Meet Joe. He’s an expert but frustrated carpenter that juggles all sorts o’ projects at a time. He also uses a Mac when he’s not making things with his hands.
He would love to use OmniFocus to manage his carpentry projects. But he hasn’t so far because he just can not figure out how to sync OmniFocus with his tool belt.
Joe: a swell guy, but pretty stupid.
Windows as a context, not an OS
Substitute Windows for tool belt and knowledge worker for carpenter, and that’s where lots of you are today. I’m sure you’re sharper than Joe, but you want essentially the same thing he does. You love OmniFocus; you use OmniFocus; and you want OmniFocus to sync with all of your (non-Apple) tools.
Well, guess what. That grass you see over there? Not nearly as green as it looks.
As an actuary, I can’t get paid without working in Windows. Until someone writes software for OS X that lets me model massive insurance asset and liability portfolios under thousands of future scenarios, I won’t be in an all-Mac shop anytime soon.
And in all honesty and practicality, that’s okay with me. I have a choice. I can join my other not-all-Mac peers and get all pissy that I have to spend part of my day in Windows, or I can be happily realistic: I love my career (I’m not alone), and Windows is simply a tool I need to do my job. A single tool in my belt. Nothing more.
More accurately, Windows is just a context. It’s a place to to get certain things done.
To the future, briefly
Before you know it, you’re going to be absolutely enveloped in operating systems. Android—I’m certain—is going to be in every thing with an electronic pulse. It’ll be in your car’s dashboard, your home security system, your sprinkler, your [other un-obvious things you haven’t thought of yet].
And Windows. Oh, Windows. Like vaccination needles, fax machines, and other lingering unpleasantries in modern life, Windows isn’t going away any time soon either, but it will become much more niche than it is today. Much.
Even though most of the corporate world doesn’t yet know we’re in the “post-PC” era, it will soon enough.
I’m seeing more and more iPhones in the C-suite; iPads in boardrooms; MacBook Airs on podiums. Lightweight, stable, long battery life, and instant-on is kinda practical, for business even. Who’d a thought?
People, like me, that run proprietary software systems on Windows will increasingly do so through windows—to the cloud that is. I’m convinced that Windows will ultimately retreat from local desktops to data centers where it will be fed and watered by full-time staff.
People who work in Windows will use the window glass of their choosing—most likely tablets and other lightweight devices.
Back to practicality: When does the need to sync end and the work begin?
The fact that I’m already hopping from cloud to cloud as I work in Windows makes me wonder what value installing OmniFocus in Windows would have anyway. On a given day, I might be looking at virtual Windows Server desktops in Chicago, Toronto, LA, Alabama, South Carolina, and other cyber parts unknown.
If there was a Windows version of OmniFocus, where would I install it? Everywhere?
I hope not. Otherwise, I’d be a professional OmniFocus installer—minus the “professional” because that probably doesn’t pay a lot.
Windows isn’t the only non-Apple proprietary computer system I work with either. From decades-old homegrown admin systems to Linux, I touch lots of OSes over the course of a year.
I’m not that unique either. (Well, not in this context.) Ask anyone in the movie industry about the systems in their digital workflow—or ask anyone that creates anything from proprietary electronic tools.
Should your productivity system be inextricably embedded and synced with every tool you use in your life? No. Of course not. It’s impractical and completely unnecessary.
The ultimate PC peripheral
This year, I started using OmniFocus on my iPad to conquer the final frontier in my productive life: The fantastically complicated actuarial PC-based projects I balance. Between you and me, I didn’t think it would work.
Before the iPad arrived in my workflow, I was managing projects using a combination of spreadsheets and mind maps—some of which looked like billion-year-old phylogenic trees.
I’m happy to say that the iPad is working. As usual, not in the way I initially envisioned. But in a value-adding fashion nonetheless.
I really believe that the more of your projects you can manage in a central system, the easier it is to manage and review the priority you place on everything. It never felt quite right having PC-based projects managed separately.
The iPad adds another screen, not another computer
The iPad is the ultimate un-computer. It doesn’t create the perception of having another machine to maintain and fiddle with. When I use OmniFocus on the iPad in a PC setting, it exists solely to guide my productivity.
The iPad isn’t location-dependent either. It can go to a meeting just as easily as it can sit next to a desktop PC. The physical portability of the iPad combined with the very reliable Omni Sync Server make OmniFocus for iPad the most agile electronic productivity tool I’ve ever used.
Before the iPad arrived, I dedicated one of my two PC screens to Freemind, a mind mapping application. Now, I’m able to free up more PC screen real estate for work. Instead of having a mind map on one monitor and “work” on the other, I can have two spreadsheets open side by side—or maybe a spreadsheet on one screen with Remote Desktop on the other.
OmniFocus lets me utilize PCs for what they’re good for, not spread their use across work and task management. And OmniFocus lets me use mind maps for what they’re good for: brainstorming and organizing thoughts before and during projects.
Email marginalization
Rather than flagging action-oriented emails in Outlook, I prefer to archive them using a Gmail-like system that’s far beyond the scope of this post. If it’s an action-oriented email, I’ll tap over to OmniFocus to simultaneously make a simple task and jot something like “see 4/15 email” in the task notes. Sometimes I even make tasks to read longer emails.
Tip: If you record the sender and date of an email, you should be able to find it in seconds—even if you’re using Outlook1.
Honestly, I don’t see a huge need to electronically link email to tasks like you can when you’re in OS X. “Text to mind” links are pretty darn efficient and don’t require any snazzy plug-ins. More generally, if you get in the habit of leaving little text bread crumbs, you’ll shave innumerable hours off of the time it takes to complete large projects.
Your brain is the ultimate cross-platform synchronization tool if you’d just use it as such.
Notes are your friend
If you’re skimming this big bag of words desperately looking for something practical, then stop here for a minute. This is good.
The note field may be the best feature of OmniFocus for iPad. Now that the Omni Group added a full screen view to the notes field, it’s even better. Each action can become a full-blown task “document.”
Since there’s currently no way to paste a list of actions directly into OmniFocus on the iPad and have them become tasks, I often use the note field to create sub-tasks if I’m in a hurry. This is actually really powerful.
Say you already have a list of actions on your PC, or say you’d rather type them with a keyboard. Do it. Get it down.
Then, use an app like Simplenote or myPhoneDesktop to transfer the text to your iPad. myPhoneDesktop—an app that lets you instantly push text to your iPad—is my favorite method. I use it like crazy with OmniFocus to clip notes from email and other things.
myPhoneDesktop essentially “extends” a PC (or any computer) to your iPad making it dead easy to quickly hammer out mini projects on my PC that look like this:
[x] Task 1
[w] Task 2
[] Task 2a
[] Task 2b
[] Task 3
Tip for Omni lovers: You can also build a bracketed list like this using OmniOutliner for iPad and then email the outline to yourself as text. Copy the outline into the notes field of OmniFocus for iPad.
An ‘x’ marks a “done” task, and ‘w’ denotes things I’ve started, or things I’m waiting on.
I know what you’re thinking. Just simmer down. I realize that this makes OmniFocus “actions” more like “projects.” Remember this though: You’re using OmniFocus to get things done. Whatever it takes to do that is fair game.2
Get faster
The more you use OmniFocus on the iPad, the more I recommend getting handy with shortcuts like these:
- Touch and hold individual actions to bring up a cut/copy/paste menu.
- Quickly duplicate individual actions by copying and pasting them on top of each other.
- Touch and hold projects to focus them, add actions, or to paste copied actions.
- Tap Edit then drag actions, projects, or contexts to re-order them.
- If a project will pertain primarily to one context, assign that context to the project. This way, the context field for individual actions will be pre-filled
- To quickly move actions under existing actions, tap Edit, then drag them under an action that already has some sub-items.
- To quickly go from a context or perspective view to project view, tap an action to go to editor mode, then tap ‘Go to project’ next to the project field. Same approach for contexts.
IF(Feels Right, Do it, Don’t)
Not everything needs to go into OmniFocus. [Pausing until the murmurs die down and all swords are sheathed]
If a project can be managed better in a spreadsheet, mind map, wiki, or (God forbid) Microsoft Project, keep it there.
There are clearly situations where it makes sense to manage projects outside of OmniFocus. For example, collaborative projects where actions need to be kept in the open.
You can still use OmniFocus as a guide for these projects. What I do is create high-level “placeholder” tasks like “Working on X”, and I have an ‘IP’ context (in progress) that I use for “actions” that really aren’t single actions, but rather ongoing mini-projects. I like seeing the IPs separately in various perspectives.
The main goal is to keep all projects in view but minimize the need to rewrite projects in OmniFocus.
The right tool for the right goal
Until someone writes Mac software that lets me do 100 percent of my job on a Mac, I’ll be working on PCs at least part of the time. Until someone writes a better overall operating system, I’ll use a Mac for everything else. Until someone makes a better tablet, I’ll use an iPad. And until someone creates a better task management program, I’ll be using OmniFocus.
Whatever the context of your productivity, pick the right tools to meet your goals; don’t choose goals to fit your tools.
- I’ve been amazed at how much of my attention I’ve reclaimed by hiding email until I need it and “batching” email-oriented tasks with all my other tasks. There’s really no reason email should automatically get priority over anything else you’re actively working on. ↩
- Another approach I’ve used is to paste a text list of actions in the notes field of the project, then cut/paste those into standalone actions as time (and importance) allows. ↩
{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
As an enrolled agent (tax return preparer), I live what you are saying. I have to use Windows for my tax software programs but everything else is on the MacBook and iPad. It also makes me more efficient since I don’t have Twitter or Facebook on the PC and the only mail account is the business mail there is less distraction. The iPad, Dropbox and Evernote serve as the go between for my Mac and PC
Great post. Immediately installed myPhoneDesktop. Looking forward to adopting this workflow
Great post Eddie. Looks like you’ve altered my workflow for the better once again.
Great post Eddie. I love the shift in mindset by thinking of Windows as a context. I face this problem daily (I’m a CPA and I live in a Windows world). I’ve even devised a work around hack between OmniFocus iPad, Outlook and Backpack (the 37Signals product). I wrote about it on my blog and gave up on it because it was too complicated. My workflow is different now. Because my iPad email is hooked into Exchange, I get work email on my iPad. I switch over to iPad mail, copy the text, paste into the OmniFocus notes – this saves time from using an intermediary like SimpleNote (which I’ve tried too).
+1 for myPhoneDesktop. I am floored by how fast it works. Finally, a way to make the clipboard on my work PC talk to my iPod touch. Thanks for the tip!
Also worth noting that the latest update to myPhoneDesktop has an alt-T command that automatically opens and fills a new to-do in Omnifocus on the ipad/phone. Use it constantly now. Not great for multiple items, projects, or due dates, but I can keep my iPad upright, next to my monitor, and only have to tap to get things into projects or due dates — the hassle of typing the task name (and switching to omnifocus itself) is already taken care of.
Thank you for this post. I’ve lived in the PC world my whole career, and have felt like I have no other options (my Corporate platform is a HEAVILY controlled PC environment). Thus, I’ve never strayed far from the PC world when computing in the personal world (remember the old rule to never have a personal PC that is more powerful than your work PC? Yeah, right.).
I’m ready to break free from Windows in my personal computing world, and this email gives me hope that the switch will not be an “all or nothing” switch, but more of an expansion of my platforms and context for computing.
Thank you for this!
Corporate PC user here too: great tips. I just use Logmein to connect to my Mac at home which only has OmniFocus open. I’m always online when at the desk. If not, I use OmniFocus on my iPhone.
Thanks loads for this post: very useful!
I’d like to see:
- The ability to use the keyboard and mouse that I’m using to work primarily on the pc and Outlook to work with manipulating items in Omnifocus. If I have my mail on an iPad I don’t yet know if my Outlook flagged emails come up on that and I’d like to see both these and any items directly added to Omnifocus in one view in Omnifocus, that way the estimate effort is more meaningful for a week long view. I guess a plugin is the only route for this but I’m new to this app and doing due diligence before committing to a workflow.
- A total figure for hours for any Context, Project etc displayed in the heading for that category or combined categories view e.g. a view showing items due this week for the office would show a total for office, and each category below it.
- Shared management. As a team lead, being able to receive inputs on how a week panned out to amend each team members task list, and receive their expectations of task for the following week, would be great.
Thanks for any assistance with these!
If a GTD software like Things was available for Windows would you be using it ?
This is great article! Love the way you treat your iPad, to that level that I am going to give it a try.
Personally I always treated iPad as a distraction device, not a productivity tool. That being my single point of organization and a guide seems right on all levels.
Will let you know my future thoughts when I try it out more thoroughly.
OT: As an actuary, you’ll enjoy a joke told by my friend Ray Lucia at a recent seminar on financial planning. He opened by saying that his grandfather was a Sicilian actuary (Ray is Sicilian, and Sicilians still have a sense of humor that defies political correctness).
Anyway, Ray asked for a show of hands for who knew what an actuary was. “That’s right,” said Ray, “An actuary is someone who has all kinds of statistical tools to figure out how many people will die in a given year.”
“A Sicilian actuary,” he continued, “goes the extra mile and gives you their names.”
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