Why I Switched to Things from OmniFocus

The very first post here at The Mac Student was about todo managers.  I personally hold that a good todo manager that fits your brains style of organization is the most important part of an optimized workflow.  In that post I didn’t really commit to using any one task manager over the other.  The point was to share 2-3 of my favorites of the time and let the audience decide which was right for them.

However, shortly after using that article I did finally commit to OmniFocus, which I used up until 2 weeks ago.  Maybe it was simply me getting bored with software and looking for a change, or maybe there was something else there.  I switched to Things, coincidentally the first task manager I used on the Mac right before reQall and OmniFocus.  Yes, I went back to my first and I have to say, it feels go to be home.

OmniFocus is such a great task manager, and I still wonder why it is that I felt compelled to leave the confines of the OmniSphere, and take my tasks elsewhere when things were really working just fine for me there.  One big reason, and perhaps the least relevant as far as function is concerned, is the user interface.  By and large, OmniFocus is ugly.  It is cluttered and complicated.  Now, like I said earlier, it works great and it does its job well, however, there is something to be said for the clean lines and sleek design of Things.  It is just a program that I want to spend more time in, plain and simple.

I eluded to the complexity of OmniFocus earlier.  It is a power user app for the power user.  While a regular Joe might be able to get the right kind of functions out of it, the price tag isn’t worth it for that person.  What you really pay for is the complexity which is great if you know how and or want to go there.  For me, someone who mentors to other students and needs to find the best happy medium between functionality, price and usability, OmniFocus had developed into the red headed step child that really didn’t fit in with the rest of the tools in my arsenal.

So what do you loose when you switch to Things?  Quite a bit actually.  There are many layers of complexity in OmniGroups app to discover, and many layers I probable never took full advantage of.  However, these losses haven’t really bothered me.  There were some features in OmniFocus that I used in order to standardize my entries that I am doing just fine without.  Using Things is different.  After about 20 minutes with the app you have pretty much seen it all, and as such, it is very easy to wrap your head around it and get to work.  I feel like a task manager should really get out of the way and let you get to your tasks.  Isn’t that the point?  Sometime OmniFocus was a task in and of itself.

The HUGE missing feature in Things that is almost a deal breaker is the lack of over-the-air sync.  You have to be on the same local network when you launch the app to get your updated tasks.  This is such a problem, and has almost had me switching back to OmniFocus in the few short weeks I have been using Things.  If I have added 5 tasks for the day on my Mac, I don’t want to have to remember to pull the iPhone out and sync things before I leave the house.  I should not have to do that.  OmniFocus can sync via WebDAV and MobileMe so you can make changes on the iPhone or Mac and they are automatically synced from anywhere.  Cultured Code developers have said that they are working on this, but it has been far too long in my opinion.  I think they should roll out some kind of awesome Things web service and provide over-the-air sync and web access to tasks through that for free just for all the trouble.

So there you have it, I switched from the more robust OmniFocus to the simpler and more elegant Things.  While Things does have some issues, I feel that it is a better fit for more people, and so far I have been very happy with the move.

Filed under: GTD, iPhone, Mac, Organization

Get Answers, then Get on with Things

There are so many answer websites out there that it can be hard to decide which one is going to give you the information you need. You have Yahoo! Answers, wikiAnswers, Answers.com and on and on. One service that has been flying under the radar but that has a very dedicated community of answerers, myself included, is Aardvark.

When you sign up for Aardvark you tell it what kinds of questions you would like to answer.  This is where the networking aspect of Aardvark is played out.  Each member is considered knowledgeable on a set of topics that they have chosen.  When someone ask a question, only members who are familiar with the topics are presented the question to answer.  That keep people answering questions they feel they know something about and giving you direct access to a network that can help you.

Because of the directed approach to matching questions with the right answerers, Aardvark can return results extremely fast.  They claim that most answers come within 5 minutes of the question being asked and then vast majority of the rest are answered in under 10 minutes.  These times depend on how many people in your network are on and answering questions, but the fact that you can expect to get an answer to you question from someone who knows their stuff in under 5 minutes is pretty astounding not to mention very valuable.

You can ask for tips, recommendations, research questions advice, etc., and expect to get answers you can more or less trust to be accurate or at least get you started in the right direction.

So what makes Aardvark really stand out?  Well, if you have been around here for a while you know that one feature to any service that puts it into another level in my book is an iPhone app.  Aardvark has a great iPhone app.  You can log in and Aardvark will immediately let you ask a question.  When it gets the answer it emails it to you as well as displays it in the app.  It also gives you questions to answer based on what you know.  It is actually pretty fun to get on every once in a while and answer some questions.  You will be exercising your brain and helping someone out at the same time.  Hey, you know this stuff, and it is always fun to talk about what you know.

When you combine the iPhone app with their newly re-designed website at Vark.com, you have a formula for a very compelling questions answering service.  Check it out, get your question answered and then get back to work.

Filed under: iPhone, Productivity

AVOID THE HEADACHE OF IPHONE APP ORGANIZATION

With iTunes 9 coming out this week there is a great new feature available for all of those people who are interested in saving time and staying more organized.  The app sorting feature is king in this release.  Sure the LP and sharing features are great, and the store itself looks pretty nice, but the ability to move more than 1 app at a time is in and of itself a reason to upgrade to iTunes 9.   Over at TUAW Erica Sadun game some tips on how to organize applications on your iPhone via iTunes 9.  I would like to do the same, and put my own spin on the way I personally manage applications.

Step 1: Download iTunes 9

Step 2: Decide on what “groups” of applications you want to use.

Be careful here.  You don’t want to make groups such as “Apps that deal with music and also include a flashlight” becuase it is too specific and you probably wont have enough pages to go around not to mention you won’t have as good of an idea where to look for an app.  Your groups should be somewhat broad such as “I use everyday” “I use for Music” “I use for Pictures” “I rarely use” etc. rather than “The icon is red” “The icon is yellow” and so on (although it would be pretty cool to flip through the pages and progress through the ROYGBIV spectrum.

Step 3: Don’t group your apps based on fitting onto pages.

Make a theme and then put as many apps in a row as it takes to include them all.  If you have more than 16 games, don’t try to classify some of them otherwise so you have your single “games” page.  If you spill into another page at least you still know where they are.

Step 4: Put the games page out of sight.

Sure you are going to have probably as many or more games for every one of another type of application on the iPhone.  It’s not hard since there are 50,000 apps and nearly 1/2 of them are games of some kind.  Still, make an effort to make yourself have to work to get to the games page.  Just the fact that you may have to make an extra swipe or two may keep you from picking up the phone or touch when you should be working.  Plus if all of your productivity apps are flying by on your way to the game you are looking for, you may remember something else you should be doing with your time instead.

Step 5: Make the most of the dock.

by default the dock is pretty good.  Most people use the phone and email along with safari most often on the iPhone on average.  The one change I automatically make is switching out the iPod for SMS.  The closer to reach the apps you use are the less time you waste looking for them.  Use the dock to collect the 4 apps you know you will click every day.

Step 6: Make the most of the home page.

If you didn’t already know, the home page is accessible from any page of apps by clicking the home button.  This makes it the apps on that home page the next easiest to get at.  If you want to, you can also organize those applications within that page.  This could be by usage, name, or in the order of the groupings you use for you other pages.

Step 7, 8, 9, 10, …: Keep it up.

Once you have taken the time to organized your applications, keep things clean and efficient.  When you buy a new app, iTunes will drop it in the first available spot.  DONT LET IT SIT THERE!  Pick it up and put it where it goes then, so you don’t let things build up on you.

Brandon’s App Organization.

This is here just to show you what one organization setup might look like.  Make sure to do what works for you.  Different strategies will help different people find what they need better.  It’s all about optimizing your efficiency individually.

Home Page:

As I said use this home page to keep all of those apps that you are going to have to get at every day.  I keep what I use for weather, sports, alarm, twitter, and more along those lines.

Page 2:

On the second page my theme is information access.  Here I can brain dump into evernote, look up local businesses, choose my next workout, browse wikipedia, etc.  Notice that these sources of information and possible productivity come before….

Page 3 and 4: Games

Not much to say here.  I like games, I have two pages…

I wont waste the time with the last few pages but the groups go from utilities to my drop page of apps I am either trying or Apple wont let me remove (I am looking at you contacts).

Filed under: iPhone, Organization, Apps, iPhone, iPhone Apps, Organization