[alexius]

Originally Posted by brianogilvie

Some folks have been using Anxiety as a HUD for OmniFocus.

Thanks for the suggestion -- I've tried that but would much rather have direct access to OF. I find that my iCal calendars and OF contexts don't quite work together well for this purpose, and also I'd prefer to be working right with OF rather than having to repeatedly sync with iCal when using this method.

Just in case, I will give Anxiety another shot.

[iNik]

Just to add a me-too to the nagging OmniFocus idea. I posted this elsewhere, but here it is again:

I would really like it if OmniFocus' dated tasks were treated like calendar items with proper reminders. OmniFocus is the one and only place I put stuff I need to remember to do, and popping up an easily-ignored and quickly fading Growl notification just doesn't cut it at all. If something's due, I want OmniFocus to ensure I notice so I don't miss my deadline!

DING DING DING DING DING!
Time to Make the Donuts! Wakey Wakey!
DING DING DING DING DING!

Then have the usual array of snooze/reset the due date/whatever.

Having it work like Entourage wouldn't be bad at all. Put up a list of reminders that I can one-by-one reschedule and deal with -- maybe even have the list appear in something not-unlike the Quick Entry window for easy editing.

[Lightstorm]

Originally Posted by iNik

Just to add a me-too to the nagging OmniFocus idea. I posted this elsewhere, but here it is again:

I would really like it if OmniFocus' dated tasks were treated like calendar items with proper reminders. OmniFocus is the one and only place I put stuff I need to remember to do, and popping up an easily-ignored and quickly fading Growl notification just doesn't cut it at all. If something's due, I want OmniFocus to ensure I notice so I don't miss my deadline!

DING DING DING DING DING!
Time to Make the Donuts! Wakey Wakey!
DING DING DING DING DING!

Then have the usual array of snooze/reset the due date/whatever.

Having it work like Entourage wouldn't be bad at all. Put up a list of reminders that I can one-by-one reschedule and deal with -- maybe even have the list appear in something not-unlike the Quick Entry window for easy editing.

I agree, iNik. There's nothing I hate more than a calendar stuffed with reminders of stuff I need to do on particular dates. To me, a calendar should reflect events where you have to BE somewhere at a particular TIME, not reminding me to take out the trash or somethin'!

I get the idea sometimes that people are TOO entrenched in the GTD ways that they can't change the way they think (or do things).

Great idea!

[curt.clifton]

Originally Posted by iNik

OmniFocus is the one and only place I put stuff I need to remember to do, and popping up an easily-ignored and quickly fading Growl notification just doesn't cut it at all.

This doesn't solve your entire need, but you can configure Growl to leave OmniFocus reminders on the screen instead of fading them out. (Go to the Growl Preference Pane, then the Applications tab. Select OmniFocus and click Configure. Change the Stay on Screen setting to Always.)

In conjunction with this, it's helpful to know that clicking the OF icon in the Growl notification switches to OF and selects the action. Also, option-clicking the close icon in a Growl notification closes all the notifications from that application.

Growl can also be configured to send emails or SMS messages, though I haven't tried that.

[Toadling]

@Curt - Thanks for the wonderful Growl refresher. I already knew some of those things but had long since forgotten about them. That's really useful!

Thanks,
Dennis

[Lightstorm]

Originally Posted by curt.clifton

This doesn't solve your entire need, but you can configure Growl to leave OmniFocus reminders on the screen instead of fading them out. (Go to the Growl Preference Pane, then the Applications tab. Select OmniFocus and click Configure. Change the Stay on Screen setting to Always.)

In conjunction with this, it's helpful to know that clicking the OF icon in the Growl notification switches to OF and selects the action. Also, option-clicking the close icon in a Growl notification closes all the notifications from that application.

Growl can also be configured to send emails or SMS messages, though I haven't tried that.

@Curt,
Are you sure you can config Growl for SMS? I would LOVE that! Sometimes, for no apparent reason, Growl also just stops running, and I have to restart it from the status bar. Which doesn't help, either. :)

[curt.clifton]

Originally Posted by Lightstorm

@Curt,
Are you sure you can config Growl for SMS? I would LOVE that! Sometimes, for no apparent reason, Growl also just stops running, and I have to restart it from the status bar. Which doesn't help, either. :)

In the Display Options tab of Growl 1.1.4, there's an SMS style. I haven't used it. It looks like it might require a paid Clickatell.com account. I haven't had any stability issues with Growl, but I tend to reboot a couple of times a day. (I use a MBP at home and at the office. I typically shut down rather than sleep when moving back and forth.)

[Lightstorm]

Originally Posted by curt.clifton

In the Display Options tab of Growl 1.1.4, there's an SMS style. I haven't used it. It looks like it might require a paid Clickatell.com account. I haven't had any stability issues with Growl, but I tend to reboot a couple of times a day. (I use a MBP at home and at the office. I typically shut down rather than sleep when moving back and forth.)

Just enabled SMS reminders using the MailMe option in Growl. Sending emails to the SMS address of AT&T works GREAT!

[iNik]

Originally Posted by curt.clifton

you can configure Growl to leave OmniFocus reminders on the screen instead of fading them out.

Yep, that's how it's set up. This makes "snoozing" a task a rather inefficient (click, inspect, set the task's new time to 2 hours later...), but it's as close as I can get.

Shame Growl can't TRIGGER scripts and pass along some variables to the script.

[CorgiGirl]

Originally Posted by iNik

Just to add a me-too to the nagging OmniFocus idea. I posted this elsewhere, but here it is again:

I would really like it if OmniFocus' dated tasks were treated like calendar items with proper reminders. OmniFocus is the one and only place I put stuff I need to remember to do, and popping up an easily-ignored and quickly fading Growl notification just doesn't cut it at all. If something's due, I want OmniFocus to ensure I notice so I don't miss my deadline!

DING DING DING DING DING!
Time to Make the Donuts! Wakey Wakey!
DING DING DING DING DING!

Then have the usual array of snooze/reset the due date/whatever.

Having it work like Entourage wouldn't be bad at all. Put up a list of reminders that I can one-by-one reschedule and deal with -- maybe even have the list appear in something not-unlike the Quick Entry window for easy editing.

I can't agree more with this – I also agree with the thoughts of the original poster. I was not familiar with GTD until I started my "quest" for a task management system for my new 2.0 iphone. Now mind you, I am an extremely organized person. I was a happy Entourage user, but sending tasks and getting information translated properly to ical is a disaster. OF is a holy grail of sorts due to the fantastic iphone task syncing. From an "outsider's perspective," (vs. the diehard GTD posters here who all about pummeled the original poster - poor thing) Omni does present OmniFocus as an app based in GTD, but with enouch flexibiliity for other users and organizational techniques.

I myself would love for the option to have an alarm fire off in ical that I set in OF. I would also love to have a snooze script just like Entourage. Sometimes hard events are really small tasks that happen at a particular time, and it is easier to see them grouped as tasks vs calendar events. For example, I have a diabetic cat. I don't like having a generic alarm to check her sugar levels and another alarm to give her her shot. It's a task I like to be reminded of at the same time every day with an alarm, and I also like being able to mark the task off as complete. In my organized world, I want this task with the rest of my tasks in OF. Since ical doesn't have repetitive tasks, it's a choice of OF with growl as my reminder, or creating ical repetitive events that clog up my iphone calendar view.

When using OmniFocus as a tool for project management (BTW I am voting here for syncing between OmniPlan and OF - that would be a dream come true!), seeing a hard "event" like a deadline with tasks is important. The deadline is an event, but it is also is a milestone and another "box" to check off as complete. That's why having options like setting an ical task alarm or scripting a task to create a hard ical event (with alarm) from a task would be very useful. I am not suggesting that OF have its own calendar - I only want the option to make things happen in ical.

Implemented as options, or even add-ons, hard-core GTDers can just turn the options off and everyone is happy.

I've actually spent hours pouring through the OF forums looking for kind souls who have uploaded scripts to help my in my quest to replace Entourage and sync my life with my iphone (And thank you to all of the posters who take the time to really provide great ideas and solutions in these forums! I am extremely impressed with the dedication of the members and the Omni staff/team - it is a great group!)

The moral here is that there is no one hard system that is perfect for everyone. I also think it is fair to say that no one system is perfect, including GTD. A little flexibility could go a long way and maybe even make things a little better :)