Finally, I’m Learning OmniFocus: I’ve Listened Long Enough to @MacSparky

As an old Saturday morning cartoon character I loved would say, “That’s all I can standz, I can standz no more”. That is exactly what happened to me this week when it came to my old friend David Sparks and his endless infatuation with Omnigroup’s GTD application, OmniFocus.

I’ve been listening to David’s podcasts and reading his blog and watching his screencasts on OmniFocus and as many times as I’ve wanted to sit down with OmniFocus and give it a try, I’ve always talked myself out of it. I am of the belief that most people using a GTD (Getting Things Done) application spend more time playing with the application then actually getting things done.

So what changed? I’ve found myself with a lot of downtime coming up over the next month and I really wanted to take this opportunity to organize and prioritize my business and personal life. Therefore, I decided to heed the call of David and many other Mac pundits and jump into the OmniFocus world of digital organization.

I am starting with installing OmniFocus on both my office and home Mac, getting the syncing set up and then setting up the preferences to make the application look and feel comfortable with non-conflicting shortcut keys and organizing project folders and contexts that fit my needs and my workflows. I will then install OmniFocus on my iPhone and see if I can implement this new organization mode whether in an office setting or out and about.

My first priority is learning what OmniFocus can do and how I want it to work for me, rather then making me work for the application. I am starting with David Spark’s set of three Omnifocus screencasts and Don McAllister’s Screencastsonline episodes. There are also some nice video tutorials on OmniGroup’s Web site.

I’d love to hear from you with other sources of information on how to customize and take advantage of OmniFocus. I also plan on blogging about my progress on learning and implementing OmniFocus into my everyday life. Hold my hand on this one, it may be a long journey.

Tags: macsparky, omnifocus, omnigroup, sparks