![]() Realizing that in practice I didn’t actually view my tasks by “Work” and “Personal” contexts very often, even though I had organized them that way, I decided to try a simpler approach, consisting of only two contexts, the purpose of which is to answer the question, “Is this something I will do, or something I might do?”: I tried several other approaches as well and the result was always the same-either through over-complexity or incompatibility with my three objectives, OmniFocus wasn’t effectively helping me to get things done. ![]() I also tried creating an on-hold context called “Someday/Maybe” as a child context within each of my “Personal” and “Work” contexts, but eventually came to realize even that resulted in too much confusion and complexity in both initial context assignment, and when needing to change a given task-or group of tasks-from things I might do to things I will do. But as you can imagine, that became unwieldy and maintenance-heavy once the number of real projects grew to any sizable amount. So I tried to address that problem by creating on-hold “Someday/Maybe” child projects within each of my real active projects. The problem with that approach was that that single project contained tasks relevant to a variety of other “real” projects, which made it difficult to achieve my second objective-allowing me to see what I might want to do-within the context of a particular project. using an on-hold project called, “Someday/Maybe”. In the past, I tried to contextualize my tasks into “Work” and “Personal”, and then separate what I will and might do through the activity setting available to projects, e.g. If that date is in the future, then the task will only appear in the “Remaining” perspective filter, and not when filtered on “Available”. A “Defer” date can be assigned to a task.A Context’s status can also be set to “Active” or “On Hold”, with the same affect on visibility in perspective filters.A Project’s status can be set to “Active”, in which case its tasks will be visible in both “Available” and “Remaining” perspective filters, or “On Hold”, in which case its tasks will only be visible when filtered on “Remaining”.(Perspectives can also filter on due dates but due dates aren’t really relevant to whether a task will or might get done, as usually a task with a due date is something that will get done.) Perspectives, OmniFocus’s configurable task views, determine task visibility primarily through the “Availability” settings-“Available” or “Remaining”.To achieve those objectives, here are the tools provided by OmniFocus which affect the visibility of tasks. Ensures that I’m periodically reminded of the things I might want to do.Allows me at any time to see the things I might want to do, and within the context of a particular project.Shows me what I will do, without cluttering that view with things I might do.The challenge then has been identifying a GTD approach that: Of course there are other dimensions in which you could classify those tasks, but over time, I’ve discovered that the effective separation of these two has the most impact, for me, in making GTD actually work. ![]() Since the objective of capture is keeping your head clear, the process results in my inbox containing two types of tasks-those I will do, and those I might do. I’ve experimented with all of these, and ultimately they all fell short. Some people contextualize their tasks around physical energy levels (high, low), some around where tasks can be done (home, office, computer, on the phone) and some around task nature (work, personal, errands). A second principle of GTD is the separation of tasks by context, and it is here where much of the discussion regarding various approaches to GTD is (rightfully) focused. This principle applies equally to everyone. ![]() getting things out of your head and into a place you can rely on to keep them safe while they wait for later processing. The first principle of GTD is capture-i.e. The solution I settled on is described in this post. Until recently, I’ve struggled with identifying an ideal approach to using OmniFocus for task management. OmniFocus is highly configurable, allowing the user to tailor it to their own particular approach to GTD (Getting Things Done). With versions available for both iOS and OS X, OmniFocus is the most powerful task management system intended for individuals on the Apple platform.
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