Lost Focus.
September 15th, 2008
I have an awful short-term memory.
I have a tendency to forget names, small tasks, and sometimes very important information. This happens at work, at home, everywhere. I’ve learned to cope with this shortcoming over time by using lots of paper, and more recently, lots of cool technology to help me remember things and stay organized.
For a while now, I’ve been using OmniFocus, a GTD application for the Mac. GTD is basically the concept of dumping all of your thoughts and ‘to-do’ items into a master list, sorting that list into prioritized tasks and/or projects, and then of course, getting things done. Lots of folks take this stuff too seriously, but I really do think that it helps a scatterbrained mess like myself stay focused. In fact, over the past year or so I have become very dependent on such a system to keep me on task at work.
Anyway, OmniFocus has broken my heart for the last time. Basically, when the iPhone started allowing software to be written for it, OmniFocus was a perfect candidate to have a version that could sync to your desktop app. You see, one of the worst things about having a software based GTD solution is that the list lives on your computer, and many of the times that ideas or tasks pop into my head … well, I’m not near a computer to key it in. That would lead me to email tasks to myself from my phone, which worked (OF scans your emails for keywords and adds items to your projects if they contain certain phrases or words), but wasn’t perfect. The iPhone version of OmniFocus closed the loop, and made entering tasks a snap. It synced over the web tasks, due dates, the locations of projects, and much more. I could juggle all of the crap I had to do at work, at SquareOne, and at home. Life was organized and good.
All was right in the world, until the forgotten fact that OmniFocus 1.1 is alpha software reared its ugly head.
The 1.1 version of the software that supports syncing of tasks over the web is alpha software, and as such, it’s not exactly speedy or reliable yet. I began to lose tasks that I thought I had entered, but weren’t showing up. Syncing a 1 megabyte file of data would take 10 minutes or more, rendering the iPhone version useless. The iPhone app would sometimes crash, losing the changes I was making. You get the idea. If you cannot ‘trust the system’, and you are constantly wondering if all of your tasks are actually even there, you have a problem.
Once OmniFocus 1.1 is finalized and the iPhone app’s stability issues are addressed, I look forward to going back to it. It really is a great combination of software when it works. But for now, I’m trying out other stopgap solutions to hold me over until that time. Remember the Milk so far is the winner, and they have a good iPhone web app that works just fine. It’s not perfect, but it actually works, and I can trust it.
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September 16th, 2008 at 1:04 pm
OmniFocus has too much of a heft price tag for both its desktop and iPhone applications which is why I chose things [http://culturedcode.com/things/]. It’s not truly comparable as for feature to feature, but it works for me perfectly with it being more laid back and less ’structured’.
September 16th, 2008 at 1:16 pm
Yeah, Things is a nice app, to be sure. That was the first GTD type app that I tried out, and for a while thought it was the one I’d stick with. But when the dust settled, I went back to OmniFocus.
You’re right though - $100 for the iPhone app and for the desktop is a bit hefty. But for me, it’s the one system that works exactly how I want it to. I can automatically pull basecamp emails out of my inbox, assign a context, and sort thru those a few times a day to make sure I never miss a thing.
The sync issue is just killing me right now. Remember the Milk is very simple and clean, but it just doesn’t do things the way I want, or are accustomed to.
September 16th, 2008 at 8:25 pm
I use a GTD that allows me to view my entire GTD at work on my Win machine, at home on my Macs and even on my cell phone. And another app lets me call in tasks to my GTD without any writing or typing, great for those thoughts that hit me while driving. I’ve written about my experiences with GTD in a blog post at http://johnkendrick.wordpress.com/2008/03/27/more-getting-things-done/ John