Omnifocus Series: Getting the Mind Clear (Part 1)
Omnifocus is a powerful tool for organizing your life, job search and other projects. One of its most useful features for researchers and job hunters is the Quick Entry box. This small yet powerful feature is what helps you to achieve effortless, effective and focused action. The key is capturing everything so you miss nothing — fast, effectively and without thinking (too hard).
So…
Skim Email for Important Stuff in 60 Seconds Flat
With the powerful Quick Entry feature of Omnifocus (a pop up box that opens while you’re using any application) you can go through your email like a hawk and save only the email messages that either:
- a. look important to do NOW
- b. you want to read later
- c. the just in case
Every other email stays there after you scan the headlines. Heck, you email database is a storage box too.
Make sure you’ve got the Clip-O-Tron feature activated in Omnifocus and installed in Mail through the one click option in Omnifocus.
Or…
Capture Jobs from Your Browser – Safari Fast
If you’re on a Mac (and of course you are since you’re using Omnifocus) then you’ll likely be using Safari web browser. Go to any job site and save jobs that interest you and that you want to apply for using the “clipping” feature of Omnifocus right into the pop up Quick Entry box.
Of course if you’re doing market research for example then you can also save more than just job descriptions. Pictures, PDFs, Word documents, Office documents, spreadsheets and anything else you can think of can be clipped, saved, put into the Quick Entry box and dumped in the “Inbox”.
The key is no hassle. Dump it and sort it out later.
The only time Quick Entry is slowed down is if you use Mozilla browsers like Firefox and Google Chrome.
If you’re a stickler to details you can assign your Entries right to Projects or assign “ways to get it done” (i.e. call, write, email, etc.) right in the Quick Entry box. Handy if you want to save time.
And of course…
Save the Best for Later in Documents
You guessed it, Quick Entry means you can even capture information from inside Adobe PDFs, Word documents and spreadsheets. Great for research and writing reports fast!
And when all else fails you can type write into the Quick Entry box or cut and paste what clipping can’t handle. Great for those times you’re using web browsers like Google Chrome or Firefox.
Omnifocus’ clipping and Quick Entry box are useful because it allows you to capture ideas from outside and inside right into one little bowl without too much cutting, pasting and fidgeting. Great for staying on top of emails, job search or just plain research.
Does your favourite task management program have Quick Entry or clipping ability? Are there any new kids on the block that has better features? (I can think of one) Is there a better way of capturing the best ideas and information from anywhere?
Via Sunny Lam and Empty Mind Principles (EMP)
3 Tricks for Scheduling Due Dates in Record Time (in Omnifocus) [Video]
Omnifocus Series Part 3
(Psst…. Looking for the “missing tricks”? Look below!)
Have you ever realized that you could set due dates without looking at your calendar? Omnifocus has a nifty trick for due dates that will make your life easier. In this follow up to Part 1 and Part 2, you will learn about this useful hack so setting due dates in task managers like Omnifocus or Things is a snap.
Go to the inspector for Omnifocus and enter the due date you want without typing the month, day or year. Let’s say you have to meet someone named Karin “next Monday”. All you have to do is enter next Monday and Omnifocus will figure out the exact month, day and year.
This works for:
So on and so forth.
In fact, you can skip the typing in the full “Monday” and just use short forms like “Mon” or “mon”. Avoid shortening for “weeks” (avoid wk or wks) and even “years” (avoid yr or yrs) — use the full form for these ones.
If you want you can even specify the time. Here’s an example: ”2 weeks 5 pm.” Omnifocus figures out the date and time yet again. And this works well if you…
Have a Calendar!?
Specifically iCal that is. You can actually go to Omnifocus’ Preference menu, select the iCal icon and menu and setup the Sync.
If you have specified an exact time then Omnifocus will put the action item in the right time slot. If you want to setup alerts or reminders however you’ll have to do it right in iCal (Omni Group is probably working on that as we speak). Omnifocus can also narrow down which kinds of actions you want to put into the calendars and which calendars you want to put them into.
Watch out though because if you have lots and lots of items with due dates your calendars could become hard to read. Personally I tend to avoid using the sync because I have so many due dates that can come around (and the triple reminders that come with it).
If you want to set reminders, you can use the rule of 3 kind of like this.
Change it as needed. It’ll give you a leg up in getting to your appointments in time.
In Summary
Omnifocus can make setting due dates a lot easier. In fact this is a little trick I completely missed until just recently. I thought, “There must be an easier way!” Any how let me and the other visitors know about programs you use that already have this little trick built in because Omnifocus is probably just one of the few.
PS. Would love to put together a list of your most popular productivity programs! (Its probably changed since I last looked)
Thank you for coming by again! Remember to sign up for 21 tips on productivity, job search and business (1 tip every 2 weeks while staying tuned for the FREE versions of the business planning and job search eBooks when they come out) by signing up for the newsletter (Click Here) or stay up to date through RSS. Thanks for visiting!
Technorati Tags: "tips & tricks", commentary, david allen, getting things done, GTD, hacks, howto, instructions, mac, omnifocus, Programs, project management, software, sunny lam, task manager, training, tutorial, vlog