OmniFocus is amazing. It’s one of the most powerful task managers out there. It’s highly flexible and yet has a few constraints that force you to make smart decisions.

2Do is another great application. It has some great things that OmniFocus could learn from, and it could learn some things from it’s older brother at the OmniGroup.

Dang, that new redesign of Things3 is gorgeous. It’s not as powerful as OmniFocus, but it’s powerful enough for most people.

You shouldn’t be trying any of these applications.

But you’re saying “Oh Curtis, I’m currently using XXXX and the new version of Things will solve all my problems!!!!”

No the new version won’t solve any probelms. Things won’t solve your problems with overloaded tasks. Todoist won’t help. Going pull based with Personal Kanban and Trello will make no difference.

The only thing a new tool does in most cases is put some lipstick on the pig of your broken routines.

The problem is you. You take yourself to every single system you can try. Your broken processes around managing your productivity system are still broken no matter which tool you use.

I Stopped Using OmniFocus and it was a breath of fresh air

I’m sure you’ve read that title somewhere. It could be swapped with BaseCamp or Nozbe or Due or…any other task management application out there.

All those headlines are lies.

The only thing that changing to a new system did was give you the freedom to say goodbye to all the crap you’ve let build up in your system. It was too much work to move it, which means it was so low in priority that it should have been deleted from your task system a long, long time ago.

How to Manage your Personal Productivity System

There is only one thing you need to do to make almost any tool work for you. You need to manage it.

Sure, OmniFocus has the best review feature out there. It’s streamlined from whichever device you choose to use.

The only feature it doesn’t have is forcing you to put “review” time on your calendar so that you do the damn work of reviewing.

If you’re not touching every task on your list regularly, then you’re building up that cruft which you never want to deal with. That cruft is why you stop looking at your system and start looking over the fence at whomever has recently updated.

Stop that. Start reviewing your work. Start putting time on your calendar to touch your tasks and projects weekly so that you have a handle on what you need to do.

In the coming weeks, I’ll be detailing my exact process for doing all of this. We’re going to start next week with the 9 Key Constraints I use when I’m looking at changing tools.

But, don’t do what I do unless you’re going to start following the whole process needed to manage it as well. I don’t want to add lipstick to your ugly pig.

Have an awesome day!

Curtis

PS: If you’re tired of being overwhelmed by your business, get in touch with me and let’s get your time and tasks under control together. Build those processes you need.

Photo by: pasukaru76