A simpler autofocused productivity system
Autofocus gives you a simple list and easy fun rules to guide your proces
I recently read about this system by Mark Forster. Autofocus is a todolist system based on simple rules, and an in-built trust in your own innate ability to sense the right thing to do right now.
The autofocus system will appeal to people with a fondness for paperbased systems, and particularly the Moleskine Crowd.
Here's how Mark Forster describes it himself:
1. Read quickly through all the items on the page without taking action on any of them.
2. Go through the page more slowly looking at the items in order until one stands out for you.
3. Work on that item for as long as you feel like doing so
4. Cross the item off the list, and re-enter it at the end of the list if you haven’t finished it
5. Continue going round the same page in the same way. Don’t move onto the next page until you complete a pass of the page without any item standing out
6. Move onto the next page and repeat the process
7. If you go to a page and no item stands out for you on your first pass through it, then all the outstanding items on that page are dismissed without re-entering them. (N.B. This does not apply to the final page, on which you are still writing items). Use a highlighter to mark dismissed items.
8. Once you’ve finished with the final page, re-start at the first page that is still active.
I like several things about the autofocus system:
1. it's compact
I love to be able to walk around with my system all the time. Capturing ideas depends on this. I must admit that my Iphone with Omnifocus is used a lot less, than I had imagined. My test-run of autofocus had me capture more stuff, and remembering more as well.
2. it's simple
It's not complicated. I tend to lose my perspective when everything is sorted in projects and contexts. Especially the context part of GTD makes less sense to me than ever. I don't really need anything besides @work and @home. Autofocus urges to have two lists. One for work and one for private stuff.
3. it gets rid of old todo-list garbage
The idea of dismissing old items when you look at a page without anything standing appeals to me a lot. The thing I get rid of this way, is the non-doable things, that seems to creep into every todo-list I make. In autofocus you highlight it, and then someday later you can review these dismissed items and totally forget them, put them on a someday/maybe list og or re-enter them in another form.
4. it's fast!
You can do this really fast. With 22 lines per page, you can quickly skim a page. Adding new items is lightning fast. And since you never grow your list to more than 10-15 pages, findign something is actually quite simple.
5. it's in a moleskine
Well... you gotta love a moleskine. I love touching them. I love carrying them. I love looking at them. Well... maybe it's just me :)
Anyways... that's it. A simple analouge system that you can check out at the blog of Mark Forster. The decribtion of the system is a mere 6 pages in the printer. So go ahead read about it. I have been using it for my home stuff for a week now, and I'm pretty happy. I am considering moving my someday/maybe lists into Taskpaper, but that's another story.
Oh... by the way... drawing on the top was made with wonderful children focused drawing app: Doozla.
- Jens Poder
OmniFocus tips – Tweak your OmniFocus Workflow
OmniFocus is a really flexible app. I let's you do a lot of modifications to suit YOUR specific workflow. The problem, however, is how to build YOUR specific workflow. Because OmniFocus doesn't come with an easy inbuilt one. And over the long run this will slow you down and hinder your productivity.
What you have to do, is figure out how you want your workflow with OmniFocus, and then implement it!
Perhaps you have already experienced one of the following problems
- The next action list grows to enormous size
- Urgent tasks hides behind non-urgent stuff
- You use a lot of clicks, when moving around the application, slowing you down and hindering your ability to get a clear perspective on the state of affairs.
Well, luckily there's a remedy for these nuisances. And it's all about tweaking the software to suit you. And though I can't tell what your optimal workflow, what I CAN do, is show you how I have tweaked Omnifocus.
BUILDING MY OWN WORKFLOW
Customizing OmniFocus to fit your workflow will save you a ton of time.
The goal we're aiming for is to have a set of custom perspectives and corresponding short cuts in the toolbar.
Perspectives are predefined views/sortings of your tasks, and they are really handy. I have a set of custommade perspective for each cornerstone in my GTD workflow.
- Inbox
- Today
- Next Actions
- Projects
- Waiting For
- Review
In the recently published version of OmniFocus some of these got build in. But I still prefer to make my own. It let’s me make precisely as I want them, and I get to have keyboard short cuts.
HOW TO MAKE YOUR OWN PERSPECTIVES
To make a perspective is quite easy. You just fool around with the possible sortings and filtrations, until satisfied, and then you go to the perspectives pulldown menu and press save as perspective.
You can watch the whole process in this video:
OmniFocus Workflow from Jens Poder on Vimeo.
Short cuts to perspectives in the toolbar got into OmniFocus from version 1.1. Right clicking and customizing the toolbar, will let you put your custom perspectives buttons into your toolbar.
This is what pulls it all together. Discard the unused stuff and put in your own perspectives.
Now you have all the main ingredients of your GTD-workflow at the click of a mouse or keyboard shortcut.
Tomorrow we'll look at how to tweak OmniFocus to only serve your tasks relevant right now.
- Jens Poder
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Two Minute GTD timer for MAC
Dan Messing wrote this brilliant piece of software. It's a Two Minute Timer! You know... for processing your inboxes!
Now you can easily adhere to the David Allen rule: If you can handle it in less than two minutes... Do it now!
I makes me immensely greatfull, that people like Dan exists out there. Someone who codes perfect little solutions to all my problems. Free software is my favourite kind.
- Jens Poder
Stop doing half-actions
One of the main productivity tips I have been given is this: eliminate half-actions in your daily habits. Focus on getting the job done to a level, where the value of the job is achieved.
“It’s only the last turn of a bolt that tightens it - the rest is just movement.” - Shigeo Shingo
What is a half action? Well... you see them all the time. It's everytime someone has started on something and then haven't brougt it to the level where something was actually accomplished. Here is some examples:
- Garbage taken halfway out. Now it sits in front of the door in smelly pile of bags. Moving the bags the final 4 meters would haven taken just a little more. Now the task remains. Nothing has been accomplished.
- Starting on a job you haven't got the time to finish. If you start on a knowledge task, and only gets half-way through. Instead break knowledge work into manageable chunks. Do the brainstorm/outline whatever. Don't write half a paragraph, then leave it, and ditch it and start all over in the morning.
When you start to consider these half-actions, you'll be surprised how many of them you do out of sheer habit.
I tend to empty the dinnertable, and then put all the dinnerware and the plates in a big pile on the kitchen-table. Why didn't I put them straight into the dishwasher?
I also have a bad habit of leaving my newly washed clothes in a pile on a small chair next to my wardrope, and THEN, some time later, put it into the wardrobe. How weird is that?
In your daily life such half-action habits are just annoying, perhaps especially for the people living with you. But in the workplace they're a real hazard for completing anything. It's where I have gained the most value from this shift of habits.
You need to cut through the tendency in busy organizations to get a lot of projects moved very little, instead of focusing. This is mainly done out of a misplaced will to show stakeholders that you put in some effort. Don't put in the effort. Deliver the goods instead.
Sometimes you will feel the urge to "get started" on something, where you haven't actually got the time or ressources to finish the task. I say take a break instead, or find something you can actually complete.
When I succeed with this kind of willful focus on finishing tasks and reaching goals, instead of just satisficing and shuffling papers around, I accomplish much more
Half-completed knowledgework doesn't mature with age, like fine wine. It gets stale and crumbles like bread. Stop a couple of times every day, and ask yourself: "Am I about to complete this?"
- Jens Poder
Iphone Omnifocus: A quick review
So, at last I got my Iphone and Omnifocus, and thus the possibility to have one system for all my todo and GTD needs across platforms.
Overall, Omnifocus is very nice. It does everything you want it to do. It syncs with my mac through mobileme, and that is the killer value I wanted. One system to rule it all...
But it has a couple of problems, that I find annoying, especially considering the price. It is among the most expensive Iphone apps.
It's still in beta! You are actually participating in Omnigroups development phase. This means you're risking your vital data. I would be in deep trouble, should I loose my todo-data. This has happened to some users! So beware! Daily builds and upgrades is part of the iphone omnifocus experience.
It's rather slow! When opening, it loads everything, and it really takes quite a long time. I tend to leave Omnifocus running when putting my iphone to sleep. This lets me start my iphone in omnifocus and capture stuff to the inbox faster. I would love a quick fast capture app, to put stuff into the inbox, without loading and syncing and whatnot. Speed is of the essence, when you want to capture something.
Mobileme syncronization is expensive. I'm not a big mobileme fan. In my view it's just a pricey bundling of services pioneered by others. It's the one product category where Apple isn't innovating. So I would love a simple way to sync my data without the mobileme webdav. Perhaps some of you out there have ideas.
All in all, it works. But it isn't the power-experience you have come to expect from the makers of OmniOutliner, OmniGraphle and OmniFocus for mac. It works. But it didn't blow me away.
- Jens Poder
A week without television completed – almost
Having returned from two weeks on Omø, a small island, I decided to do a little experiment. Living in a little house on a remote island with no media or internet, and nothing to do but to stare at the sea, it makes you all Thoreau'ish.
"I went into the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." Henry David Thoreau, Walden
Wonderful quote! The idea of a life lived deliberately is a strong and beautiful one. Countless are the hours, I have wasted in front of my television, or surfing idly on the web. And how futile such evenings have been. Mostly... reaching for the remote have become a habit for my tired mind. After a long day, I simply haven't got any mental energy left to get started on something.
But after Omø I decided to give myself a weeklong challenge:
- No television - Unless it's recorded to skip commercials and positively interesting.
- No pointless surfing or RSS reading.
- Time spent on computer is only to be creative. Not on taking in inputs, only on generating outputs.
I have now completed this challenge, an it has worked really well. I can highly
recommend it!
A lot of hours got released! Every night at eight o'clock, when the kid was fast asleep, there was a whole evening to get something interesting done. I have been Running. Discoursing. Writing. Sorting. Uncluttering. Every single evening I got something done, that made me feel content with myself.
Lesson Learned: Prepare to relax! When your fingers are itching for the remote, you have to have something else to do. This have made me add an extra context to my GTD system "Home - Play". On this list I put things that I find thoroughly enjoyable, that I can do in the evening. Get something prepared.
Enjoy the sound of silence: It is easier to relax, when the television isn't churning in your ears all night. Your mind will enjoy this breathing space after a day of working and parenting. You'll perhaps even daydream and stare out the window!
Go to bed earlier: This is my final benefit from the week. I got to bed earlier. There was no latenight comedy to keep me up past midnight. No feeling of unfullfillment to keep me haunting around the internet for something new and interesting.
So I'll keep up my life without television next week as well. Have any of you ever tried such an information diet? How did it work out for you?
- Jens Poder
Start saving for an Iphone – OmniFocus is coming to Iphone
At last I have found a reason to start saving up for an Iphone! , my favourite todo-manager for mac, is building on a version for the Jesusphone! They said so themselves in the latest upgrade version document.
As some of you know, I frequently use stuff I have an irrational craving for as rewards in complicated weekly review reward-schemes. Read about my quest for a semi-pro coffee-grinder if you want to know how I do it.
Since I switched jobs my review routines have been falling apart. So it's time for another round of "buy yourself something remarkable in exchange for good GTD behaviour!"
So something remarkable has to be:
- Expensive
- Something I have an irrational desire to get
- Something I wouldn't buy otherwise
I dare you to come up with something that suits this description better than an Iphone!
The Iphone version of OmniFocus will be released in june. So soon. I better be a good weekly reviewer.
- Jens Poder
A great notebook for the Road
For capturing thoughts on the run, I use a Moleskine pocketsize and a pocket lead pencil graciously sponsored by IKEA :) This is quite practical, as it lets my collect all my thoughts on the run. I used to use my cellphone as a dictaphone. This was really mobile, but I had a tendency to forget them, because processing these voice messages were rather slow.
Andrew Mason from the Did I get thing done blog, have refined this Moleskine setup using the ultraportable Moleskine Cahier and a Golf Pencil!
Check out his article right here.
- Jens Poder
Tags: moleskine, GTD, capturing
Omnifocus – My new GTD TODO-manager for MAC
One of my recent post was about the great todo-manager for Windows, Tudumo. But since then, I have changed platform. I am now writing on a MAC. Unfortunately Tudumo was Windows-only. So I had quite a challenge on my hands. How should I handle my Getting Things Done routine on a MAC?
Well I did some research and narrowed it down to a shortlist of two apps:
- OmniFocus made by Omni group with Merlin Mann from 43folders
on the team - Taskpaper a wonderful tiny app, really cleverly made by Hog Bay Software
These were the only ones that integrated well with my GTD system. And very important, they looked nice :)
Taskpaper is the micro app with a really wonderful and innovative design, but lacking in features. Mainly it lacked a good "fast capture".
OmniFocus is the complete all in one package, but slightly bloated, and cursed with a rather non-intuitive keyboard-layout.
In the end I chose OmniFocus because I lacked a couple of critical features in the Taskpaper, but I would really recommend checking it out.
So here's how I use Omnifocus for GTD.
Omnifocus for GTD
OmniFocus has a couple of really great features for GTD'ers. Unfortunately the richness of features offered are a little overwhelming, especially in the beginning. It really could use some streamlining.
But lets run through the basic GTD phases.
Capturing Stuff
One of the main reasons that I ended up using OmniFocus is the nice capture function in Omnifocus.
Just hit CTRL-ALT-SPACE and Omnifocus will launch the capture window.
The great thing about the capture-tool in Omnifocus, is that it gives you the option to add project and context info right away, and as you start to type, Omnifocus will start to guess what context or project you're looking for. If you're not certain where to put it, you just wait, and it'll just end in your Inbox.
Capture with Omnifocus is fast. Hit hotkeys. Type. Choose project and content. Enter. Done!
Planning your Projects
The main concept in Omnifocus is the way you switch between planning and viewing actions. The designers of Omnifocus have come up with the idea to separate these different phases in GTD.
So while most applications require you to plan actions and chose actions to execute in the same view, Omnifocus offers a special view for each of these phases in the GTD proces.
So when you plan your projects and next actions you do it in "Planning Mode" (APPLE-1)
Here you can add new projects. Your projects are the containers for your actions.
When you begin to plan your project, you can list up all the steps you need to complete to finish it, and define the contexts (@home, @phone etc) in which these actions will be done.
When you switch out of "planning mode" to "context mode" (APPLE-2) you will see your list of next actions. Here you'll only see "available" actions. So Omnifocus will only list the first action from your project. When you tick this off as done, Omnifocus will grab the next one from the list. This is really clever!
If you want a project, where all actions can be done as soon as you feel like it, you can change the project-type to "parallel" or a "single action bucket". Then Omnifocus will put all the actions on the Next Actions List.
Advandced Planning with the inspector
The type of a project can be set by clicking on an icon on the project header.
But I'll recommend that you get into the habit of using the inspector. This is summoned with APPLE-SHIFT-I.
The inspector is context-sensitive. So if you have activated a project it'll let you
- Change the type of project.
- Put a project on hold for later or mark is a completed.
- Set a default context for a project (very convenient).
If you have activated and action, the inspector let's you modify basic stuff like the context and project of an action. But it also lets you set a start date and a due date for the action. This is really cool for deferring actions.
When you set the start date of project to someday in the future, this is the day the action will become available on your Next Action list. I use this all the time.
The hidden SWITCH button
Switching between planning and context mode will often be something you want to do when you're handling a planned action. Perhaps you're skimming your contexts on your next actions list and come across and action for a project, that isn't the actual NEXT action.
So you want to get into the project in "planning mode" for the action, and replan a little by inserting the actual next actions into the project.
Omnifocus have a great little hidden tool for this. If you choose customize toolbar (view > customize toolbar) you'll find the SWITCH button. Drag this unto your toolbar.
Now when you find action, where you need to replan something, you just hit switch to take you from project to context and the other way around. It's really neat.
Processing
So, processing in Omnifocus is really easy. You'll be able to assign actions to projects and contexts really easy thanks to the autocompleting input fields.
Adding new projects in planning mode, and having quite a lot them won't mess up your system, because you get to skim next actions only when looking at the context list.
If you don't put a context on an action it'll just sit there in your project list. This is a handy way to handle someday/maybe items. I put these in a couple of someday/maybe projects, without assigning contexts.
There's a special type of contexts called "waiting" if you need to keep yourself reminders of delegated tasks.
And you can defer actions to a specific time in the future by adding start dates.
Everything you need to handle a GTD system is available, when you get to know Omnifocus.
A bit to complicated
And this is perhaps my primary concern with Omnifocus. It is a quite complicated application.
It offers a lot of pretty complicated tools, that just clutters the app, and overshadows the main tools of Omnifocus.
You can for instance design your own views, called perspectives. This is really quite over the top, and it seems more like a bad compromise caused by lack of focus on offering users a few really welldesigned filters/views.
Keyboard shortcuts is another headache. I have used apps like Tudumo and Taskpaper, where an intuitive keyboard layout lets you do everything efficiently.
In Omnifocus I find myself reaching for the mouse all the time.
The keyboard shortcuts are poorly chosen. Core functions like adding actions and projects are difficult hard to remember three-finger shortcuts. I constantly confuse adding projects (SHIFT-APPLE-N) and adding actions (CTRL-APPLE-N).
I miss a stringent concept for the user-experience when using Omnifocus. When I use an app like Omnifocus I want to feel efficient and competent.
If Omnifocus wants to be the primary MAC application for todo-lists, and charge a hefty 80$ for a license, then they need to apply som focus to this. The user-experience is simply under to much pressure from an avalanche of features.
A system you can Trust
But even though Omnifocus is haunted by these interface problems, I will recommend it to anyone using GTD.
The basic design that splits planning and context mode in two separate work areas is a really powerful concept.
It lets you get all your stuff of your mind into projects in planning, but it only serves you the relevant next actions on your todo lists.
When you put something in there, you can rest assured, that it will pop up on your context list at the right time sometime in the future. And that's really cool. It actually helps you reach a state of "Mind like Water"
You can check it out yourself by downloading it with a 14-day trial from Omni Group.
- Jens Poder
Links:
A great comparison of paper organizers
People who know me well would perhaps call me slightly eccentric, when it comes to my enthusiasm for fountain pens, paper stationary and paper organizers. But those of you who like the feeling of writing with a nice pen in a Moleskine notebook, you should definetely read this article.
It's a great comparison of all the paper based planner systems on the blog How to be an Original.
I’ve been using technological solutions for my calendering and for managing my To Do’s (or Next Actions) for a long time now. The last paper planner I owned and used is pre-2000. My last solution was a PDA I used for planning, contacts and for my Getting Things Done system.But the PDA was stolen recently. Time for a brand new start, and I’m switching back to paper. I know, I couldn’t believe it myself either, but it’s true.
Paper planners are great for Getting Things Done, because of better speed when you want to capture stuff, and when you want to skim your next action lists.
I own a Levenger Circa i A5 size, that I carry around all the time. This was quite an investment at the time I bought. A great system.
But now after reading Lowdevijks reviews, I must admit I feel an urge to get this one: The X47 A6 Timer. It's sooo expensive! Perhaps a new goal in my Weekly Review Reward Programme.
- Jens Poder