OmniFocus for the Holidays

It’s that magical time of year where I have to shovel my driveway four times in one weekend, but it’s so worthwhile, because I’m cozied up by the fire now while the outside is blanketed in beautiful snow that reflects the lights my neighbours have hung with care.

Also, there’s a bajillion things to do. How does one cope?

I thought that, for both my sanity and for the purposes of sharing, I’d break down my holiday construct in OmniFocus.

Now for our household, holidays means Christmas, but this kind of systemic thinking can, I’m sure, apply to any major holiday or event. I don’t mean to be exclusive if I refer to Christmas; I only refer to what I know.

For me, the first step is to break down my projects. I think it’s probably tempting to have a Christmas 2018 project, but I’ve found that to be inadequate - there’s just too many outcomes dancing in my head for one project to track. I have identified these projects for myself, and for each, I’ve included what that project tracks:

1. Christmas Decor for Home
   • Making room for seasonal decor and putting that out
   • Building/crafting new decor elements
   • Buying new decor elements
2. Christmas Dinner
   • Things to buy for hosting/serving
   • Turkey management (that’s a five day brine, yo)
   • Tracking Waiting On actions for pot luck participants
3. Christmas Gifts and Shopping
   • Leveraging my regular single action Gifts project
   • Things to buy and for whom
   • Actions to research ideas, prices, and vendors
   • Waiting For deliveries
4. Christmas Card
   • As we make our own, actions for photo shoot
   • Design and editing
   • Logistics

For better focus (ha) and organizing, I’ve got all of these projects lovingly nestled all snug in a custom perspective like so:

The actual path for these projects is living inside my Personal folder as, though I considered a Christmas folder, my folder structure is pretty sacred territory (read: I like to keep my number of folders to a minimum). Grouping together in a folder instead of using a perspective might be just what you need, though. I think the key is being able to see all these projects and actions thematically together.

Now, I am equipped and ready to face this season. All my actions are organized, and can use the regular Tags of my system to be presented to me in other appropriate lists (like Waiting On/For lists or To Buy lists or Errands lists).

All my actions. All many of them. Better get to work.