Did you start using OmniFocus with great enthusiasm but get bogged down along the way?
For years, I’ve had the privilege of providing OmniFocus Coaching and Consulting to people worldwide. When people contact me for the first time, they often compliment OmniFocus’ outstanding design and quickly add that they don’t feel like they’re using it as effectively as they could be.
OmniFocus Pitfalls
Based on these experiences, here are the most common pitfalls people encounter while using OmniFocus. I’ve also included some suggestions on how to surmount these challenges or, better yet, avoid them in the first place.
- Pitfall 1: OmniFocus Has Become a Dumping Ground
- Pitfall 2: Unclarified Projects and Actions
- Pitfall 3: Overwhelming Number of Overdue Items
- Pitfall 4: OmniFocus is Out of Date
- Pitfall 5: Too Many…or Not Enough Tags
Pitfall 1: OmniFocus Has Become a Dumping Ground
Overview
The most common issue I observe is people trying to use OmniFocus for too many things. Typically, the inbox is overflowing with everything from random thoughts to important commitments and projects containing a potpourri of actions, ideas, and reference material. OmniFocus quickly becomes unmanageable, and concerns arise over important actions and projects getting lost in the shuffle.
Recommended Practice
I recommend that you reserve OmniFocus for projects and actions you’re committed to completing and storing ideas, project support material, and incomplete thoughts elsewhere, referencing them from OmniFocus, as needed, to ensure they’re not forgotten.
If ideas and incomplete thoughts end up in your OmniFocus inbox, either clarify them before adding them to your OmniFocus library or store them elsewhere if they’re not actionable. Better yet, get into the habit of capturing and storing non-actionable things elsewhere (e.g., Obsidian or Craft) to minimize the number of items in your OmniFocus inbox.
Resources
Check out the Best Practice: Make OmniFocus a Sacred Space (Free) for specific suggestions on how and where to store non-actionable materials. Consider using the Drafts app to collect what has your attention and only send actionable items to OmniFocus.
Pitfall 2: Unclarified Projects and Actions
Overview
David Allen’s Getting Things Done (GTD) methodology recommends clearly articulating actions and outcomes. I often see projects with names such as “Board of Directors” that don’t define the intended outcome and contain equally vague actions. You’ll tend to feel stuck if your next actions and project outcomes aren’t clearly defined.
Recommended Practice
Be specific when naming projects in keeping with GTD practices (e.g., “Prepare for 2018-11-08 Board of Directors Meeting”). Consider adding a summary to the project’s note field that elaborates on the outcome (e.g., “What does being prepared look like?”). For projects, you might also want to consider including a checklist containing conditions that must be satisfied before the project can be completed (e.g., Agenda finalized, Venue booked). This checklist can also be stored in a project-support note and referenced from OmniFocus.
Next, define specific actions that will move you towards this outcome, using OmniFocus’ Action Groups feature to group related items as needed.
Store one-off actions unrelated to a specific outcome in single action lists (i.e. a project of type “single actions”). For example, if the action is to book an appointment with your dentist, you could create an action such as “Contact Dr. Nibble to book an appointment” in a single action list called “📦 Health.” For added convenience, include a reference to Dr. Nibble’s contact information in the note field of this action.
Unlike parallel and sequential projects, single action lists don’t have a defined outcome; they’re intended to be used as a container for related one-off actions. For added clarity, consider naming single actions “projects” to differentiate them from projects with a defined outcome. For example, you could prefix single action lists with a box emoji (📦) and sequential and parallel projects with a compass emoji (🧭).
Resources
If you haven’t already, I recommend reading David Allen’s Getting Things Done book, which is essentially the manual for the Getting Things Done approach to productivity. Our GTD Resources contain links to this book and other books, articles, and videos to support your GTD learning. Also, check out our Best Practices for Naming OmniFocus Projects article (Membership Required), an in-depth guide for naming projects and single action lists.
Pitfall 3: Overwhelming Number of Overdue Items
Overview
It’s tempting to use due dates for things you’d like to get done by a specific date, even though they’re not technically due on that date. The problem with this approach is that it becomes difficult to distinguish between what’s due and what you’d like to have accomplished by a specific date, even though it’s not technically due. The result tends to be a long list of overdue actions and projects, creating stress and instilling a sense of failure.
Recommended Practice
Use flags and/or tags for things you’d like to get done, even though they’re not due, reserving due dates for things that are due.
If there are things you can’t or don’t plan on taking action on today but that will become important, consider giving them a flag and/or tag and deferring them to the date you want them to appear among your available actions.
Resources
The Best Practice: Use Due Dates Sparingly article (Free) covers this topic in more detail.
Pitfall 4: OmniFocus is Out of Date
Overview
If not used regularly, OmniFocus quickly becomes out of date and ceases to be a helpful place to go to decide what to do next; it’s no longer an active reflection of the commitments that you’ve made. It’s difficult to trust an outdated system, and there’s a tendency to try and keep track of things in your head, which doesn’t work very well. To quote David Allen, “Your mind is for having ideas, not holding them.”
Recommended Practice
Establish a habit of using OmniFocus regularly. If you’re new to OmniFocus, consider using OmniFocus for a specific area of your life. Then, build on this experience, gradually expanding your use of OmniFocus.
If you’ve been using OmniFocus for a while and your system has become unmanageable, consider temporarily moving everything to a folder called “triage” and establishing a new structure of folders and projects. Process the contents of “triage” into this new structure, clarifying and discarding items as you go along.
Reviewing OmniFocus regularly is important to ensure it becomes and continues to be a useful and trusted resource. It’s recommended that you review OmniFocus and your overall productivity system regularly. The Review perspective provides a structured way to help ensure that all of your projects and single action lists get the appropriate amount of attention. Also, include repeating actions and projects that prompt you to clarify what you’ve captured and review all aspects of your system. For example, you could have a repeating action to “Process physical inbox in office” that repeats every weekday.
Resources
Performing daily reviews of your system, even for 5-10 minutes, is a good place to start. For specific suggestions, check out the Establishing a Daily OmniFocus Routine article (Membership Required).
Pitfall 5: Too Many…or Not Enough Tags
Overview
Tags (formerly contexts) can become a source of anxiety instead of a helpful construct. There’s a tendency to either create more tags than are needed or not to use tags at all. Either way, the potential benefits of using tags are lost.
Recommended Practice
When tags are used effectively, you can easily access a list of relevant actions based on your physical location, who you’re with, the tools you have at your disposal, your energy level, and more. Tags can also be used to identify, for example, things you’d like to get done today and everything you’d like to accomplish before leaving on vacation. The key is to define as many tags as you need without making your tagging system needlessly complex.
As you create tags, think about what filtered views of your OmniFocus actions you want to see. If you have an Internet connection 99% of the time, having an “online” tag might be useless. However, if you spend a lot of time flying, having an “Airplane” tag may be useful to identify actions that can be performed even if you’re at 35,000 feet without an internet connection. It can also be very helpful to have tags that define the type of activity (e.g. Email, Writing, Planning) so that you can group related actions.
To help ensure that nothing falls through the cracks, make sure that every action in OmniFocus is assigned at least one tag. To help enforce this behaviour, go to the Organizations section of OmniFocus Settings and set the “Clean up inbox items which have” option to “Both a project and a tag.” With this option enabled, items will remain in the inbox unless they have been assigned both a project and a tag. On the Mac, this option can be found in Settings > Organization. On iPhone and iPad, it’s in the Organization section of Settings.
Resources
Check out our OmniFocus Tags Directory (Free) for inspiration on using tags. We also have a guide for Making Productive Use of Tags in OmniFocus (Membership Required) that takes an in-depth look at using tags alongside other organizational elements, including folders, projects, and single action lists.