I have been trying to use OF in my daily life since I bought the program and I find it to be a great tool in implementing the overall concept of GTD. However, I'm finding that organization is one thing and implementation another.
The whole idea of creating projects with specific tasks associated with them is great and I understand the usefulness in giving the user a unique view on what to do in each, specific context. However, after a few months of neglect and procrastination, I have returned to OF and started thinking more about why this application, up to now, has tended to slip through the cracks and become irrelevant. Let me rephrase this, in order to avoid sounding critical of OF. Only recently I have realized that OF does not handle calendar items, also known as Hard Landscape Items in the GTD terminology (however, I'm not saying I need OF to have a calendar).
This is a bit of a problem for me, since I do not actually see the link between the 'what' and the 'when' - I don't know what to do with the results OF generates. In other words, I am so disorganized, that in my daily life, I don't actually know how to link the specific "Actions" (from various projects in different contexts) with the time-slots in my daily life. OF helps me know what to do next; I just don't know when. This is my concern. Which part of the OF framework actually translates directly to the calendar?
I just want to make it clear that this is not a technical question about how to sync OmniFocus with calendar applications.
I'm just trying to get your opinion on how to actually integrate what OmniFocus generates into my daily life. In the Projects view I create projects and the corresponding actions; in the Contexts view I actually view what to do next in each context. So as a matter of proper practice, what do you do WITH the Contexts view in OmniFocus, while you are simultaneously staring at the next week in your Calendar?
Do you take each task and distribute it into your calendar? How do YOU do this? Would you do this during the weekly Reviews? Do you actually assign a portion of your week's calendar (bi-weekly, or whatever) to dedicate to each "Context" to make sure you address the actions within it in some portion of your week? For example, @HomeTasks will be Tuesdays and Thursdays or @Phonecalls on Mon/Wed/Fri, etc etc? I'm just trying to get an opinion on what users of OmniFocus might actually do to implement OmniFocus in their daily lives. Thanks for any comments.
The whole idea of creating projects with specific tasks associated with them is great and I understand the usefulness in giving the user a unique view on what to do in each, specific context. However, after a few months of neglect and procrastination, I have returned to OF and started thinking more about why this application, up to now, has tended to slip through the cracks and become irrelevant. Let me rephrase this, in order to avoid sounding critical of OF. Only recently I have realized that OF does not handle calendar items, also known as Hard Landscape Items in the GTD terminology (however, I'm not saying I need OF to have a calendar).
This is a bit of a problem for me, since I do not actually see the link between the 'what' and the 'when' - I don't know what to do with the results OF generates. In other words, I am so disorganized, that in my daily life, I don't actually know how to link the specific "Actions" (from various projects in different contexts) with the time-slots in my daily life. OF helps me know what to do next; I just don't know when. This is my concern. Which part of the OF framework actually translates directly to the calendar?
I just want to make it clear that this is not a technical question about how to sync OmniFocus with calendar applications.
I'm just trying to get your opinion on how to actually integrate what OmniFocus generates into my daily life. In the Projects view I create projects and the corresponding actions; in the Contexts view I actually view what to do next in each context. So as a matter of proper practice, what do you do WITH the Contexts view in OmniFocus, while you are simultaneously staring at the next week in your Calendar?
Do you take each task and distribute it into your calendar? How do YOU do this? Would you do this during the weekly Reviews? Do you actually assign a portion of your week's calendar (bi-weekly, or whatever) to dedicate to each "Context" to make sure you address the actions within it in some portion of your week? For example, @HomeTasks will be Tuesdays and Thursdays or @Phonecalls on Mon/Wed/Fri, etc etc? I'm just trying to get an opinion on what users of OmniFocus might actually do to implement OmniFocus in their daily lives. Thanks for any comments.
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