendar lets me hide the items that trigger the reviews so my usual iCal view isn't any more cluttered.
2. I created a new event in iCal set for 9:45pm with time zone floating. (This makes the event happen at a consistent local time, even when I'm traveling.)
3. I set the event to repeat every day with no end date.
4. I added an Alarm to the event to open my Evening Review file.
5. Finally, I selected a different calendar in the sidebar and unchecked the Reminders calendar. This hides the reminders, but they still fire.

There's only one catch. We have an old PB in our family room that we use as a media server. I sync calendars on it and my MBP using MobileMe. When the Evening Review alarm fires on the PB, it can't find the checklist file, so I get an error dialog on that machine. Not really a big deal, but something to be aware of.

[jenniferp]

Great, thanks for sharing!