Gushing over the new OmniFocus 4
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 19 ธ.ค. 2023
- You can't write in it and it isn't remotely for everyone, but the newly updated OmniFocus 4 is for writers. Buy this if you want to live... a more productive yet relaxed life.
Original mug and journal poster image by Shirley Tittermary on Unsplash:
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LINKS:
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OmniFocus 4: www.omnigroup.com/omnifocus
If you buy through my Amazon links, they may chuck me a penny or two. Or they won't. Either way, it will never cost you anything extra. - แนวปฏิบัติและการใช้ชีวิต
William, I've listened to your review and the task dragging from the + button was unknown. You are a phenomenal communicator. Awesome video!
Thank you, that's very good of you to say.
Brilliant! Thank you William 🙏🏼♥
Thanks.
Loved the review. Thanks!
Thank you, that's very good of you to say.
Awesome review - I was about to install a bunch of new apps - while I already own Omni - to organize my stuff and your review and samples make me realize Omnifocus is enough , thanks!
Excellent, I'm so pleased. Thanks.
Love your reviews - can listen to you reviewing stuff all day long :-)
Personally still on Todoist, but always good to hear these details in your inimitable style.
Todoist, Things 3, OmniFocus 4, they are the best, I think. Though I used to have a soft spot for Wunderlist, just because of the name.
Heh, Wunderlist is back now, as SuperList 🙂
Yes. Yes. Yes. Perfect timing, William. Wanting 2024 to be very literally productive, and organization seems to be key with me. Else I lapse into the boat-drifting-at-sea syndrome. Cheers.
Oh, do I know that feeling. Curiously, I just heard an interview with the developers in which they said they specifically wanted to get the new app out in time for people planning their next year.
@@WilliamGallagher Sorry for the follow-up question -- but I've a recollection of a video in which you demonstrated integrating project planning in OmniOutline with the powerful features of OmniFocus ... and of course I cannot find it. Would you mind pointing me there? (I'm so underutilizing my OmniOutline). Cheers.
@CherylFlinn Could it be this one? Plan where your writing is going
th-cam.com/video/s-l46JgONLc/w-d-xo.html I just did a search for “OmniOutliner” and was startled how many times it’s come up. I’m second thought, though, I’m not: it’s so much a part of so much that I do. Including the week after next’s 58keys which will again be about planning the next year.
Thanks!
Thank you
Hi William, I use Things 3 in my work as a Parish Clerk - think Frank Pickle in Dibley but without the bowtie. I love being able to bang in a new task on my iPhone when some daft old Councillor has 'an idea!' which needs thinking about. Or I spot a fallen headstone in the cemetery and need to check out ownership back at the ranch. I probably don't need the oomph of Omnifocus 4 but I'm glad you're stoked about it. And just FYI I use Scrivener to assemble turgid Council agendas and minutes as Scrivenings - perhaps thats a first for Scrivener? :-)
Those councillors and their ideas, what can you do?
Thanks for the video! Question - I'm really intrigued by the shortcuts you mentioned (adding check invoice in 30 days). Can you tell me or point me to where I can learn more about what and how you're doing that? Thanks!
OmniFocus supports both Shortcuts and a deliberately very basic and plain-text To Do format called TaskPaper. So in a Shortcut, I get the invoice number, I get today's date, and then have one text box with a line such as "Check invoice DRVnumber @due(todaydate +30d). Then OmniFocus has a Shortcut called "Add TaskPaper to Inbox". Or to any named project you like, so I have it add that text to a project called General Finances.
It's a shame TH-cam comments won't let me just show you. I am working on a Three Biscuit Guide to OmniFocus 4 which I'll make sure includes this. But in the meantime, you could read the Omni Group's guide to Taskpaper here: support.omnigroup.com/omnifocus-taskpaper-reference/
Hi William. Great video about the best app I’ve been using more than a decade. Changed my professional life. I have a question re your “first ten” perspective: do you manually limit the tasks to ten?
Thank you - and it was the same with me. As for the First Ten, yes. I don’t know a way to force a limit and I do sometimes let it run over, though it’s still most effective when I do keep it to ten. It’s a Perspective with items both tagged First Ten and due today. So I suppose that’s a little automation.
My schedule is very simple.
Wednesday, watch Gallagher.
I think I have mentioned we wrote about Becoming Unimportant and also did workshops in same...even gave certificates to participants which was ready for framing.
I would add a link, but then we know this would not post.
Now I have plenty of free time until next Wednesday. I will write.
Have a good holiday.
Hmm. I know your week is rather more involved than that. How else would you do books and distribute chocolate?
@@WilliamGallagher But I do know how to put the most important things first...I might watch Arrival with you on Christmas, or The Great Escape, or Oppenheimer. We'll see.
@tripley66 Arrival, always.
Perspectives are really cool in OmniFocus. Curious, though - what was that apparent javascript snippet appearing for a few seconds? I shall hit the rewind button and watch again.
It was the only slice of SwiftUI I could find to illustrate, er, SwiftUI. It isn't worth winding back for. But, man, Perspectives: how did I ever do anything without them?
Oh, darn, I've known the day would come I would be limited. OF requires macOS 13. I'll let my wife know I'm buying new machines. It's not my fault, OmniFocus made me do it.@@WilliamGallagher
Hi William unrelated question if I may. I have an older laptop, 2016 MacBook Air that I only use for writing. The last software update it could cope with was Monterey 12.7.2. I can’t afford to replace it but don’t want to run into software issues. Do I just turn off all updates and leave it be? Merry Christmas
Don’t give it a thought: MacBooks will not try to install a major update if your machine won’t take it. You will probably be being prompted for minor updates and I’d let those install: they will be security fixes and nothing that can cause software issues. I imagine you’ll also see updates for particular apps, but again you’ll only be prompted for those if your Mac can take it. That MacBook Air is a fine machine; I envy you that wedge shape.
If I ever made an app, I would hire you to sell it.
If you make an app, I’ll buy it.
And here I was expecting an app that controls a Boston Dynamics robo-dog that nips your heels whenever your focus shifts from the piece you're writing.
🤖🐕🎄
Challenge accepted!
Thanks William. I love to see enthusiasm like this, and it inspires me to investigate.
I’m struggling to appreciate the advantages that OF might give me compared to Things. What would you say they are?
It seemed to me that Things looked fantastic but I had to do more work to get it to do what I needed. Defer Dates, or Start Dates, they seemed clunkier. But I'll tell you the one that really surprises me: review. Things 3 is said to follow the Getting Things Done (GTD) methodology, but it doesn't even attempt one key part of that. OmniFocus periodically reminds me to go through all of my projects and review the lot. You can split it, so I have some projects that I review weekly, others yearly, but at some point you have to look at it. The idea is that this way you never lose.a task forever, you always catch it. And also you can spend some time getting everything straight in your head, then forget all of it and know for certain that OmniFocus has it.
Thank you so much for your considered reply.
Apologies for the unsolicited reply: I am a big user of the maildrop function on OF, just now your question promoted me to check if Things has a similar function. It does, but it comes with caveat, e.g. 50 emails max. per day. There's no such limit on OF
@sishengchriszhang1763 Really? I suppose 50 is a decent number but I’m surprised there’s a limit. Thank. And never apologise: it’s a treat to talk with you here.
What do you mean by "backbone"?
I don’t believe I used that word. What was the context? Could you mean the back button? That’s the only back I can find in the script but that doesn’t mean I didn’t say it.
@@WilliamGallagher You seem to have used the word 2-3 times, but "back button" seems so much more plausible that closed caption agreed with you when I went back.
Weird. 8)
I posted before a comment here by mistake, senior moment and own Omni products which I can recomend completely. Again sorry.
We’ve all done it. I’m just pleased TH-cam lets comments through: several times people have told me things vanish. Actually, it’s just happened to me: I’ve replied twice to someone here and TH-cam insists I haven’t. It’s messing with our heads.
My browser crashed after I'd written a bunch of things about OF4 , Todoist and my continuing struggle writing with partially numb hands and fingers. I'm battling both my keyboard and my mouse now. I haven't given up yet though. If the 3 of us aren't good friends in a couple weeks (30 days after buying the keyboard). I'll try a dumber, less sensitive keyboard and mouse. I find that if I get excited about something like for instance new software or some new hardware that actually helps make my life better when I write, that excitement translates into more keyboard errors than I've ever had in the past. So I need to stay more Zen when I write until I can type again without 10 zillion errors to fix.
I'm slightly loathe to suggest this since I love typing, but have you looked into dictation? It wouldn't solve the browser crashing business, but it might ease things for your hands. But I'm the same with excitement; for me it comes just occasionally when I'm writing fiction. Not often enough, but sometimes and I'm shaking as I get it all out of me and onto the page.
It's definitely worthwhile composing in Pages, etc, then copy/paste into the browser for actual posting. 👍
OmniFocus 3 was from 2018? How long did the development of Version 4 take?
I can understand if some users say that it is an OmniFocus 3.5 update.
You might think OmniGroup developed 4 in a world where there are no competitors like Things 3 or Todoist and as if they never received OmniFocus user requests. (Some developers don't want to accept user criticism?)
Why didn't they adopt the native language feature from Todoist? It's brilliant and once you get used to it, you don't want to miss it anymore.
Why didn't they take inspiration from the Things3 UI?
They won the Design Award 2017 for it!
People want features like this in 2024.
Version 4 looks too much like version 3, just a bit prettier.
Just look at the download charts in the store: Where are Things 3/ Todoist and how many ratings do they have?
And then compare it with OmniFocus.
I don't want to know how many users have already migrated from OF 2&3 to Things 3 or Todoist.
My recommendation to Omni:
Absolutely publish a roadmap for the next 12 months which features you will implement in OmniFocus 4 and in doing so OmniGroup must consider the users wishes and listen to their criticism!
You realise that Things 3 is seven years old, right? Things has unquestionably the best name and I think it’s design is fantastic. But it’s billed as a Getting Things Done app yet it has never offered the complete GTD method and I cannot fathom why. The best To Do app is the one that works for you, whether that’s one of these or just something like Reminders. And for me, OmniFocus is astoundingly great.
@@WilliamGallagher There is a suitable app for everyone. And the app that motivates you to stick with it is the right one.
In my opinion, those who can rate it best are those who use all 3 apps (Things & Todoist).
And they view OmniFocus' development a little more critically in comparison. I know that there are Things users who have wanted the attachments feature for years.
I believe that some key features are only developed by developers with a new version so that they have a special incentive for customers to buy. I can understand that.
OmniFocus 4 could have included so many small visual improvements. The Things 3 UI is 7 years old and superior to the 2023 OmniFocus 4. Sad or not?
Example:
A project in Things 3 is represented as a circle symbol; the more tasks I check off within this project, the more the circle fills up. So I can tell from the fill level of the project circle how much I have completed without going into the project.
Why didn't OmniFocus introduce such a simple and helpful design?
And that inspector on the Mac…old school.
With the OmniFocus design, in 2024 you will not attract students, pupils or adults who studied 5 years ago, etc., i.e. the customers of tomorrow and the day after.
A user wrote in a review video from OmniFocus that his suggestions at Omni fell on deaf ears and that they were probably too convinced that their path was the right one. A dangerous attitude if you ignore the development of the competition and the changing requirements of users. During the beta phase, how many ideas and suggestions did old OmniFocus users contribute and how many of them were implemented?
I will buy OmniFocus 4 because of the fair upgrade program for previous version 2 owners and just hope that more visual adjustments come in the next 12 months.
The OmniFocus 4 is so disappointing update.
The only reason I consider to have it is just one unique feature of „Review”. Beside that pretty much all of competitors is much faster to use, better designs UX wise with natural language support for dates end so on.
In Todoist you can write next month, in 30days or every month while you write the task.
Perspetives are not so important when you organize you tasks in any coherent manner.
I don’t follow you about dates and natural language parsing. I can tell OmniFocus 30d, 30 days, a month, next Thursday or many other combinations and it just figures out the date for me. I do follow you about organising tasks and I have a reasonably well done project collection, but I don’t want to be spending time organising, I want to be doing and Perspectives are fantastic when your work involves switching between hugely different projects for different clients.
You will lose credibility backing the unmotivated team of omnifocus. Do the right thing and move on
Credibility doesn’t mean agreeing with you. If you don’t happen to like OmnIFocus, move on, absolutely. I adore it and it’s been exactly the lifesaver I keep saying.