2016-07-20 – OmniFocus Workflows with Johnny Chadda

Learn how Johnny Chadda uses OmniFocus to effectively manage his day-to-day life, while also keeping an eye on the big picture.

Johnny ChaddaJohnny Chadda is a engineering lead and coder based in Stockholm, Sweden with a passion for photography and travel. He’s been practicing David Allen’s Getting Things Done (GTD) methodology since 2008 and has been an avid OmniFocus user since 2010. He’s also experienced in Agile, and his work responsibilities include planning “sprints”. He frequently writes on his blog, with posts themed around technology, photography and productivity.

Session Overview

In this session, Johnny takes us on a tour of his productivity system and talks about his daily workflows. He emphasizes the importance of looking at the big picture and demonstrates how he uses OmniFocus to help ensure that his life and work are following a productive course and to ensure that things that are important to him (e.g. travel) are given the appropriate amount of attention.

Johnny’s OmniFocus setup encourages routines that, among other things, encourage processing his various inboxes and reviewing his waiting list regularly. He also talks about how he uses OmniFocus for work-related tasks by funnelling tasks from his company’s collaboratives solutions through email and making good use of OmniFocus’ Clippings functionality.

About Johnny Chadda

Johnny Chadda calls Stockholm, Sweden home. By day he works as an engineering lead and coder, in addition to planning “sprints” (in Agile speak) and setting up build, deployment and automation environments.

He has an active blog where he frequently shares his passion for productivity and his love for photography and travel. He also publishes cocktail recipes weekly on his Drinkmeny website (Swedish), and acknowledges OmniFocus’ role in maintaining this consistency.

Johnny is an avid and experienced OmniFocus user and recently published an excellent post with details of his 2016 OmniFocus Setup and Workflow, adding to the many other OmniFocus posts that he’s written over the years. He also wrote an article for Inside OmniFocus called Getting Organized Using Perspectives.

Additional Resources

  • Johnny’s Learn OmniFocus Page — For links to some of what Johnny mentioned during the session, visit the Learn OmniFocus Webinar Reference page on his website.
  • Simplicity Bliss Blog — Johnny made reference to Sven Fechner’s outstanding Simplicity Bliss Blog, including his approach to using contexts, documented in A Fresh Take on Contexts. Sven has also been a guest on Learn OmniFocus.
  • Joe Buhlig’s Blog — Johnny’s system also draws from Joe Buhlig’s excellent OmniFocus resources, including his article describing how to use Checklists in OmniFocus. Joe has also been a guest on Learn OmniFocus.
  • AppleScripts — During his talk, Johnny referenced the following scripts: Focus in New Window by Dan Byler, Templates by Chris Sauvé and Daily Task Report by Joe Buhlig. Visit our AppleScript Directory to learn about other scripts that are designed to work with OmniFocus for Mac.
  • Airmail for Mac & iOS — Johnny mentioned that he uses Airmail on both Mac (App Store) and iOS (App Store), motivated by Airmail’s integrated support for OmniFocus. In the recent iOS Email episode, Mac Power Users took a comprehensive look at third-party email clients for iOS, including Airmail. We’ve also featured Airmail here on Learn OmniFocus.
  • Pixabay — The travelling frogs photos shown in the session’s introduction come from Pixabay, an excellent source of high-quality images and videos that are released free of copyrights under Creative Commons CC0. If you make use their content, consider making a donation, especially if you’re using the content commercially.

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