I'll admit, I'm a bit disorganized. It takes effort not to lose student papers, forget appointments, or remember to prep the lesson I'm teaching in 5 minutes. I'm also a bit anxious, so remembering to remember also takes mental energy away from simply taking action.
I started listening to the Out of School podcast by Fraser Speirs and Bradley Chambers. In several of their episodes they discuss David Allen's book Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity (the method commonly known as GTD). I was intrigued. I bought the book, skimmed some and read some, and tried it out using Omnifocus 2, a productivity tool for iPad, iPhone, and Mac.
In Getting Things Done, David Allen argues that in order to be productive and creative, you need to free your mind from the taxing work of remembering to do stuff. He has five steps in his methodology that you can explore here and read about in detail in his book.
This was in early January. Now it's March and I'm still using Omnifocus 2 quite successfully. It has become my go-to organization system because I can input "action items" quickly into my Inbox from a variety of sources. Here's my diagram of it all:
Why Omnifocus 2 is worth the $25 (yes, there are educator discounts!):
- When I'm driving away from school and I remember something that I need to do: I set it up so that when I ask Siri on my iPhone to set a reminder, the reminder automatically goes into Omnifocus.
- When I'm working on my iPad or iPhone, I can send other materials like photos and websites to Omnifocus.
- One of the best things about Omnifocus is how it has allowed me to manage my work emails from MS Outlook on my work PC. Using the Mail Drop, I can transfer important emails to Omnifocus by forwarding them to a unique email address. Then in Omnifocus, emails become To Do list items to which I can assign due dates.
- I have also synched my work Outlook calendar with iCal on my iPad, which is synched with Omnifocus. Whenever I'm looking at the day's To Do list, I also see my appointments.
- I can set certain projects to pop up at certain times. I have a Project called "AM Routine" that pops up on my Omnifocus every morning. That way, when I'm still half-asleep at 7:30, I don't have to worry about starting my day correctly, I can just plug through my AM Routine list and get my morning started. I got this idea from Fraser Speirs in his "GTD" series of the Out of School podcast.
The result is that I am hardly ever without a tool (iPhone, iPad, computer) that I can't use to add items to Omnifocus so I don't forget them. The trouble with organization systems of the past was that if my To Do list was in a notebook and I happened to leave it on my desk (yes, I am forgetful), then I'd have to keep a "To Do" item in my head and hope I'd remember to write it down when I got back to my notebook.
Other Cool Features
- Review: One of David Allen's GTD tenants is to review outstanding projects and to do lists frequently. In Omnifocus, I can set certain projects to be reviewed however often I wish so that I make sure to update these lists.
- Projects: I can break down projects into actionable items to organize my projects into small, manageable pieces (David Allen says that a Project is technically anything more that one action item).
- Contexts: I can attribute a context to my inbox items so that I can view certain items when I want to focus on certain contexts (work items, home items, etc.).
- The Omnifocus Forums online are great resources to browse for more information about the program.
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| An example screen from a day's To Do items with Calendar items included |
In conclusion, I'm a big Omnifocus fan and it is definitely worth the price of a license. My productivity has gone up, my anxiety has gone down, and I finally feel like I have an organization system I can use with fidelity.
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