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Workflow revisited - Any good? Thread Tools Search this Thread Display Modes
As I posted here, I've been struggling a little to get OF entirely "trusted" and transparent(ish). Based on some of the help recieved there and in other threads, I've come up with a setup that I think is pretty good for someone new to both OF and GTD. Mainly, I'm interested to know if anyone thinks I've made any glaring omissions - are there any holes in this set-up that actions could fall through?

Remember, I'm the kind of person that needs a very clear and defined workflow - I don't have the self discipline to do these things without a framework to help me.

So, my intended workflow, starting today, is:

Collect



This will be collection from a combination of incoming e-mails, some of which may end up in OF automatically, but which may not, post, audio notes on my iphone, and voicemail, i.e., my physical inboxes. I've added flagged actions to my inbox, to remind me to check each of those, and those four reminder actions will never be completed or deleted. Flagged is sorted to the top so they don't get lost in the list.

Starting point each day is to visit this view, and add items from the various sources. Empty mind time!

Process

Next step is to go through the "Collect" perspective above, processing each item in line with Allen's workflow (is it actionable?, 2 mins?, etc etc.).

Having emptied the Inbox that way, I visit my next perspective, "Daily Review:



Here I can go through and check start and due dates, stuff I'm waiting for, completion, and can flag any "need to give that priority" actions.

Do



Everything should now be processed and ready for working on, so looking at next actions, with flagged (i.e. top priority stuff), at the top, I can select my current context and get on with work.

Waiting



I can look at this perspective from time to time and follow up anything I've delegated or am waiting on. Grouped by due date so I can see whether or not it actually needs chasing up.

Someday

No image - I'm only allowed 4 apparently.

For occasional review.

Done

All completed actions. I don't need to keep completed items, so this is more of a Trash bin ready for permanent deletion.

I still think OF could have an option to help more with the processing stage, and I would like a lot more automatic collection options, but never-the-less think this is a pretty good set-up for someone like me. Now, over to others to destroy my illusions that this is good stuff!

Mark
 
Looks good--no destruction of illusions from me! I have my review perspective set up to group and sort by review date; I don't necessarily review all my active projects every day (in fact I usually review them once a week, unless they need more frequent reviewing). I also use a variant on Omni's Completed Items perspective to track things I do; it gives me a sense of accomplishment at the end of the day. And I use a tickler perspective (borrowed from Curt) that shows me items scheduled to start today and tomorrow.
 
Hi Mark,

I'm set up nearly the same. I've got a GTD project with two action groups, one for the daily and one for the weekly review. Both are repeating groups (daily start 4pm, due 6pm and weekly start at sunday 4pm and due on monday 10am).

In the daily review group, there are
(1) Empty / process E-mail inbox
(2) Empty / process OmniFocus inbox
(3) Empty / process Voicemail
(4) Review calendar of today (as it's in the afternoon, it's the past day)
(5) (P)review calendar of tomorrow (for the hard landscape)
(6) Check action lists and flag actions that should and could be done the next day

For point (6) it's extremely important to know the time slots you'll have for doing and of course an estimate on time consumption of the actions. Usually there are a lot of booked times on your calendar and there's always someone bringing ad-hoc work into your life.

My weekly review is as well a more or less David Allen list.

Get Clear:
- Collect
- Brain sweep
- Empty / process E-mail inbox
- Empty / process OmniFocus inbox
- Empty / process Voicemail
get current:
- Review activities (as above)
- Review calendar of past week
- (P)review calendar of next week
- Review waiting for
- Review projects
Get creative:
- Review Sometimes Maybe
- Use the empty brain to create ideas

Of course, in my OmniFocus it's all in german, but that's not the point. With these recurring action groups, you can check them off one by one without "loosing" them. And they are only there when you need them (or triggering yourself to need them).
Especially when I have to postpone my weekly review to monday morning, I'm in the office and often need the checking off, because it takes some time and there are these ad-hoc guys again...

Or to be more precise: I think, you're on a good way...

Regards
Boris
 
First thing I gotta know is... how did you get those icons in your toolbar? Are they perspectives? I like how it creates a workflow for you. Very Cool.

Responses:
I use a context called process collection buckets to ensure I get all the stuff in my collection buckets into OF.


I also use start dates and the available filter to only show me tasks that are ready to be worked on. I use due dates to give me those cool tags. This helps me when I get interrupted. I return to OF and can start where I left off. I haven't lost my place in the processing.


For weekly review, I took the weekly review steps in GTD and made them into repeating tasks. In the note field I just typed out what was in GTD.


The one thing in your system I didn't see was using the OF review grouping. It has totally changed the way I review items. I can set some items to review sooner, like every week, and some to review less often, like every 3 months.


When I go through my reviewing... I select active projects, review all items in the past. You mark a project as reviewed by using the icon that looks like a stamp.

Then I select On Hold Projects (Someday/Maybe) and review all projects with a review date in the past.

I even use the review grouping for stalled projects. Although, to tell you the truth, I don't find as much value in the current implementation of stalled projects. In my mind, a stalled project should be any parent, not just projects, that doesn't have an uncompleted child. If a project or parent has no tasks to move it to completion, then it is stalled. A project is not stalled if it's tasks are in the future. But who am I to blow against the wind.
 
Thanks everyone for replying.

I'll look through the replies in detail tomorrow, as they look very useful, but I'm a bit short of time right now.

However, to answer one point quickly:

Quote:
Originally Posted by SpiralOcean
First thing I gotta know is... how did you get those icons in your toolbar? Are they perspectives? I like how it creates a workflow for you. Very Cool.
It is pretty cool isn't it! Yes, they are perspectives. In my search for the perfect system, which inevitably came back to OF, I installed Ready-Set-Do!. It's a series of scripts, which are very very clever, but not for me so I uninstalled it.

One thing it does is create a series of folders on your machine, and give them custom icons. After removing it they were still there, so this is what I did (having first set up the perspectives):

Find a folder with an icon you like (also works with an app), right click on it or Cmd-I to bring up Get Info, and click on its icon in the info window. Hit Cmd-C to copy it.

Bring up the perspectives window in OF, select the perspective you want to give the icon you just copied to, and click on the large icon so it's highlighted in blue like below:



Hit Cmd-V to paste.

Now choose View-Customize Toolbar, and your perspectives will be there ready to drag onto the toolbar.

The only issue I'm finding is that OF 1.1 sometimes forgets the icons you've set, so don't lose the original source just in case. It's not happening often, and mostly when I instal a new build I think.

Note this is posted to let people know how to do this in principal using icons they own or which are free. I DON'T condone using copyrighted icons. I think I'm OK as these were just folder icons left behind after removing something, but it's up to you to be sure.

Last edited by MacBerry; 2008-08-18 at 10:13 AM..
 
Suweeet! I learned something new... and cool to boot. Thanks for explaining.
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by MacBerry View Post
The only issue I'm finding is that OF 1.1 sometimes forgets the icons you've set, so don't lose the original source just in case. It's not happening often, and mostly when I instal a new build I think.
I think the problem is that OmniFocus will forget a perspective icon if you change the name of the perspective and then relaunch OmniFocus. As long as I don't rename my perspectives, I haven't seen it happen.

I'm pretty sure this bug has been reported and that Omni Group has it in their database.

-Dennis
 
Yes, it's in our database as #47115.
 
 


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