[clmb511]

Glad I'm not the only one thinking #1 and #3 here. OF definitely needs at least the option to be more intrusive and Stef has some cool ideas for intelligence that could be put around that.

Regarding #2 it is not an insolvable problem despite the Apple iOS tyranny. First, it needs to be solved on OF for Mac as there is no excuse for not having built in features for both Mail and Outlook to create a task from an email and attachment. Yes, there are scripts to do this. No, I don't want to build that functionality into a $50+ product myself and have it break every time I upgrade one side of the equation.

Second, even on iOS there are solutions. Why not have an OF server I can forward an email to with a text input establishing a due date? Then I can find it in my inbox later and finish editing and organizing the task.

Again, there are third party solutions to sort of do this but they have weaknesses (can't deal with attachments) and are a kludge. OF already runs a sync server, why can they not also run an email server that accepts incoming messages from me and creates a task?

Overall I think one challenge Omni has is that its early clients were more freelancers who mainly needed to organize larger work projects. Now, with the growing marketshare of Mac OS suddenly a lot of their clients are traditional corporate workers and the existing OF tools are not as well suited for our workflow.

Another thing I'd point out is why can't OF iOS have a real Outlook client that pulls in a read-only view of emails in OF? I bet Apple would allow it if it were read-only and just used to jump to task creation?

[wilsonng]

Originally Posted by clmb511

-Alerts before tasks are due (with ability to disable or snooze alert)

[snip]

-OF needs to remind me it is there once in a while. Remind me to review it.

Reminders and alerts will help but is not the cure-all when we start ignoring them.

If we intentionally hit snooze or just ignore the alerts, they lose their effectiveness. I'll often ignore text alerts because I'm focused on the task at hand.

We have to be mindfully aware that we should be doing our reviews. I've made it a weekly habit and know that my sunday nights (or whatever time block) is intentionally set aside for review time.

Otherwise a consistent nag or reminder isn't going to get me to do my review because I'll just dismiss it easily.

The review process is actually a habit and not a task. We learn to do certain tasks and don't necessarily need a reminder for it.

I schedule lifting weights on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Then I schedule Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays for aerobic workouts.

I schedule my weekly review on Sunday nights. I don't really need an alarm for these types of scheduled occurrences.

I make it a habit to consistently check my "Today" perspective (flagged and due) and make sure to work on those tasks because they are the most urgent. So I don't really need an alert that I'll be dismissing anyways. Of course adopting this habit did take time. But once I got into this consistent habit, I turned off the reminders because I didn't need it anymore.

I like to limit my alerts to those one-off tasks that are easily forgotten (tasks that are only done once, once a month, or longer). This keeps my use of alerts effective