omnifocus

OmniFocus 2 for iPhone adds TextExpander support

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It’s a small thing – well, probably a big job for The Omni Group to implement, I don’t know – but there is a strong chance you just squealed. I know I did.

TextExpander lets you type a short code like a couple of letters and have sentences, paragraphs or more complex text appear magically. It is great for things you repeatedly but actually it’s only really great on Macs: it works everywhere on Mac, everywhere, it’s perfect and I think mandatory. On iOS, it’s only able to be great if the app you’re using directly supports it.

Now OmniFocus 2 for iPhone supports TextExpander. Fantastic.

Very many of my tasks in OmniFocus start off as email messages that I get. I’ll routinely forward them to OmniFocus to deal with later but often I don’t bother to do anything more to help me out. If the subject is the famously useful “Re: re: re: re: re:” then maybe I’ll change it to something else. But often I don’t and later I’m not sure what the task was. With TextExpander, I can have a snippet – as it’s called – where by typing something like “aaa” will expand out to “Ask Angela about” and then I can type the rest or it can be the existing email subject.

I wish OmniFocus for iPad did this too but that’s being updated so I think you can be safe in assuming that TextExpander support will be in the next release.

Here’s OmniFocus in all its forms on the official Omni Group website. And here’s TextExpander.

Someone else’s OmniFocus 2 for Mac review

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There is definitely an irony to how I keep not getting around to writing a review of OmniFocus, the software that keeps me on track with everything I have or want to do. I think it’s because the software is so important to me that I want to do it justice. Anyway, here’s a review from someone who wasn’t an existing user of the earlier version, isn’t that fussed about any To Do managers, and says up front that they came to OmniFocus as a skeptic.

Spoiler alert: they like it now.

I don’t agree with how it argues the iPhone version is too expensive, though, and they are mistaken about the iPad one:

This brings us to our one main criticism, though: Omni Group have chosen to make the iPhone (and forthcoming iPad) version of Omnifocus equal to the Mac version in virtually all respects, thus allowing mobile-centric users to buy and use just the mobile version alone if they choose. While we applaud this, it also means that Mac users who have paid $40 for the regular desktop version ($80 for the Pro version) will have to pay an additional $20 for the iPhone version, essentially just for syncing and quick-entry or editing in the case of some users. The company may want to consider also creating a more lightweight free or low-cost “companion version” for those who primarily use the Mac version and just want some basic on-the-go functions.

Hands on: Omnifocus 2 for Mac – MacNN (22 June 2014)

The iPad mistake first: there already is one and has been for some time. Their confusion is that it is on its first version and a second is currently being developed. Last September we got OmniFocus 2 for iPhone, now we have OmniFocus 2 for Mac, at some point soon we’ll have OmniFocus 2 for iPad.

It’s an interesting little dilemma for me as someone who recommends this software a lot. Rewind a beat to before the 2 versions began coming out: it was very easy to say you should buy the iPad edition. That was easily the best with a mix of OmniFocus’s powerful features and a particularly easy design. OmniFocus for iPhone was fine but you would struggle to use it without one of the other versions in your life. And OmniFocus 1 for Mac was this bionic behemoth that had more power than you’d need to crack a concrete slab but was extremely hard to use.

Now OmniFocus 2 for Mac is the easiest to use and, I think, the best version. I like the iPad one but it’s weird how old it seems compared to the new design. And where I used to always turn to my iPad when I was doing a lot of OmniFocus work like the recommended regular reviews, now I tend to save that up until I’m at my Mac.

Nonetheless, you can do everything most users would use most often usefully on the iPad version. If it weren’t that we know for certain that – and don’t know at all when – there will be an OmniFocus 2 for iPad, I would say the iPad is still the one to get when you can only get one. It’s portable, powerful and easy to use. OmniFocus 2 for iPhone is much improved on its previous version – I liked the previous version a lot, I just like this one more – but I still believe the iPhone version needs one of the others.

MacNN thinks this more strongly than I do. Its argument is that you shouldn’t have to pay so much for an iPhone OmniFocus app if you’re only going to use it to add the odd task in during the day. I’d say that’s fair enough, but there are other ways to add tasks. If you don’t have OmniFocus for iPhone, just email a task into OmniFocus. I do this a lot wherever I am because so much of my work comes through email. It’s just tap, forward, send, gone into my To Do list.

So I don’t agree that one has to use OmniFocus 2 for iPhone. But I suspect you will. I’m not certain now how I got into this but I’m pretty sure I bought the iPhone one first and tried to last with that for a while, tried to get used to it and to test it out. But caved within a day or two and bought the iPad one. Then, inexorably, I bought the Mac one.

That was all version 1 of the software and if you’re wondering, yes, I did. I bought version 2. Both OmniFocus 2 for iPhone, on the day it was released, and OmniFocus 2 for Mac, on the day it was released. Individually they are more expensive than many To Do applications and jointly they are a punch to the bank account – but only if they aren’t right for you. If they are, they are worth the cost and then some.

Wait, this is turning into my own review. I should really get on that.

Recommended: Holistic Productivity

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This is really two recommendations as this holistic productivity is just the latest edition of the very good Mac Power Users podcast. I’m not sure that this is a fair summary of the topic but the thing I took away first was that you can say productivity is how you make something happen or something be that wasn’t there before. And that this can include relaxation.

Relaxation can be a task.

It can be a job.

I need to get healthier and I need to avoid becoming as exhausted as I have lately. I no longer see those as luxuries to do later but I haven’t yet seen them as specific tasks I need to do. Work has always come first so what this idea lets me do is make relaxation be work.

Relaxation is bloody hard, so that helps.

Seriously, though, that’s just the Damascus moment I took away from this latest episode of Mac Power Users. It’s an episode chiefly interviewing Tim Stringer, a productivity kind of guy – and an OmniFocus fan so he must be alright – where he touches so briefly on this issue. And then they go into details and specifics of how he does certain jobs and what software or services he relies on.

Mac Power Users is usually a good listen and I’ve learnt a lot from it, I’ve spent a lot of money after hearing recommendations on it, but I’ve particularly enjoyed this week’s edition. Have a listen and read the show notes.

When is it over?

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There’s not going to be some great life-changing Hallmark-Card-like slice of advice here, I’m just wondering about something I have wondered about a lot.

I wonder when things are over.

There must be a day when something is done. This first popped into my noggin some years ago when I read a line somewhere about how Dar Williams‘s new album was coming out soon. (I think it was Many Great Companions, which is so good that when a friend asked what I liked about Dar Williams, I just bought her the album. It’s cheaper to write reviews, but I wanted her to have it. I want you to have it too, but I’m a little short today.)

I can’t remember when this was but I was surprised because up to then, her previous CD had been the new one. My own Doctor Who releases go through a similar thing.

Actually, Doctor Who, there’s a thing. I go through various processes writing those, there are the same types of deadlines to the same types of timescales and in theory I could say my involvement ends when I deliver the last draft. Well, you don’t know there won’t be more to do then. So call it when the scripts are in studio, that’s definitely the end for me. Well, sometimes I’m in studio and working on scenes. Okay, post production. Definitely no involvement there, so that Doctor Who is over and I’m looking for the next one.

Except there are liner notes to write for the CD. Quite often there are interviews to do.

So okay, when it goes on sale. But that’s when I start talking about it all, I suppose officially because that’s marketing and promotion, but really it’s because now I can FINALLY talk to you about it.

I don’t put “Tweet about Doctor Who” in my OmniFocus To Do list. It isn’t a task, it’s what I do for fun. So by the time we reach the tweeting stage, you can bet that my OmniFocus Doctor Who project is long completed. So that’s definitely it, that’s definitely over. I have ticked off everything I have to do, everything I have to deliver, I can mark the entire project as done.

That seems very satisfying.

And that’s why this is on my mind today. I did an event yesterday that has been some preposterous number of months in the making and this morning I’m doing my OmniFocus review, I’m getting to that project and I am about to grandly click on Done, when I don’t.

Because I’ve thought of some more tasks. Well, call them tasks because it would be bad if I didn’t do them. Just wrapping up stuff, there are so many people I want to thank for getting this done for me, for instance. That could go in the fun pile, that needn’t be a task To Do per se, except I’ll feel very bad if I forget someone in the rush. So I jotted down who it is. And okay, I know it’d be handiest for this person if I phoned and for that person if I texted, and so on.

Then there’s the money to do with the event. That truly is a task. That is several tasks in a row.

When that’s all done, then, that’s when this event is over.

Okay.

Sorted.

I just need to keep the event details around because I’ve had a lot of praise for it that might help in the pitching for the new one.

Free OmniFocus iBook

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Maybe it's because I used to write manuals for a living – you cannot conceive how long ago that was – but I do like a good manual. This is a good one: if you are havering over buying the new OmniFocus 2 for Mac, take a look at the free manual.

OmniFocus is the personal task management tool that helps you keep track of all the goals, plans, errands, and aspirations that come up in your life. Whether the task at hand is something small, such as setting a reminder to swing by the bike shop after work, or the tasks are part of a bigger goal, such as making plans for that long overdue vacation, OmniFocus helps you keep track of everything you need to do throughout your day.

Available on your Mac, iPad, and iPhone, OmniFocus is packed full of tools to help you prioritize steps within complex projects or simply jot a quick to-do list for a weekly meeting. OmniFocus works great as a standalone productivity aid or in conjunction with whatever time- and task-management scheme suits your personal style.

Excerpt From: The Omni Group. OmniFocus 2 for Mac User Manual

By the way, that last sentence is a coded reference to GTD, Getting Things Done (UK editions, US editions). OmniFocus works superbly with GTD but has no official connection with that system by David Allen.

More importantly, this smartly, clearly written manual is on iBooks and joins a growing set of free books from the Omni Group.

OmniFocus: your life in perspective

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I love that strap line. It only makes sense if you’ve already used OmniFocus enough so one questions its worth as a general advertising slogan. but to an existing OmniFocus user, it is superb. I am an existing OmniFocus user, it is superb.

I am of course now, immediately, instantly an existing user of the new version of OmniFocus for Mac and I’ll be writing about it again soon. But for now, watch the Omni Group’s videos about OmniFocus on the official set.

OmniFocus clone on Android

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androidfocusOmniFocus – have I mentioned this To Do manager recently? Like, in the last hour? – is solely available for Macs, iPhones and iPads, nothing else. But as of this weekend, there is AndroidFocus: a completely unofficial Android version.

It’s not really OmniFocus, it’s more a quick way to enter or to see OmniFocus tasks on your Android phone. It has fewer features than the real iPhone one and you it depends on your having an account with the Omni Sync Server. That’s free but you get it when you buy a real OmniFocus. So if you are, say, a Mac user with an Android phone, this could be for you. Note that the Omni Group isn’t trying to get the clone removed but it does warn:

An app named AndroidFocus recently appeared in the Google Play Store. This app calls itself “An OmniFocus client for Android”, and can connect to an Omni Sync Server account in order to sync with the OmniFocus database that is stored there. To be clear, AndroidFocus is not an Omni Group product and we are unable to assist customers with using the app.

We believe that you should have control of your own data, and OmniFocus therefore uses an open file format just like the rest of our applications. Customers need to be aware, however, that reverse-engineering sync in the way that AndroidFocus appears to have done can make for unpredictable results. That means it’s theoretically possible that using AndroidFocus will cause data loss which our Support Humans are not equipped or able to help you recover from. For this reason we can’t recommend using AndroidFocus.

Using AndroidFocus with OmniFocus – Omni Group Support Document 

So it doesn’t do a lot and it could well break the next time the Omni Group changes anything or updates anything in the real OmniFocus. Yet still I would be buying this now if I had Android.

AndroidFocus official site and Google Play Store: £4.10 (UK), $6.99 (US)

Use location reminders for work you don’t like

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It’s not that I don’t like invoicing. It’s that I don’t do it. I’m far more interested in doing the work. Today, for example, I am infinitely more interested in the fact that I’m working with a group of young writers as we create a play. Infinitely.

But it is an unfortunate fact that if one does’t get paid, one stops being able to eat and that stops one being able to do this work. I really want to survive to the play’s performance, so I have to get paid. And being freelance, that means I have to invoice.

I am full of good intentions to do with everything financial. Fortunately, I don’t have to be. I’ve set a location reminder.

I’m working in a library today. When I leave that library, my iPhone will bleep with a reminder that I need to invoice for this work.

That’s all. I may not do it right there and then, but I have a train ride after it so I probably will. I think I may come across as very mercenary, invoicing within ten minutes of finishing a job, but if I don’t do that, I don’t invoice at all, so.

If you have an iPhone, you have location reminders. They are in – and they were introduced to the world in – Apple’s free Reminders app. Every good To Do app since then has taken that idea and so I use the one in my beloved OmniFocus.

Force your To Do app to have start dates

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Most To Do apps don’t have this but you need it and there’s a way to fake it on any software:

Screen Shot 2014-04-26 at 16.52.19

This is the ideal: you write one task and you give it both a start date – called “deferred until” in that screenshot – and a date that really have to do it by. All in one. (Actually, no, the ideal is to not use either start or end dates, especially not end dates. But that’s another story.)

There’s a good, solid, practical reason why this is the ideal when you have a deadline and there is a more nebulous yet enormously more important reason too. First, the practical one:

Having one task with start and end means you’ve one place to go change its details if you need

The nebulous one is:

Software that has start dates will keep your task hidden away from you until then.

It’s in your system, you won’t forget it, you just won’t have to consider it at all until the time you’ve said you should start.

Set it, forget it, get on with the stuff you have to do now.

I mean it when I say this is enormous. It’s the difference between a To Do list that you will use and one that just becomes this enormous long stupid hateful damn bloody list of a million things you still haven’t done yet, you total failure.

So it’s a shame that not every To Do app does start dates. My beloved OmniFocus does. (The screenshot above comes from OmniFocus for Mac where start dates are now called Defer Until dates. Apparently people got confused. But start dates are so crucial that the term is now burnt into me.) Other apps have it too: the online one Asana, the iPhone one Appigo To Do. It’s hard to give you a definitive list of what does and doesn’t have it because it changes a lot – and because some software firms look like they’ve only added start dates because customers wouldn’t stop shut up about them. The feature is there but, my lights, it’s hard to find.

You’d think you could just google like “omnifocus start date app review” or somesuch and get the answer for any app, but you simply can’t. Do try it. If you’re considering a particular To Do app, definitely google whether it has start dates. Be prepared to dig through articles. If the app is free, just get the bleedin’ app and try looking in that. But look for it, hope to find it, be prepared that you may not.

And if you don’t, fake it.

Do this:

  1. Give your task a deadline, a due date, that is really the day you should start it
  2. Call that task something like “Do that thing which is due on 1st May”
  3. Create another task called “Do that thing” and give it a due date of 1st May or whatever the the real deadline is

It’s two tasks instead of one. And you may see both on your list every day, but typically your app will at least put them at the bottom of the list until the first deadline appears.

It works. It’s not elegant. There’s a strong chance that it’ll go wrong: if you tick the first one, the starting task, when you begin it but you don’t finish on that day, you have to remember to continue it tomorrow.

Have you noticed that I’ve avoided saying oh, to hell with it, just buy OmniFocus?

Bugger.