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Hello!
I have managed to perfectly apply omnifocus into my daily life. My projects are going forward and tasks are being done.

However, there're 2 things that still brother me!

1) Omnifocus doesn't have a Gannt chart! (this one is huge!)
Omnifocus does allow me to plan my next day, but when my friends call me and ask if I'm free on the coming weekend, I don't know what to say!
Dispite all the advantages of omnifocus, it doesn't allow you to plan getting your projects done up-front. The point is that I can't assaign tasks from different projects on a certain day, because I don't see the whole picture of that day and how free I'll be!

2) Despite all the sayings, I'll point this fact out again.
Omnifocus should exist for Windows! It's not that I don't have Mac, it's about the fact that I (and I think most of the people) use Windows for working! And it's important to use task management system for your work!
 
OmniFocus task dependencies are simple. You can have either sequential projects or parallel projects.

In a sequential project, you must finish the first task before proceeding to the second task.

In a parallel project, you can finish all available tasks in any order.

It's interesting when you can create a parallel project that have nested sequential subprojects. But this must be planned rather carefully.

GANTT charts are usually helpful to show dependencies on deadlines. I think the only way you can get that at the moment is to go to OmniPlan. But OmniPlan might be overkill because it has a lot of other things that you may or may not need.




When your friends call, you have the option of saying yes or no. OmniFocus gives you an inventory of next actions for you to do. It's up to you to decide whether you want to blow off a next action and hang with your friends.

If the task/project really needs to be done this weekend, you'll know and say "sorry, I can't come this weekend to Disneyland. My in-laws are coming on Monday and I have to declutter the house."

Use OmniFocus as a tool to help you pick things to do during the day. Not necessarily plan your day.

Look at your due perspective first. Anything that has a real due date should be shown here (pay the utilities bill due today). Do as many if not all of your due items first.

Then look at your inventory of available next actions, flag 3 to 4 as things I intend to do today or in the next 3 days. These are your Big Rocks of the Day to work on. Unflag or delete older actions that no longer interest you.

After you finished the due perspective, look at your flagged perspective. These are the items that are not urgent (or due/overdue) and work on those.

When you have some bits of time with nothing to do, look at your Next Actions Available perspective and do some of those tasks. These are the grains of sand that fit around the Big Rocks.

If you'd like, just block out 30-90 minutes on your calendar and title it "Focus on [project name]". Then just burn through as many tasks in a big project that you can handle in that time frame.

If I have 60 minutes left before dinner, I'll usually like to focus on burning through a project instead of picking out random projects. At the moment, I burn through my photo library organizing project. I don't necessarily have a set time. I just know that I need about an hour to focus on it today. It could be in the early morning, late afternoon, or after the kids go to sleep. I'll see how I feel in the early morning and do it at that time. Or it might be late afternoon is a better time for me. Or even after dark.

Use OmniFocus to help you pick next actions to do. Not necessarily to schedule time.



That's life.
 
OmniFocus is for capture, areas of focus, projects, tasks and someday maybes.

The calendar will tell if you are busy. It is a hard landscape.
 
 


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