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Although I still enjoy paper for deeply subjective reasons (I feel more "committed" when I enter a task there), I started using omnifocus again: for the big picture project-planning.

"Synching" is not a problem: I have a "work at project-list" somewhere on my lists. Even with a paper-based task management, OF is a good place to reflect progress and enter a few new tasks into AF if I think I have to.

so long!
 
Anyway... Back to OF... Lot of trouble using only AF. Forgot some crucial info (never did before) difficulties planning projetc, dobles blooms, diffulties to see the big picture of tasks. On the other hand, OF is great for immediate tasks and short terme task. So decided to put into OF all my tasks watever they may be and use OF list like AF (read twice ) and see what happen. It was a very hard week without OF and i love to much OF to get rid if it ! May be i am nut !
As someboday said in the previous post the most important is what is convenient for you. AF will then be used like a IN GTD way but included in the GTD processing. Hope it's gonna work next week.
 
Jupiter, I hope you'll report back. You're experimenting with a lot of the things I would like to try!
 
I think people like AF because it lets them look at the resistance factor of some of their tasks.

Some people are resistant to doing certain tasks because of fear, non-intersest, etc. The older items on the list are located in the oldest pages. It forces you to discover what the older items are and see if you can cross them off the list.

I've found that many people love doing the collecting part of GTD but forget about the weekly review or never put a lot of effort into it.

I stick with GTD 'cuz OF gives me a better tool for doing the weekly review. It sets timed intervals (anywhere from one week to six months for me) to review tasks and projects and figure out why I am resisting advancing projects further or if I should either delegate or delete the project altogether.
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by wilsonng View Post
I think people like AF because it lets them look at the resistance factor of some of their tasks.

Some people are resistant to doing certain tasks because of fear, non-intersest, etc. The older items on the list are located in the oldest pages. It forces you to discover what the older items are and see if you can cross them off the list.
Another good way to get at this is to select your contexts and group by added.
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by InAccuFacts View Post
Jupiter, I hope you'll report back. You're experimenting with a lot of the things I would like to try!
Dear Inaccufacts, happy to please you. If you speak French please have a look on my blob http://gtdway.blogspot.com/ I speak a lot about trics about GTD, AF and of course Omnifocus that i am really in love with (I am not paid by omnigroup and have nothing to do with them !).

Anyway i had prévious difficulties with OF that i finaly solved. I really thing these happended because of the youngness of the soft. i really hope the ninjas will take care about the improovement i have suggered each week since one year even if there are a lot.

AF is a good methods but i only keep it for current and incoming information and at night i make a reporting of all unchecked intems, on Omnifocus for one main reason i trust the system. This is also the reason why i kept Omnifocus instead of http://www.toodledo.com/ wich was a good soft too, but for me as a mac user less operational and trusty.

There is also a great pleasure in the morning when i open my computer to see all my daily tasks by context or projetx focus or not and approximatly know how much time i shall have to work to be productive and efficient.

In my way of working AF is nothing more than a IN basket just to see what happen and to keep information about buildings or investors i wish to read regularly. It(s help me to run and focus on daily tasks. For any future information or non actionable items i only trust omnifocus ;)) and i use it on the way with FORSTER method.

Hope my thread be of any help. Best Regards.

Last edited by Jupiter; 2009-02-28 at 03:33 AM..
 
Hi I think i found a way to work with Omnifocus and Autofocus efficiently. Still testing but seems working. See my blog in French http://gtdway.blogspot.com/

The idea is simple
1. paper works well for actionable tasks
2. Omnifocus is great for projects, dated tasks, non actionable tasks and incoming tasks and GTD IN informations.

And The solution is : Do a daily review !
- Report all actionable tasks from OF to AF
- Repport all dated tasks on OF, unactionables tasks or futures tasks
- Manage your project on OF and use the NOTES (you can have a page)

Advantage : The only things your are working on are on AF so you can easely focus, all your future tasks and non actionable tasks are on OF and you manage everything from your project notes. You dont loose your time reading unactivable task (but only once or twice a day). You eliminate all unusefull task definitivly from AF and OF, so it's clean. You can trust the system because you know what's about your projects & even repport all essential done tasks in OF & you know what's are your actionable tasks without loosing time readings projects or contexts.
difficulties : You must do a daily review to see what is actionable or not

Last edited by Jupiter; 2009-03-03 at 11:13 PM..
 
Have to say that this thread is full of very impressive posts. I'm glad to see that people are adjusting the system to their needs ... or more likely to their personalities. While for some OF design of GTD will work perfectly out of the box, for many others some adjustments are needed.

More specifically on the AF -- it seems to me that this would fall into a very frequent and more intensive reviews of actions that can be set in OF on daily instead of weekly basis.

The other thing that I've noticed is that GTD, in general, is somewhat less "supportive" of "creatives" and the ways they do things and that absorbing parts of AF may be just a logical attempt to adjust and broaden the scope of GTD to include more specific (or more flexible) workflow for them. Creatives feel more "@home" with something that's project-oriented rather than context-oriented, and for my experience, I tend to use context more as a typical tagging system and focus on the project's actions and sub-actions. But this is not intended as a criticism of GTD or OF's implementation of it (which I really think is the best GTD sw on the market). So far, no system can respond to numerous personality types and individual philosophies and practical needs. For example:

where do you start:
- from bottom up (GTD or context action-oriented)
- from top down (Covey or goal-oriented)
- from a project defined in actions (project-oriented); etc.

where is the primary sorting focus:
- is it the next action
- is it the uncompleted
- is it the importance
- is it the due date and time (due by or due on)
- is it the start date/time; etc.

Obviously most people combine some of these to form something that fits their particular needs. This is not only useful but also wise since each of these approaches have their strengths and weaknesses. Hopefully, individuals combine strengths of each system into a coherent unit that makes their life better. A degree of software built-in flexibility is becoming necessary to accommodate different needs, and yet it has to remain simple so that the user doesn't end up spending more time on managing the software instead of completing tasks at hand. So far I find OF very scalable to my own needs. I would definitively include sorting by and display the date and time when an action is actually an event or appointment regardless of the importance of other actions. But I'm sure all of us have something that we'd like to see in v.1.7.
 
Thanks zts. Absolultly right with you. What is difficult in organization is that there can't be one system. All depends on human feelings and being. Some are creative, others not, some likes closed systems others feels better with open system (i do).

The main difficulty is to find what is close to you. Do you really know who you are and how you do things ? We are not robot nor computers. We are humain beeings with Questions, fears, joys, happiness imagination, but also a part of rationality (happily). We are all differents but so close from each others...

It is like a graal search wich goes over us. For instance I love and live GTD but for being efficient i need an open system because i fell it to restrictive and heavy for me. All is too perfect, all is too clean. I need something wich let me some freedom, some creative or imaginative parts & let me drop and express all my energy doing things.

GTD is like a GPS. it shows me the road and drive me where i am going to. It gives me the power to perfecly know all my stuff and be relax about it. It's a lot.

Omnifocus is like my assitant it organize this stuff in a GTD way but let me think about it and review all this stuff. So i can be cool because i know i shall be relax what may happen everywhere. It's a lot too.

Autofocus is like a car. It's a daily tool for actionable and daily or short time tasks. It drives me all along the day and i use it as a IN basket for all information i may use before deciding what i want to do with it. Does it go to OF ? Do i keep it because i shall shortly need it ? And this is exactly what i am waiting for.

This is the reason why i indeed think that David ALLEN, MARC FORSTER and OMNIFOCUS don't play a different part. It's an orchestra that you can use for your own way. They all brought a big stone. We can discuss on the size of the stone but even it's a little rocks it was worth for.

Because the only thing that you can act on is your time and nobody knows when it's over. And they helped well to manage it efficiently.

All the best

Jupiter.

Last edited by Jupiter; 2009-03-04 at 01:51 AM..
 
After some time with Autofocus on paper, I think that OF's (and GTDs) main strength is the project list.

A key component of AF is the subconscious "autofocus" on a certain task that "stands out". But only when I review my project list, I get a clearer idea what I am supposed to do.

Working with a paper-based list most of the time is also important for me: My computer usage has been a lax one most of the time: when I stare on a screen a part of my brain screams "emails!", "flash games" and "lets have fun". This is not a problem of OF, it is me: The medium has become the message.

For a serious procrastinator like me, paper gives me a sense of commitment: More senses are involved, and it is also much more fun to cross off an item with a textmarker.

But the great thing about OF is its flexibility: It only took a few minutes to adjust a GTD-system to a simple project, waiting for, and someday-maybe-list that I check every now and then. With a reminder in AF, of course.

I also use OF to assign priorities to projects, by sorting them in the left pane.

Still, it is not too easy to "slim down" OF - I had to manually adjust all the styles so that unassigned next actions are not light grey. I still struggle with th "context" field - is there a way to switch off the context entry completely?

This works very well so far, as I am in the habit to think about my bigger goals in life and the progress towards them in the computer, in a simple text document.

For actually doing stuff, and deciding what to do, switching on the iPod touch (is it synced? no...) or the Mac is too much hassle... Usually, these devices are either out of reach, without enough battery power, require a password to open the screen , need some additional clicking to open the application, are not in sync and need at least some typing to work - Hardly the universal inbox I would imagine.

Maybe you guys (or gals? just joking :-) do not face these problems. The sad truth is, if I would not face them regularly, I would not need a time management system at all.
 
 


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