[apeman88]

I have just started 'trying' to get my life in shape w/ GTD, Omnifocus, and iCal. Omnifocus and GTD so far have been great, but I am having trouble understanding iCal/Omnifocus sync functionality.

When I sync iCal/Omnifocus, nothing actually shows up on my Calendar, only on a to-do list, which sort of repeats OF functionality a bit. I was imagining that I would be able to set start due/dates within OF, and those tasks would appear on my calendar...is that possible or do I just have it setup improperly?

How are people finding OF/iCal sync functionality in terms of actual usability?

Thanks all,

Apeman88

I just turned off "Show Tasks" in iCal because I found it didn't add anything to my work flow. I have my actions in OF, my appointments in iCal.

I'm new to all of this too though, so I might be missing something.

[Toadling]

As far as I understand, the only reason to sync OmniFocus with iCal is if you want to then use some third-party device or software that is capable of syncing with iCal To Dos (e.g. Palm device or an app like Anxiety). If you don't use such a device/app, then syncing with iCal doesn't buy you much.

And if you're an iPhone user, iCal syncing will soon be entirely obsolete. Ugh, am I drooling on myself again? :)

-Dennis

[apeman88]

Thanks for the replies.

I was hoping to be able to limit duplicate inputs if possible. So for example I have a meeting on June 30th at 1PM, (context) work:San Francisco, (project) New app:marketing, I would have to enter that in both iCal and OF independently?

I guess this goes to a best practices question, but would that sort of event/action even exist in OF in the GTD framework?

[Toadling]

My interpretation of GTD and David Allen's message is that appointments that occur on a specific date belong on your calendar (iCal) and everything else goes on your action list (OmniFocus). This is what I've been doing and it has worked well for me.

So in your example, a meeting on June 30th at 1PM, I'd make an iCal event. I'd put nothing in OmniFocus unless there were some additional actions I needed to perform relating to the meeting (e.g. notes or a presentation to prepare ahead of time, questions to ask during the meeting, follow-up with something afterwards, etc). If I were to add something in OmniFocus, I might also include a start or due date that corresponds to the date I have for the event in iCal.

Hope this helps.

-Dennis

[webalstrom]

I have struggled with the action list / calendar question for a long time, too. Ideally I would like to see an app which has both a robust project/action list like OF AND a calendar. Although actions and events are two separate things according to GTD, they are integrated, such as belonging to the same project or the need to do certain actions before the event (as in the example in the above post from Toadling).

I have not done this (having just gotten the idea from reading the posts in this thread), but here is one possible solution:

- Enter your events in OF under the correct project with a context of "Meeting" or something similar.
- Sync the "Meeting" context between OF and iCal.
- In iCal, drag the resulting ToDo onto the calendar at the correct day/time slot and it is made into a calendar event.

This way you have a record in a single place (OF) of everything associated with a particular project but still have the advantages of having hard events on the calendar which is where the belong.

As I said, I have not tried this, since I have to use Entourage at work, which is Exchange server-based (any good ideas on Entourage/OF integration or syncing iCal/Entourage???).

Eric