Comments for BrockLi Soup

Comment on Satisfaction by Brock

Brock — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 00:29:00 +0000

Higher priority goes at the top, and my task management app (Things) has a field for due dates. In general, anything with a due date is a high priority, since I've got plenty of stuff that just needs to get done sooner or later (for example, scanning old photos). Work stuff mostly goes into the task tracking system we use at the office, Jira.

(posted on LiveJournal)

Comment on Satisfaction by br0co1ii

br0co1ii — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 23:44:00 +0000

I used to have a "due date" column and a "priority" column on my to do list. That way I could scan it and tackle what was most important first, then get to the other stuff. There was also an "approximate time it will take" column, so if I knew something would only take 5 minutes and I had only five minutes to kill, I would do that, no matter what the priority of the other stuff was. (Not that there are many five minute things out there, but you get the idea.)

(posted on LiveJournal)

Comment on Satisfaction by privacy

privacy — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 17:02:00 +0000

My copy of GTD is somewhere under this mess on my desk but I haven't gotten around to reading it yet. How do you take deadlines and priorities into account with your lists?

(posted on LiveJournal)

Comment on OmniFocus vs. Things by Kevin Yank

Kevin Yank — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 23:46:38 +0000

The trick to OmniFocus is to use the power of the app to set up views (Perspectives, in the app’s terminology) that work for you, and then switch off all the fiddly view control tools.

Hide the View bar, hide the Inspector window, remove icons you don’t need from the toolbar, remove columns you won’t use from the task list. If you don’t need to see the Contexts list while you’re working, hide it and save that in your view. If you can do without the toolbar entirely, hide that too. The optimal way to use OmniFocus while working is to set up a specialized perspective that shows nothing but a bare list of tasks for you to work through from the top to the bottom.

Thanks to the configurability of Mac OS X, remapping keyboard shortcuts you don’t like is a piece of cake. It was the work of 30 seconds to set ⌘N to Add Action and ⇧⌘N to New Window in the Keyboard & Mouse panel of System Preferences.

The latest version of OmniFocus for iPhone supports WiFi syncing just like Things. Highly recommended if you don’t need to sync on the go, as it’s much faster than MobileMe or WebDAV sync. That said, they’ve done a good job of getting the kinks out of the latter sync methods too.

OmniFocus really is an all-powerful task management system that you must configure, customize, and then slim down for your own purposes. Think of it as a toolbox for building your own task management workflow, and make sure to put away the tools when you’re done building it.

If you don’t need the flexibility and power of OmniFocus, Things does look like a pleasant, lightweight alternative.

Comment on OmniFocus vs. Things by BrockLi Soup » Blog Archive » Satisfaction

BrockLi Soup » Blog Archive » Satisfaction — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 03:05:16 +0000

[...] first is the most important for actually getting stuff done. As I’ve said before, if it doesn’t get written down, it doesn’t [...]

Comment on My Voting Experience by Heather

Heather — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 20:12:58 +0000

I have Canadian citizenship! For a small fee (or another appropriate favour), I’m sure I could arrange to marry you or Erin. I don’t like the cold though, so I hope you two like Vancouver.

Comment on OmniFocus vs. Things by mark

mark — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 19:46:16 +0000

i started with things, used it for a few weeks, liked it, then decided i wanted more structure (the flexibility of tagging was actually slowing me down) and have now been using omnifocus for a few weeks in trial mode. i’ve been leaning toward omnifocus, but its complexity does seem to be a bit of a time suck. i’m, like, totally on the fence, dude.

Comment on Social Slacker by Brock

Brock — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 17:28:39 +0000

Whoooops. I fixed it.

Comment on Social Slacker by Heather

Heather — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 17:27:16 +0000

‘local fronds’? I mean, if you see any, let me know, but I didn’t know there was a large swath of palm trees around DC in need of regular contact.

Comment on Getting The Love You Want Imago Workshop by br0co1ii

br0co1ii — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 17:53:00 +0000

Thank you so much for getting a bit personal and sharing this. I really do think I will go out and read the book. I just went thru a shit time in my romantic life and perhaps this is the book I need to prevent future shit times! Thanks again, and I wish you the best of luck. It sounds like you're on the right path.

(posted on LiveJournal)