During my OmniFocus trial period, I knew I had to do something about the look and feel of the Mac app. Out of the box, it's chaotic and not even remotely easy on the eyes. Fortunately, OmniGroup saw fit to make it pretty customizable. Here are the changes I recommend:

Install a theme

There are tons of OmniFocus themes out there. A great resource is at OmniFocus Themes, which has more themes than you could ever possibly use. The good news it that you only need one. I'm using one called Light Theme, which uses a combination of my favorite typeface ever, Helvetica Neue, and large type. Out of the changes I made, this is probably the most important one. Find a theme you love and stick with it.

Don't live in the Style preference pane. You will destroy hours of time, and gain nothing. Trust me. Find a theme you like and move on, quickly.

Hide the View Bar

I hate this bar. SHFT + CMD + V is your friend, and will rid you of this hideous bar. If you ever need it to create a fancy perspective, you can always show it quickly, then hide it when you're done. There's no need to look at it all day.

Clean up the toolbar

There are a lot of icons on the default OmniFocus toolbar that aren't really needed. Here are the icons I have on my toolbar:

• Inbox
• Projects
• Contexts
• Due
• Flagged
• Focus / Show All
• Next Actions (Custom perspective)
• Search

I removed the Inspector shortcut – CMD + SHFT + I is much, much faster for when you need to bring up the Inspector. Any time you can cut out the mouse / trackpad, you're increasing efficiency.

The Sync shortcut is also gone. By default, OmniFocus for Mac syncs once every hour. If I want to manually initiate a sync for some reason, CTRL + CMD + S does the trick, without the icon.

Set up your Perspectives

Group Actions By: Context

• Sort Actions By: Due
• Availability: Next Action
• Status: Any Status
• Duration: Any Duration

This is the only custom perspective that I currently have set up. Once I get more comfortable with how I use OmniFocus, I can imagine adding one more. I won't set up 5 or 10 custom perspectives though – that just adds too much complexity.

The entire purpose of this perspective is to make sure each and every project I have is moving forward. This perspective shows the next task from every single active project I have. That's it – just one task from each project. That way, even if I have no due dates or flags set for Project X, the next action is visible in this perspective.

Wrap up

That's about it. The interface still doesn't hold a candle to Things.app. I'm gradually accepting that, given the huge advantages that OmniFocus has over Things. These little tweaks did help make it more pleasant to use. Hopefully they give you a few ideas.

Perhaps by now you’ve seen the quick video I posted to twitter. In case you haven’t, take a quick look:

Your eyes haven’t gone bad; I did replace Things with OmniFocus. I, staunch supporter of Things, opposer of OmniFocus. I am now, officially, one of the Cool Kids. I even got my shirt in the mail.

Why the switch?

When I replaced my MacBook Pro with an iPad 2, the writing was pretty much on the wall. The first iPad app I purchased was Things, and the trouble began immediately. Don’t get me wrong – the Things iPad app is excellent. So is Things for Mac, and Things for iPhone. Individually they are all gorgeous, well-crafted apps that get the job done. However, keeping a Things database in sync between a Mac, iPhone, and iPad was at best frustrating, and at worst bordering on impossible. See, there’s that whole lack of OTA (over the air) sync thing. Turns out, it really is a Big Deal.

The Things Sync Dance

In the morning, I like to go over my tasks for the day on my iPad. Setting up the day, marking the important tasks, adding new tasks, rescheduling things, whatever. Now, my iPad doesn’t go with me when I go to work – that’s my iPhone’s job. The trick is getting my changes from the iPad all the way to my iPhone. The Things Sync Dance, as I’ve come to call it, goes something like this:

• Make changes on iPad
• Exit iPad app
• Re-open iPad app to initiate sync with Mac.¹
• Wait for Sync to complete.
• Exit iPad app.
• Open Things app on iPhone.
• Wait for it to sync.
• Go to work.

As you can imagine, this gets extremely tedious and annoying in a big hurry. And if I forget to perform the Sync Dance before leaving for the day? I’m left with a stale, out of date task list on my iPhone, with no fix until the evening.

Introducing a third device to keep in sync is the straw that broke the camel’s back. It’s just not reasonable to keep these three devices in sync all the time… and that means I can’t always trust my task list.

So, about two weeks ago, I bit the bullet and purchased both the OmniFocus iPad and iPhone apps. Sixty dollars gone, just like that. I ran with the trial Mac app, because that was another $80 for a system I really wasn’t sure about. After all, we all know how I felt about OmniFocus before.

Three Things

Your task management system should have three important qualities:

• It should be simple.
• It should help you get stuff done.
• It should be absolutely trustworthy. If you put something into the system, you need to be able to find it.

So, how does OmniFocus rate against these standards?

1. F. There is nothing simple about OmniFocus. The iPhone app is much simpler than the Mac OS app, and the iPad app simpler still… but the overall system is far from simple. It takes quite a bit of time investment to learn the app, which I’ve already begun to put it. I’m only scratching the surface at this point.

2. A+. With the high level of customization available, and especially the Next Actions perspective I set up, OmniFocus is great and telling you what you need to do.

3. A+. The seamless (and free, using Omnigroup’s server) OTA sync means you always have your most current task list with you. That’s true no matter which device you’re using, and no matter where you are. The same cannot be said for Things at all.

Notes

OmniFocus for Mac treats notes like a red headed step child. I have to hit an obscure keyboard shortcut to even see if there are any notes. When I click on a task that contains notes, they should expand automatically. I put the notes there for a reason, after all.

Rating the apps

It’s been said a hundred times that the iPad app is the best of the OmniFocus bunch. My goodness. It’s the best iOS app I’ve ever used. Period. It’s absolutely fantastic. The attention to detail that went into this app is mind blowing. The Review function is excellent, and Forecast is amazingly useful.

The iPhone app is very good, but not yet great. You aren’t able to create shortcuts to custom Perspectives on the main screen, and there’s no Forecast tool.² Supposedly this is in the works for the next major update.

The Mac app is… terrible. More specifically, it’s outdated. Clearly this app was designed in the distant past. It uses the Inspector, for crying out loud. Apparently that was a “thing” long before I ever started using a Mac, because I’d never heard of it. However, if you are willing to install a nice theme, play with the buttons, learn the keyboard shortcuts, and play nice with the Inspector… it’s usable. I purchased it, however unwillingly. I need to be able to capture tasks on my Mac quickly and easily.

Final Notes

Dishing out $140 for a brand new suite of task management apps is not my idea of a good time. I was happy with Things until the iPad ruined the experience. Waiting around for Cultured Code to finish developing Cloud Sync is not feasible, given their rate of development, which makes glaciers seem speedy.

Switching to OmniFocus solved this problem for me. Initially it was an extremely frustrating process, and I tried to learn the new apps quickly. Now that I have a simplified layout set up, and a great Next Actions Perspective… I am thoroughly enjoying the applications. The concept of Next Actions is something that Things doesn’t really do, despite containing a Next list. This Perspective helps me keep all of my many projects moving forward instead of being forgotten. In other words, it helps me get stuff done. That’s kinda the idea of this whole thing, isn’t it?

Social media. Social networking. Sharing. Buzzwords, the lot of them.

Apps have a way of progressing over time. Bugs are fixed, features are revised, features are added. This benefits everyone — who wouldn't want to use better software?

The problem is knowing when to stop. How do you know if you have enough features? When does your application go too far, do too much, and cease to resemble its original self?

Evernote

Take Evernote. I've been an Evernote user for as long as I've had an iPhone. My usage of it has changed over time (I no longer store text notes in Evernote; now I use Notational Velocity) — but it's been a great way for me to store different types of information.

Store information.

Storing information is what Evernote does. That's what it was designed to do. That's why it exists.

Sharing and Sharks

The latest version of Evernote for Windows has, as I like to say, jumped over a shark. (Yes, I know the correct saying is "jumped the shark," but my way is better.) Now you can share your Evernote notes on Twitter and Facebook.

Evernote was never designed to be "social." I don't store things in Evernote so I can share them with others — I store them for my reference. Things like clips of web pages to reference later. Receipts. Things that are for me, and not the world at large.

I can't help but think, what's next? Will Bank of America add sharing buttons? I can picture it now, you're looking at your bank statement online, and get prompted to "Share this purchase." Does anyone really care that I spend too much on Apple flavored products?

Sharing buttons have their place. Their place is not in Evernote. And I won't welcome them when they finally show up in the Mac version.

The written word is my preferred method of gathering information. I can read at my own pace, as fast or as slow as I want. If I'm interrupted, it's easy to pick up where I left off without missing a beat. Perhaps most important of all, I can skim. Not everything written is worth reading in detail, even if you closely monitor the sources you read from. Skimming lets me choose what gets my attention.

On Podcasts

While on Twitter today, Dave Caolo mentioned how backlogged he was with his podcast subscriptions. The screenshot showed a total of 425 unheard episodes – with who knows how many more lurking below. Even if each episode is very short, at an average of 10 minutes... that's over 70 hours of podcasts to listen to. That's nearly two weeks of full-time work.

Wow.

The real problem here is the inability to skim. A backlog of podcasts gives you just two choices – spend two full work weeks doing nothing but listening to podcasts, or choose what to read without really knowing what you're choosing. You can't skim through the podcast to see if it's worth your time. You are either in or out, based solely on the title.

Use the Subscribe button carefully

So there's a shiny new podcast out – great. Think for a moment before hitting subscribe. Are you sure you want to invest the time? You can't make a 10, 20, or 30 minute podcast speed up. You can't listen faster. It takes as long as it takes, and that's the way it is. It's a fairly inflexible demand on your time. You should take that seriously.

It's been 30 days since I began my stress-free experiment. Well, drastically-reduced-stress experiment. See, that doesn't really have the same ring to it though. I'm going to stick with stress-free.

Semantics aside, thirty days ago, I committed to drastically cutting stress for the upcoming month. Not under actual doctor's orders, since I despise actually going to the doctor... but rather self-imposed doctor's orders.

Whenever I would start to feel stress about anything – work, side projects, life in general... I would simply take a moment to breathe and relax. Worrying has never been the answer in the past, and it wouldn't be the answer this time. So, how did my little experiment go?

It worked brilliantly.

My Things Today list disappeared faster than ever day after day. Tasks were getting completed, for once, faster than I could add new ones. I was getting things done better than ever, but without the stress usually associated with work.

Don't get me wrong – I haven't been some sort of model of Zen behavior. I slipped up from time to time, and fell off the wagon. But I was committed and got back on, and found a better way to work. A better way to live.

For the average person, easily 75% of the stress you deal with on a daily basis is useless. Absolutely useless. Worse than that, it's self-inflicted. You are the one worrying. You are the one putting pressure on yourself. You.

Stop it.

Relax, get some work done, and don't worry about it. You'll be surprised how much you get done.

Imagine you're at the doctor's office, and he tells you that your blood pressure is out of control. He can prescribe some medicine, but making changes to your daily life is really the only way to get it back in line.

Specifically, you'll need to reduce your stress level drastically or die.

With this sort of ultimatum — reduce your stress or die — it's a pretty easy choice. No one want to go before his time, so you'll find a way to cut out stress.

Everyone should know this next bit already, though most of us act as though we don't. Even if your doctor hasn't told you, excessive stress is harming you. I say excessive because some stress is necessary, even good. Without any stress, you aren't likely to be bothered with going to work, or paying your bills.

Excessive stress, on the other hand, tires you out and drives your blood pressure through the roof. Since high blood pressure runs in my family, I need to be careful not to make it worse.

Starting this past Tuesday, February 8th, I've made a conscious goal to reduce stress. I'm going to give it a full 30 days, and see how things have changed. My goal will be to cut out all non-essential stress in my daily life.

My work will see the biggest change. I won't worry about pending deadlines. I won't worry that Project X is due Friday and needs a ton of work. I won't worry about stuff that doesn't matter.

I'm just going to work.

Project X will get done. Why? Because instead of worrying about it, I'll be busy working on it. The deadlines will be kept, because I'm working instead of freaking out. No problem has ever been solved by stressing about it. No situation has ever improved because someone stressed over it.

The only way to solve a problem is to solve it. The only way to ship Project X is to finish it. No amount of worrying and stressing is going to get it done any faster. So why, then, do we worry so?

Cut the stress. Stop worrying about what isn't yet done. Get to work instead.

Sitting on the couch relaxing with my wife recently, I made a comment that I often make: "What I would give for more time..."

Only this time I stopped, realizing the absurdity of what I was saying. Thinking out loud, I took it further.

"That's a stupid thing to say. There's nothing I have to trade that's as valuable as time."

Really, what is there? Even if you could bargain with God for more time, what would you offer? Time is absolutely precious. It's irreplaceable. It has no peer. Time is all that really matters. What are you doing with yours?

At work recently, I overheard two coworkers discussing their Android phones, and some of the issues that they're experiencing. Lady #1 complained of a constant stream of pop-ups that she was receiving. #2 said, oh you need a task killer to take care of that. She went on to explain that #1 had tons of apps running in the background. After rattling off a few task killers, she pauses, looks over at me, and says:

Rob which task killer do you use on your phone?

Slightly taken aback, I say "None. I have an iPhone, and all that stuff is automatic. I don't have to worry about any of that."

Automatic? Wow I've never heard of that.

A few moments of silence followed, so I decided to go for the kill. "Is the battery life as rough as I've heard?" #1 has a Sprint EVO, and I think we've all read the reviews.

Oh yea, I have to charge at least three times a day. Is yours about the same?

"I use mine all day, and charge it when I get home at night."

Popups. Task killers. Atrocious battery life. Since I opted for the iPhone instead of one of the dozens of Android handsets, I don't have to worry about such things. Sure, Android is (arguably) more open, whatever that means. Sure, I have to play by Apple's rules. Guess what? Apple's rules aren't half bad.

As time passes , the more I realize it's all that really matters. All this, just about everything I write here, it's all about time. Time is the one thing we can never get back once it's gone.

Getting rid of your extra stuff... reducing commitments, simplifying your life... these are all just means to an end. The end? Getting more time, of course. The excess in your life sucks up your time, and that time is gone forever.

One of the worst things you can do to me is waste my time.

When you waste my time, you're taking something very important from me. Something that once you've taken it, I can never get it back.

Maybe it's only ten minutes that you wasted. Maybe it seems inconsequential to you. Maybe it is. But what if every person I interact with today wastes ten minutes of my time? Ten minutes times... I don't know... 20 people... that's 200 minutes. Over three hours.

Time matters. Efficiency matters. Being respectful of others' time matters. A lot.

I place an incredibly high value on my time. I value every minute. Whether I choose to do something important, or I choose to sit silently for that minute, so be it. It's my minute to spend as I choose. But don't even think about taking that minute. It's mine.

As one of my favorite singers once said in a great song:

I don't wanna change the world; I don't want the world to change me.

— Ozzy Osbourne

I have no interest in changing the world. It would probably be a futile effort, in any case.

The things I write here are not for everyone. These words are for those few people thinking about changing... thinking about living a simpler life. Hopefully I can help point these folks in the right direction.

I don't expect mass movements based on anything I say, do, or write. America at large won't stop her gluttonous ways because I wish it... It just won't happen.

I'm okay with that. See, I don't want to change the world.

More importantly, I don't want the world to change me.

Sure, I don't fit in with the majority. I don't spend to excess. I don't have 3.2 SUV's, 11 kids, and a boat. I don't want any of that. Instead, I'm content to live my life the way I want. Not with too much, because it's the norm. Nor with too little, because it's trendy. I'll stick with just right.