The Omni Group

The comment above is exactly what I was about to write.  I'd reiterate the 2 key points for me: the system has to be 100% trustworthy, and it “has to be every where, all the time”. 

Perhaps a feature to sync all my data with .Mac, and an Omni subscription web site to view / add items through a browser (from my iPhone!), with changes all syncing up later?

I have tried to take away the most salient components of GTD, and implement them, without sweating the details. The trap with GTD is that it is easy to end up spending a lot of energy managing your system, rather than doing things. So, I cooked up a VoodooPad script that searches the entire document for lines containing context words (i.e. those prepended with “@”), and compiling them onto one page, sorted by context. Thus, next actions and contexts are readily available, and can be updated with a single keystroke as tasks are added or completed. No more fiddling with kGTD or managing an enormous Entourage implementation. So far, so good.

Do it, delegate it, defer it or discard it is the core of GTD. The “it” is the next action, which could be a part of a chain of actions in one or more projects, a one-off and could be something that can be done at work, at home or while commuting (varying contexts).

The challenge is deciding how granular to make it: too broad (end world hunger) is an obvious problem but too narrow (answer email from Jason) can also get you bogged down. The atom of the it must be definite enough to be measurable and important enough to be worth tracking. That is going to vary a lot depending on what your job is.

What OmniFocus must navigate between are the perils of trying to be the universal problem interface on the one hand and being message-centric on the other.

As stated above, the trap of GTD is that the system become either more attractive or harder to maintain than the actual work of getting things done.

Right now while I use kGTD -> iCal -> Missing Sync -> Treo (and back) for my GTD work, I find the system not completely reliable. Somethings things don't sync back well (Missing Sync) or get captured well (kGTD) but for the most part it allows me to GTD in front of my computer or anywhere I have my Treo (everywhere) which is nice.

If there were three things that I would do to fix it or want in OmniFocus..

1) System flexibility. Right now when you change a context or add a project, it feels difficult. The next action sorting, where things are put by Quicksilver, the syncing from Treo to-dos, all work but not with a fluid motion.

2) Different views. The one big OO project view list is ok, but the ability to focus on one project, build it out, extend it and change it is not easy. Context views are also good, but with smart views I hope this to be better and easier to sort down.

3) Stats. I am a stats guy. I like my stats big and strong and lots of them. Give my OmniFocus stats like how many projects do I have, how many tasks? How many actions completed yesterday, last week, last month, last year? How long have my projects been open? Which is the oldest?

I have great hope for OmniFocus just not in 1.0 but in 2.0 and beyond.

BZ

Great, now I've got Blues Clues running through my head! Thanks!

I have five children. I understand distraction, really I do.

... then you put it in your notebook…

I'm using Kinkless right now, and I'm eagerly awaiting the OmniFocus beta. Before Kinkless, I spent a few months with LifeBalance. While ultimately it wasn't for me, I really appreciated its wholistic approach. With LifeBalance you can obtain the sort of info BZ is looking for, but in a very visual dashboard fashion. Context is very important to me, and I like being able to go back and review how long it has taken me to do things in the past.

That said, I know it will be tricky to balance the need for simplicity and the competing feature demands offered by your customers. A small feature set that emphasizes speed and flexibility would impress me. GTD is such a personal thing. If OmniFocus is clean, easy to grok, and highly scriptable, I could see a dedicated community building around OmniFocus, allowing all different sorts of users the opportunity to tweak the app to suit their particular GTD needs.

So, if I read this correctly, this GTD philosophy, when applied via OmniFocus, will help me be productive, use new (if not unpopular) buzzwords, lose weight and break my lard addiction? Does it come in blue?

I'm currently using Remember The Milk and Hipster's PDA. Nothing to write home about yet, as I'm only starting that struggle :) But it seems to work. RTM is pretty flexible, and it's rather nice I can use it from my computer and that of my girlfriend.

That leaves me tied to the net and to the specific server though, not to mention the clumsiness of any web-interface. So I'd most probabely enjoy a good app. I might even convert from PC to Mac by the time Omni Group gets it out ::)

I was thinking more about my implementation and what has been helping me lately.  I'm also intrigued by OmniFocus and it's possible future success.  I have to admit that I hope that the excitement/hype surrounding the product doesn't leave the majority of us (who are hoping for the holy graal) a bit disappointed.  Dealing with this aspect may be one of Omni's biggest issues with adoption of the program (even if it is quite excellent- just not über-excellent).

I'll mention a number of items that I think are important to me- at least enough to mention them in a comment. ;)

1) The ability to take the system lo-fi.  Printing views seamlessly into 3x5 or 4x6 etc., is something that many of us may value. (hipster etc.)  Right now I print out kGTD into 3x5 prints (doesn't work perfectly- grr)...

2) The ability to handle related sub-projects and “waiting for's” with grace.  Finish step 3 of said project, step 4 should highlight and become a true next-action (instead of just an action within that project).  In Allen's GTD system, anything with more than 1 step is a project.  So, the ability to be savvy and work with multi-stepped multi-children projects seems to me to be something that most programs have been unsuccessful at.  This is the tie-in point with OmniPlan.  I'm thinking a mini version of OmniPlan (cuthtroat) for multi-step projects. IN fact, if done properly, a user of OmniFocus could likely “own” a task in a larger project, or perhaps a sub-tree in a larger omniplan project.  An example- I'm giving my Preliminary defense in the near future… I have a zillion sub-projects, and those are often multi-tierd as well.  It would be awfully nice if upon completion of a parent, the next step jumps to the next-action lists (just as I'd do manually).  Of course many projects have multiple actions that are *all* next actions… don't require a single next-action for a single project- that's insane speak.

3) Ability to track time on projects… while I'm not a consultant, I'm starting to use PCEO (David Seah's) pdf's for time-tracking of critical projects.  I use Merlin's 10+2x5 (altered) hack to ensure I'm productive, and catalog my time.  It would be wonderful if I could track this type of thing with the ability to graph output for a week view etc… so, I could take a list of my projects, graph hours -v- weekdays and see which projects are being ignored, or what days of my week are not productive etc.  ;)

(3) is a bit of icing that can be done with data accumulated… of course it would require user input etc., or a special link to time-tracking software (probably over kill).  But, the ability to put in days and hours spent?  Might prove useful for consultants as well as procrastination-hack-philes.

I wish Omni the best of luck with Focus.  It's my hope that they'll produce a program that everyone will rave about! :)

Cheers!

The really crucial thing for me is a high degree of integration with email.

Ideally, I would like OmniFocus to either be integrated with Mailtags, or have similar functionality. 

I should be able to read my email and then forward the next action to Omnifocus with a link to the email.  I tend to have a lot of next actions that say—read attachment in email from XX,  and having a link to recall the email in one click works really well with mailtags.  However, mailtags alone does not work as a total GTD package for me.

I am sort of using kGTD but the lack of stability and the difficulty of integrating with email has meant I am drifting away from it.

I also hope that there will be robust connectivity with OmniPlan so that I can use both to link long term planning with near term action.

Thanks

I use KGTD regularly, but I've modified it in several ways that I hope will be possible (or directly supported) in OmniFocus.

First of all (and this *is* part of KGTD planning), I want to be able to specify a duration for tasks, and sort by it.  So when I'm trying to decide *which* Next Action, I can see which ones I have time to do.

Secondly, I want to be able to sort Next Actions.  My script for that in KGTD sorts first those things thare overdue (by date due and priority), then stuff for right now, then stuff that is supposed to have started, then stuff that doesn't need to be done yet.

The third script I have, it sounds like OmniFocus will have as well—which is the ability to launch a todo from anywhere, and chose the context and project from a pick list.

Finally I have a script for syncing with MailTags (unfortunately broken with the latest beta) that lets me assign a project and context to a mail message using MailTags, and have the information make it through in the iCal -> KGTD sync (and back again).

The best success I ever had was with a paper planner from Another Time Management Course (not GTD).  Aside from ubiquity, the greatest feature was the idea of tracking your larger goals, and blocking out chunks of time in your day for those goals.  So instead of scheduling tasks, you were scheduling progress on a goal, and you could be flexible about how you made progress toward that goal.

That helped me not only get things done, but get the right things done.

I'd really like a program that would let me click through an appointment set to a goal and navigate me to the task list for that goal.  Consider that a feature request!

Lots of useful comments here.

As you point out in your original post, ease of getting data into the system is a big one.

If, down the track, there was some kind of analysis ans sorting as per Stikkit that would be cool (I don't know how much time I spend copying and pasting into iCal todos and appointments). But to begin with it just needs to be dead simple to get stuff into the system.

Syncing is important for that reason - I use a SonyEricsson k750i and will probably get an iPhone next year when it shows up in AsiaPac. I use my phone to refer to my calendar, though it is rare for me to generate a new appointment when I'm not at my computer. However, I often generate new tasks when I am away from my computer (on the bus - “Must remember to”) and putting it into the tasks area of my phone is a good way to ensure it ends up in iCal. I almost never don't have my phone with me.

Ditto for the issues with kGTD on subprojects. If the interface for OmniFocus is as good as I expect, I hope to be able to draft a few actions for a new project within OmniFocus, but I might then think about importing into Omniplan where I have to do gantt charts etc. for clients.

Good luck and thanks for keeping us in the loop!

I like the guides Midnight Inbox gives me while organizing. The Collect-> Organize->Work Approach seems to help bringing a little bit order into the mess.

I like the Quicksilver Integration of kGTD. I have to be able to enter new thoughts or stuff in the simplest way possible. AS you said OmniFocus will have that feature too.

Synchronization will be great. For me a simple sync of the actionscontext lists to my iPod would be great. Just to have a look what's next when I'm outside. Typically I forget to look at my “errands” context before leaving the computer. So having it synced to the iPod would great.

What about input of thoughts when I'm out of office? Taking the laptop with me? No. But I almost always have a email capable phone with me. So what about scanning an eMail Inbox for specific mails? I would like to send myself an eMail with a specific format and OmniFocus is scanning my Inbox for that mails and fetch thing. That would be definitly a killer feature.

Trustworthyness includes Backup. OmniFocus needs a good backup concept. I mean to one big binary file. Some kind of basic human readable files would be great. So if all goes wrong and i only have a shell then I want be able to read my data or export it to a different program.

That are my thoughts and I'm eager to get a Beta in my hands.

Can you PLEASE, give us a rough date for the beta, and for the final release?

I follow the GTD system very close in my daily work and i find KGTD a great tool for doing that. The key ingredient KGTD has for me beside GTD implementation, it is the fact that is based on omnioutliner and i can easily add new columns for useful data, like the hours spent in a task.  I organise my work projects in this way and i have new hopes in omnifocus

I take a little blue pill, and married a super-organized person.  Now I can remember that I have a great organizational program on my new macbook, but fortunately I don't have to learn how to use it…..

Eh, I just throw everything up in the air and run away as fast as I can. I'm considering a career in the circus. Then I won't have to be productive – everybody will just pay me for my ridiculously good looks and naturally green hair and red nose.

Actually, I must say my life “being productive” was slightly easier when my PowerBook wasn't out of commission, like it has for the past two months. I used kGTD a *lot* more, then, in conjunction with a Weekly Moleskine Planner and index cards (which very conveniently fit nicely right in the Moleskine).

Now I'm leaning heavy on the Moleskine and index cards. And while I usually always have my PowerBook with me (granted, when it's working), I'm really starting to think I'll rely from here on out on either my current paper-based system or wait to see what goodies the iPhone has. I'm planning on it now being pretty much only handheld (i.e. something that fits in my pocket; and not quite a 17” PowerBook at that… I don't want people asking anymore, “Is that a 17” in your pants?”) all the way.

I recently attempted to replace my txt “scratch” file that I use for random thoughts/general inbox with Stikkits, and while it was easy to upload thoughts and such (presuming I was near an internet connection and a computer), I really got in the habit of never again thinking about them. Stikkits was sort of the Land of No Return, and since there's no mechanism yet (a widget maybe?) that keeps those stickit notes in front of me, I don't think it's a reliable system for me.

So now I'm just waiting…

Leopard has some nifty stuff coming up of course, but based on what we know (system-wide to-dos, feeding into iCal), I really don't know if that'll do it completely for me. (And iCal lacks contexts and projects. That really sucks.)

Hopefully OmniFocus will be able to replace kGTD when it comes out (and system-wide integration! woo hoo!), and it'd be just sheer coolness if you guys were able to create a full-featured iPhone counterpart version. That would really be one well-contained system.

I think then I'd be happy. Oh, and with a cookie. I'd want a cookie too, then I'd be really happy.

Also, the ability to give tasks priorities is something I liked about one of the apps I tried out (I don't even remember which one it was). I'm not sure if it's completely in line with GTD, but since I always have dozens of tasks to do at a time, that'd be a nice way to add some more structure.