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My 20x app: OmniFocus on iOS

By Alvin Soon - on 16 Jul 2015, 12:15pm

There’s this idea, called the Pareto Principle, that 80% of your results come from 20% of your efforts.

When used as a productivity guide, the Pareto Principle asks you to identify the top things you do that create the most results, focus on them, and dump the rest.

I’m not sure if the Pareto Principle is 100% true, but I know it applies to my smartphone apps. Most of the apps on my iPhone stay unused (the 80%), and I keep going back to the same few ones again and again (the 20%).

There’s one app that towers above even these 20% apps though, and it’s the task management app OmniFocus. It’s the one app I couldn’t live without, and it’s easily given me a 20x return in my life.

What is OmniFocus?

OmniFocus is an iOS and Mac app built by the folks at The Omni Group. OmniFocus isn’t just a task management app, it’s a task management app that’s specifically wrapped around the Getting Things Done (GTD) task management method.

GTD was created by David Allen, and it’s a system designed to capture and organise the tasks in your life. It’s a simple system, but there is a learning curve you have to go through to ‘get’ it. And like a martial art, I don’t think there’s a point at which you stop ‘getting’ it. I’ve been using it for the past eight years, and I’m still finding better ways to GTD today.

The GTD workflow illustrated, by the David Allen Co.

In essence, GTD asks you to capture any tasks you want to get done into a ‘trusted system.’ The reason is simple: Have you ever thought of something you needed to get done, at the shower, in bed, or at some random place where you couldn’t do it? And after promising yourself you wouldn’t forget it, you promptly forgot about it?

David Allen doesn’t believe that keeping everything you need to do solely in your head is a good idea, either for productivity or peace of mind. So he asks that you write down everything that pops into your head, in the past that could have meant piece of paper or an organiser, today, it can be writing tasks down into an app.

The important thing is that you have to ‘trust’ this system — it has to be the one system that you know you’ll regularly check and update. That’s what makes the system work. Otherwise it just becomes another dumping ground for the stuff in your head.

Writing tasks down has become a life-changing habit

For me, this trusted system is OmniFocus. Getting into the habit of writing down my tasks has proven to be a life-changing habit, especially for someone who has a patchy memory like me.

I remember what needs to be done today, even if I wrote it down two months ago, because it’s in my trusted system. When I go shopping, I can remember to pick up random necessities, because I wrote them down. When I have some spare time, I can call up the list, and whip off the non-urgent tasks in my life that help it to keep running.

Getting your tasks into a trusted system is the first step, and organising these tasks in a way that makes sense encompasses the rest of GTD. If learning a new method like GTD isn’t for you, I still highly recommend that anyone try this idea of capturing tasks into a trusted system.

There are so many other task management apps out there today, from OS specific, like OmniFocus and Things, to cross-platform, like Wunderlist, to free, like Reminders on iOS, that you can pick and choose the one which works for you best. You can even go low-tech, and keep a notebook, but the key advantage of having your trusted system on your smartphone is that it’s more likely to always be with you.

Alvin Soon

Alvin Soon / Former Deputy Editor

I like coffee and cameras, but not together.

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