Processing my OmniFocus inbox is critical for me, because I capture like a maniac, but because I am also easily distractible, processing the inbox can become hard for me, not because any single thing there is tough to deal with, but because it can be hard for me to stick with something long enough to get it done before I’m looking at the next thing.
This can quickly lead to overwhelm, which Rosemary Orchard and I discussed on episode 17 of our Nested Folders podcast.
To combat this, I’ve developed a workflow that I am finding super helpful for myself:
- Create a parallel project called Triage
- Move all actions from the inbox to Triage
- Use this perspective to process Triage:
Now, yes, I could use a sequential project to do this, but I like to be prescriptive about when I employ that, and there are times or moments when seeing the whole project is valuable (scanning the list) so one perspective to see just one thing at a time and then the plain project view (with all its actions being available, just in case) suits me very well.
