One of the things I wanted to make easier was how to build a new action in OmniFocus based on an existing action. If I’m in Forecast, for example, and am completing an action, maybe I want to make a new action in that project quickly and easily.
Category: Shortcuts
My Guided Weekly Review
I really really benefit from the review of my projects and actions weekly, but I find it so hard to do. With constant ideas about things I could chase, or looking at that next project or back to one I was at already, I find myself wanting to bounce around the review more than follow it, and this doesn’t have the best effects.
Preparing for a 1:1 Meeting
I’ve written before about a Boss Review Shortcut, a way to make it easier for me to prepare for meetings with my boss at work, but I have since expanded this to work with members of my team as well. I also had a great time discussing this with David Sparks and Rosemary Orchard on Automators episode 49.
Automating Emails With Data Jar
I don’t write code, and I don’t know how to script, but I really love the value of automation. This is why iOS Shortcuts is absolutely my jam. And I love that there is such an awesome growing ecosystem around it!
With Toolbox Pro, Launchcuts, Pushcut, and Shortcutify, one can really expand what iOS Shortcuts can do and how they are executed. I’m super cognizant, though, about what functions of this are “for me”, though, as an under-qualified nerd.
When I first heard about Data Jar, I didn’t really get it. It felt sort of like a Programmer’s Thing. Updating a Shortcut of mine that had a dictionary in it, though, it totally came to me, and I had an awesome time talking about it with David Sparks and Rosemary Orchard on Automators episode 49.
Continue readingCreating Better Structure: My Digital Bullet Journaling
Last year, I spent the time reading The Bullet Journal Method, by Ryder Carroll, and also wrote about digital bankruptcy with analog saving me.
While the principles of this are often a saving grace of augmented focus, I love the advantages of a digital system:
- I can search and refer back
- The right metadata surfaces the right things at the right time
- It is easily re-organized based on changing needs
Of course, aspects like metadata, information architectures, and infinite choice make digital systems complex and nuanced. I need something sustainable through simplicity, particularly to make sure I’m ready for change, like how Rosemary Orchard and I talked about on our Nested Folders podcast (and, more recently, on Automators episode 49).
Thinking of this, I embarked on a journey to digitally bullet journal. After a few iterations, I came up with a list of interoperating tools, which I think will prove a very effective stack.
Three Next Actions
On the Breaking Perfectionist Blocks episode of Nested Folders, Rosemary Orchard and I spitballed an idea to quickly generate a random list of three OmniFocus actions meeting a specific criteria (in our case, a tag).
Here is an iOS Shortcut that accomplishes exactly that. Enjoy!
Safari Reading List in Agenda
If you’re keen on having all the things in Agenda, I made a Shortcut called Agenda Clipper for storing Safari pages there.
It should ask for the project in Agenda to store clips, and then can be used from the Safari share function to create a note with the name of the webpage and, if any, selected content on the page.
Hope this is helpful!
Seeing OmniFocus Completions
There was a question on the OmniGroup Discourse Forums the other day about seeing completed items in OmniFocus, but just the last two days’ worth. While this can’t be done with Perspectives, it can be accomplished with the new Shortcuts integrations.
The Agenda Meeting Wrap-Up Shortcut
In the past, I have written about my Agenda and OmniFocus workflow. Today, I’m excited to share an update to my Shortcut.
Projects in OmniFocus and Agenda
On episode 12 of the Nested Folders podcast, Actions vs. Reference, I mentioned a shortcut to create projects in both Agenda and OmniFocus. This is awesome, because it allows me to have complementary and align organizational structures for both action/task management and reference material.