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Grocery lists in OmniFocus? Thread Tools Search this Thread Display Modes
Quote:
Originally Posted by IntlOrange View Post
It occurs to me that I could use this with a different context for each store I frequent. For example, I like to get most dry goods items from Trader Joe's (where they're super-cheap) and produce at Whole Foods (where the quality is much better). I could use your system of organizing the list by area of the store and set contexts for each store -- e.g. "Trader Joe's" and "Whole Foods". I process the list before leaving the house (as you suggested), and when I'm in the actual store, OF shows me only the items I want to buy at each one.

This will be even more impressive once OF for iPhone comes out and it will already "know" which store I'm in. Eerie.
BINGO! Yes, that is definitely taking it another step forward. Glad I could help out. I gotta say, though, if you can have your Mac on and have your iPhone connect to it, the webserver app is very nice. Very basic, but very nice. In fact, I would rather work my contexts from that interface instead of using OF itself. I have a LOT of stuff in there, personal, career, my side business, and OF can get a little slow.
 
I used to have a crazy list set up in OmniOutliner that I've just moved into my OF list.

I'll warn you it sounds a bit insane but I've found it really speeds things up once sorted.

We do one big grocery shop a week in a big store so I broke it up into ordered sub contexts matching sections of the shop.

Supermarket > A (fresh veges)
Supermarket > B (meat)
Supermarket > C (first tinned food aisle)
etc

Anything we ever buy just gets added to a context according to where it is in the supermarket. (I made the original list by exporting from some online shopping we'd done)

Then just like Lightstorm the whole "shop" project is ticked, then untick what we need this time.

(Bonus points: Option-drag a copy of these items into a separate grouped lists of items for an individual meal and leave the things you have already in the cupboard as ticked)

Then you can just view the whole "supermarket" context and everything shows up split into sections. Until I get my iPhone I'm just setting the page setup to print 4-up on A4 and you can stuff it in your pocket.

Yep. I know.
 
Oh yeah - and you can just abuse the time estimate column a bit for amounts of things too. Need 4 tins of tomatoes - put a 4 in the time estimate.
 
Slightly off topic, but...

Quote:
Originally Posted by Lightstorm View Post
I have a LOT of stuff in there, personal, career, my side business, and OF can get a little slow.
I have a lot of stuff too, but haven't really run into too many performance issues. I wish searching across the entire database was a little faster, but that seems improved in 1.1 (or is it just my imagination?).

Anyway, have you tried rebuilding your OF database recently? That can make a huge difference. Go to File -> Rebuild Database.

Also, I get the impression that OF's performance is greatly influences by how many items you have displayed in the current view. Try focusing on folders, collapsing unused collections, placing projects on hold, fiddling with the view bar and perspectives to get a smaller subset of your data to work with, etc.

And lastly, you can try this hidden preference to turn off the display of items in the main content area when nothing is selected in the sidebar (the same way Mail behaves). With nothing displayed in the main content area, jumping between planning and context mode and switching to new perspectives is instantaneous.

Code:
defaults write com.omnigroup.OmniFocus LeaveEmptySelectionEmpty -bool YES
-Dennis
 
Lightstorm, I'm thinking for borrowing your idea for the groceries. I am much more organized and on task since using Omnifocus and your idea looks great. Thanks.
 
uof, you have taken it to a whole other level, especially with your misuse of the time estimate column. Nice.
 
I've been experimenting with this approach and have one more technique to add.

If you have certain dishes that you like to make, try making a sub-project for one, and listing the ingredients underneath it. For example, I have:
  • Pizza
  • Whole wheat pizza dough
  • Canned tomatoes
  • Mozzarella
  • Basil

Add contexts for each item, so you know where to buy what:
  • Pizza
  • Whole wheat pizza dough — Trader Joe's
  • Canned tomatoes — Whole Foods
  • Mozzarella — Trader Joe's
  • Basil — Trader Joe's

Then, before you go shopping, you can just uncheck all the items beneath "Pizza" and know that you didn't forget anything, because you've already documented it. (You're so smart.)

Switch to your context view (whether on your iPhone or for a printed copy) and you'll see all those ingredients sorted by store, e.g.:


Store > Trader Joe's
  • Whole wheat pizza dough
  • Mozzarella
  • Basil

Store > Whole Foods
  • Canned tomatoes
 
IntlOrange, I'm doing something very similar - works really well. I've got a big master list of the groceries we ever buy, as describe in my earlier post.

Then I've option-dragged a copy into a list for some regular meals we have (so it keeps the context I've already set it). Then it's just like you say - you can build a list for 5 or so meals in no time.
 
First I would like to say that I have never seen people talk so passionately about grocery lists!

Second, now I'm thinking I want to do this too! ;) One question though: I have an iPod Touch and a Palm Treo 700p. I don't know what the OmniFocus web server is, but can I pull this thing off with either of these devices (preferably the Treo)?
 
Ssshh, Jensen. Or my wife will hear and mercilessly roll her eyes.

Don't know much about Treos but when Omni release the iPhone version of OmniFocus shortly it should run on iPod Touch as well - just without the GPS location features.

If you have desktop version of OmniFocus you can keep desktop and iPod/iPhone all in sync by storing your data somewhere centrally - think you can either set that up on your home mac or with a service like MobileMe. That's the web server bit you mention.
 
 


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