My workflow continues to improve with OmniFocus.
I'm in school full time, working full time, and living full time. I have 47 irons in the fire at all time (active projects) 20 projects coming down the pipe (pending projects) and 50 projects on the back burner (on hold projects).
Of the "active projects" there are a few that always come first. These are the tasks that I flag. I'm involved with where I am part of a close knit digital production team. These actions get first priority, because I know that other people are waiting on them to move forward with other parts of the project. (OmniPlan makes this incredibly easy to see). There are other things that are time sensitive (returning phone calls, etc) and other things that I just want to be first priority (exercise, family). Every day, I attack the flagged tasks first. On most days, I get through the flagged tasks in an hour or two, then open up the filter and move on to other tasks. This means I'm being really productive! Other days I only get through the flagged tasks. This means I'm keeping my head above water, which is good enough. It's a wonderful system. I love it.
However, with my production team tasks, sometimes I know that my team members won't actually be waiting on this asset until they finish a bunch of other stuff first, and that stuff will take them at least 3 weeks. So, for today, my action is not part of the projects critical path and doesn't need to be flagged. But if 16 days go by and I still haven't gotten to it, I know I need to make it a priority because they will be waiting on it soon.
I wish that there was an "this becomes automatically flagged" date in OmniFocus. I really want OmniFocus to automatically flag an action or project in 16 days, because I know that at that time I need to jump on it or I will miss my deadline and will be holding people up. I don't want to sleep the task with a future start date, because I would work on it today if I get to it and feel like it. I just want to be sure that if I happen not to get to it for 16 days, that it jumps up in priority.
Right now, every other day I scan for due dates and add flags to projects that are becoming tight on time. This takes me 15 minutes. I would love to eliminate this time suck and and fall back to just my weekly review.
It would help me to trust my system better and help me relax.
I sent this to the OmniFocus team... but I'm curious if i'm alone here.
I'm in school full time, working full time, and living full time. I have 47 irons in the fire at all time (active projects) 20 projects coming down the pipe (pending projects) and 50 projects on the back burner (on hold projects).
Of the "active projects" there are a few that always come first. These are the tasks that I flag. I'm involved with where I am part of a close knit digital production team. These actions get first priority, because I know that other people are waiting on them to move forward with other parts of the project. (OmniPlan makes this incredibly easy to see). There are other things that are time sensitive (returning phone calls, etc) and other things that I just want to be first priority (exercise, family). Every day, I attack the flagged tasks first. On most days, I get through the flagged tasks in an hour or two, then open up the filter and move on to other tasks. This means I'm being really productive! Other days I only get through the flagged tasks. This means I'm keeping my head above water, which is good enough. It's a wonderful system. I love it.
However, with my production team tasks, sometimes I know that my team members won't actually be waiting on this asset until they finish a bunch of other stuff first, and that stuff will take them at least 3 weeks. So, for today, my action is not part of the projects critical path and doesn't need to be flagged. But if 16 days go by and I still haven't gotten to it, I know I need to make it a priority because they will be waiting on it soon.
I wish that there was an "this becomes automatically flagged" date in OmniFocus. I really want OmniFocus to automatically flag an action or project in 16 days, because I know that at that time I need to jump on it or I will miss my deadline and will be holding people up. I don't want to sleep the task with a future start date, because I would work on it today if I get to it and feel like it. I just want to be sure that if I happen not to get to it for 16 days, that it jumps up in priority.
Right now, every other day I scan for due dates and add flags to projects that are becoming tight on time. This takes me 15 minutes. I would love to eliminate this time suck and and fall back to just my weekly review.
It would help me to trust my system better and help me relax.
I sent this to the OmniFocus team... but I'm curious if i'm alone here.
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