How to separate things to track and my tasks....
I just listened to your fire inspector podcast and felt a complete connection with it... So I am a military officer in charge of logistics for a brigade (2000 solders and equipment). I have to ensure this brigade is constantly ready for anything. I track their equipment, incoming and outgoing, the maintenance for it all, their monthly requests for sustainment (e.g. food, fuel, etc), and their accounting for it all. I have built OmniFocus using some of your ideas and also the shortcuts you guys have developed to set it up, and it seems to work great for tracking my Brigade steady state items. However, I am trying to use it also for my personal tasks and I feel overwhelmed trying to do it this way. I listened to your podcast about the splitting work and home and bookends and wondered if the fire inspector worked something out. I too have the cross platform issue (Windows at Work, IOS for personal). My Windows is also a government issue computer so I can’t upload anything on it, download, or go to certain websites (e.g. can’t do OmniFocus on the Web). I am hoping to try the Analog thing you mentioned in place of digital apps. Replace OmniFocus with HipsterPDA version, Agenda with the “Army Green Notebook”, Replace Evernote/file app with a Zippered Binder with pocket tabs, and try to use the PARA method on all of this. Sorry, this seems like a dump, and a possible, but bottom line is that how can I setup Analog on this to make this work? I feel like I have so much in my “steady state”, on top of my boss coming in with his “good idea fairy” ideas out of the blue, and then activations for various things from wildfire support to civil unrest. Help! I feel like I am overdoing it with Digital and looking for how to scale it back
Manage new apps and tools
Hi Rose and Scotty! Fan of your work, so keep it going! My question is, obviously as you, I like to try new apps, but my problem is when I try new app I want to know all about it. It can destroy my workflow because I will end up with playing around with an app in several days, which I actually don't have any problem to solve with. For example setapp. Great service, but I use only few utilities from their catalog and feel like I'm not getting value out of this service. So leave them is not so difficult. But at the same time I like to try new apps and it's a lot to explore in their catalog. Do you have any advice how to stick with one app and get work done instead thinking or waste time on another application which have 1 feature you maybe need or maybe this app will take my productivity on another level?
Reference, Project Support, etc
Hey Scotty and Rose, I really enjoyed the two episodes about note taking. I don't have a specific questions right now except: Would you be interested in taking this a bit further into the world of reference tools and work flows? I struggle with having documents all over the place. My work is a big Microsoft (O365) shop, and until a year or so ago, most of my personal digital life has been on a PC but recently I've found myself shifting to Mac (iPhone, iPad, old iMac). Switched to OmniFocus 3, etc (which is great!) Just curious if this might be a good unnested folders topic. Thanks for your great work. Peter
Moving from autonomous/IC to management
I used to have a very autonomous individual contributor dev/dev advocate role and a few months ago moved to management. The switch has proved extremely overwhelming as the nature of the job is now radically different, even though I'm managing the team I used to be on. There are many more meetings, many more admin tasks, and a lot more overall chaos in my schedule. Do you have any advice on how to adapt systems for this kind of change? I'm not sure if Rose has ever made this change, but I know she's also gone between "indie" and "jobby job," which seems similar to experiences Scotty may have had moving to management. Thanks!
How about an "analogue diet"?
Hello Nested Folders Nestlers (or how shall I call you two?)- Thank you for this great podcast! I use GTD for my private and work life and, after some nervous breakdowns related to Todo software not working as I like, have turned to use a fully analogue system for my task lists and project list. I want to do this at least for a little while to stop fiddling with apps and concentrate on "doing" (wow, what a concept ;-) ). I was wondering if you two could entertain the thought to go fully analogue for a while, too? Do you think this is helpful to increase ones focus? Thank you and cheers, all the best, and stay safe! -Sebastian (Neuss, Germany)
spontaneous focus
First, thank you both so much for the wonderful podcast! I have several health issues, including ADHD, and I can't predict my energy and focus levels. I try to work around it by having several options available, but it makes it particularly difficult to do deep work since there's always something easier to do. What advice would you have for choosing to do deep, focused things when I can't plan ahead for them? Thank you so much, Judica
Time Planning tagging system
Hi Rose & Scotty, Using OmniFocus, my GTD practice is pretty by-the-book: projects for anything that requires more than two steps, reasonably traditional GTD contexts, etc. Over the last couple of years, however, I have been playing with time planning tags to overlay my more traditional GTD system. I'm not talking about time blocking but more specifically organizing your tasks by Today, This Week (broken down by days of the week), Next Week, This Month, Next Month, etc. I have seen many people set this up (Colter Reed, for example. https://youtu.be/MF5YAHoQMIM) but whenever I do, it just ends up being more work than it is worth and then I just ditch it. Where I run into difficulties is that I am constantly updating tags. For example, if I tag a task with @Home, it usually stays @Home, but if I also tag that task with @Monday or @This Month, it is additional work and maintenance to update those tags when the task doesn't happen on Monday or This Month. Yet the concept continues to appeal to me. I'm wondering what your thoughts are on organizing tasks in this manner? Thanks for the great podcast. Always enjoy the topics and discussion! Peter
Time tracking tasks
Hi I sent this to @NestedFolders and was asked to post here so 👇🏻👀 Hi hope life is good.I was going through your back episodes (As you do) and in episode 33 Rose 🌹 mentioned time tracking tasks 🤔 This is something I would really like to know more about and if it is something you both still do? I guess it's a Toggi/Timery thing? Or do you use anything else? Do you have any shortcuts you could share and how do you use it in your workflow? Obviously this is not a full episode worth but I think a bit on this subject might have some appeal. Anyway just a thought. As always all the very best Simon
Toxic Productivity
Hi Rose & Scotty, I've been thinking about what some people call toxic productivity. Recently, I got frustrated with my system and workflow again and did a complete productivity system detox. I started a rebuild from the ground up, only adding components I really needed. So far so good. I have a long history of fidgeting with my system, app-hopping, probably wasting time, etc. No system is perfect and at some point you simply have to decide: this is it, no more fiddling, accept what is and get on with it. So, at what point is that? What is the optimal point along that productivity spectrum that spans from no system at all on the one side and toxic productivity on the other side? Thanks for considering!! Peter
OmniFocus : How To Create Shortcut to Add Project and its Tasks
Good evening, I am not very experiment in developing shortcuts, but I would like to create a shortcut, that by asking me a few questions would create a project in OmniFocus as well the project tasks, for repetitive projects without regular schedule. Thanks Ricardo