Phil’s Comments (group member since Apr 27, 2011)

Phil’s comments from the Getting Things Done group.

Hi Cjl

I have similar issues but I do tend to either have a notebook or iPad with me and I try to jot reminders down. The iPad is great but it can be a bit bulky and fragile so I sometimes leave it at home or in my office. At work I also tend to email things to myself so the actions automatically end up in my system.

In Omnifocus I really need a project note where I can keep an overview of a project, I often find I've added notes to an action which I've now completed which causes the action and the note to disappear and I quickly start to wonder "did I do ...?" I use applescripts to create project a folder and note for each Omnifocus Project but it would be good to have it built in.

I guess with multi action projects I should really add all my notes to the project header rather than the individual actions. That way the the notes stay available until the project ends.

No the tasks can also be in the body of the email, in fact you can add multiple actions within a single email.

-- is an action
> is a project
@ context
# due date (or #mon #tue would give a start date + due date)
blah blah blah would be a note

--next action
etc

I don't tend to do this as I really only use the email for a collection tool for future tasks so I tend to just forward mails with only a brief subject line. I hardly ever add the project or context at that point. Using just a single subject description forces them to stay in my inbox and allows me to keep them all together to sort out later when I process my inbox.

I also don't tend to worry about having the computer on at home. All of the tasks I email are for future actions so they sync up when I get home each night. Tasks I plan to do straight away I wouldn't enter into OF anyway, and those for later in the day I'd just manually enter a brief action, project & context, more as a reminder just incase I do forgot about them. I normally wouldn't be too worried about the support material as it would more than likely be to hand away if I've only just found out about it. If I thought I might need something I may throw a pdf in my Project folders within dropbox, which I can then get to from the iPad (iPhone) straight away or from my home PC later.

The iPad is a little expensive and delicate to carry around in the job I do so it normally stays on my desk. I work in a chemical plant so whilst I'm out and about on site I tend to just use a small pocket notebook. If I need to, I make notes in there to process later.


PM me your email address on KUF and I'll send you an article I have on this emailling process.

I think you do need to use Mail.app yes.

I use my own domain as well, but my mail provider doesn't handle the +omnifocus correctly so I ended up creating a gmail account just for OF and my work calendar. I don't use it for anything else but I have myname@gmail.com and it's allows the addition of + keywords so I use the +omnifocus and it's works well.

Omnifocus will also allow you to set it up to look for -- at the start of the subject line in which case it doesn't matter what your email address is. You can also select which "From" addresses are valid to prevent spam ending up in your OmniFocus listings. I may switch to this format at some point as it avoids the need to use gmail.

If you look in Omnifocus - Preferences - Mail you can see how to set it up.

I've just had a look at it and it's basically using a mail rule to look for the +omnifocus in the recipient list. the rule moves the message to the receipts folder, marks it read and runs an applescript which does the work of moving it to Omnifocus. So it should be easy to copy this rule to whatever mail client you use. you would just have to tweak the applescript to use your mail client not Mail.app

I have Omnifocus on my iPad (3G) so I use that when at work.

I also use the mail clipping feature of OmniFocus. Where I have OmniFocus configured to intercept any emails which have +omnifocus added to my email address. This allows me to send myself an email which then automatically adds the action directly into OmniFocus. During the day at work I regularly just forward emails to phil+omnifocus@... and they appear in my inbox within OmniFocus. You can if you format the mail correctly autoassign contexts, project, due dates, start dates etc directly by email.


as an example sending the email

Pass OmniFocus info to John >GTD @online #fri

would create
an action "Pass OmniFocus Info to John"
in the Project "GTD"
with a context of "Online"
due on "Friday"

These emails arrive on my home computer, and are automatically picked up by OmniFocus on the desktop and then synced to the iPad. I could pick up the iPad and type them in by hand, but with the tasks which arrive via email at work I tend to just forward them to home+omnifocus. This also causes the body of the email to be added as the notes section of the OF entry so I also get the email available to me on the iPad when reviewing the action.

I don't think the review on the iPhone is the same as on the iPad app. The desktop app will likely get the same review process as the iPad app but this will probably be an OmniFocus v2 feature.

I'm not to bad on the reviews, it's the doing the actions that I struggle with.

I use omnifocus on the Mac and the iPad. The iPad has a great review section and I use that quite often. I prefer using the iPad for the reviews over the desktop app.

In Omnifocus when you set up a project you can also tell it how often you want this project reviewed and each project can have a different review period. OmniFocus will allow you to set up a review period by x Days, Weeks, Months or Years So you can have one project being review every 2 days, another project could be set to every 4 months. Whenever a project is ready for review it shows up in the review section of the app, so I just check this every couple of days and review what ever projects appear in the list. Once the project is check you just click the Marked Reviewed button and it disappears from the review process until next time it's due.

I had a look on davidco.com and see they also do an abridged recording 3 CDs

Hi John

I've read the book a couple of times but I've only listened to sections of the audio. Whats the Quick Start Audio book you mentioned, I haven't seen that.