KirbyAndersen.com

I’m a task management resource junkie. I used the paper version DayTimer for 20 years. Then I went electronic using Outlook with the Franklin Covey PlanPlus for Outlook overlay. I used that along with a Palm PDA then and HP iPaq for years until last fall. That’s when I reverted back to my first love, the Mac. Although I could have continued to use Outlook via Parallels on my Mac, I really wanted to shift over to the core app’s of Mac’s OSX Leopard - namely, iCal and Mail. Since I started using the iPhone (don’t get me started on the beauty of my iPhone), I wanted to break away from Outlook.

The biggest shortcoming to Mac’s native app’s, however, is in its task management. The closest you get is To Do’s in iCal which is extremely weak. Apple most certainly will have to give this attention someday, and when it does, I’m sure it will be killer. For the present, however, a third party app was necessary for me.

I spent hour/days researching viable options. The two contenders for me came down to Things and Omnifocus. Though a bit dated, here’s a good review of the pro’s and con’s. Things looks great and is probably easier for most to get up and running; however, I chose Omnifocus because it’s feature-rich and syncs amazingly well with iCal and my iPhone.

Although I’ve dabbled with for about nine months now, I hadn’t completely dove into until this week. I have some very aggressive plans for our church in the immediate future and out of a need for survival, I needed to fully commit to a new system for my project/task management. I dove in this week and I’m giddy.

Omnifocus is a product of the sharp folks at OmniGroup. It’s based on the Getting Things Done (GTD) methodology of David Allen. I highly recommend his book, Getting Things Done. Omnifocus works on the processes of Collect, Process, Organize, Review, Do. Tasks are organized by projects and contexts (resources, location, people needed to carry out a task). Start and due dates can be assigned. All can be organized and reviewed through customizable perspectives.

Omnifocus can integrate with iCal’s To Do list with the click of an icon. A huge feature for me is the regular, automatic syncing with my iPhone (requires the $20 iPhone app).

If you’ve read thus far, you’re either thinking, “Wow!”, “Interesting”, “Who cares?”, or “I don’t understand a thing you’re talking about.” All perfectly fine responses. For those of you whose interest is piqued, I encourage you to check out the above resources. Feel free to leave comments or contact me with other questions.