042: Love Letter to OmniFocus ❤️

Anyway, so I don't know about you, but in Southern California, it is definitely starting to feel like summer. It's not summer yet. Well, I think as the seasons ago, you're correct. Isn't that still like a couple days away?

Hey, Siri, how many days still summer? You still got 10 days. Okay, so yeah, we have 10 days, but it's like in the mid-90s, so in my book, it's summer. Well, you live in the desert still, yep.

And up here it gets to the mid-80s. Whenever it's the mid-90s there, we just are 10 degrees cooler. So it warmed up like this last week, definitely. And we had a little wildfire scare pop up right next to us.

So in the dry season, it's always like, oh man, fire's just scary. And it's hot out. And for us, it just means going to the beach more. So we don't really mind the warm weather.

It's kind of a celebration for us. I can understand that. And I really couldn't complain if I was supposed to the beaches you do. So yeah, I mean, bring on summer in that case.

So yeah, it's definitely getting warm. Summer. You got to find a pool. I'm sure there are pools around you.

Does the place you're at now have a pool? So the house does not have a pool, but it's one of the places where there's like an HOA pool, you know, so there's like the community pool. So I can definitely hit that up. Oh, yeah, like all the time.

I have barbecues there. You know, rent out one of the little club houses that they have. Yeah, man, it's great. You should just be living there on your days off.

You're mobile anyway. You shove everything in your backpack and you can walk right over there. I'm sure you got, you know, some hotspot data thing going on. Like you could do all your stuff over there.

Yeah, it's not that fancy. There's no clubhouse, but I can say that, you know, it's nice. And despite the children running around, it's fairly civil most of the time. So that's nice.

But yeah, it's the one really nice perk. I guess I have it at my community pool air quotes here is there is showers. So like after you actually go in the chlorine filled pool, you can shower off, which is really, really nice before you go, you know, drive home immediately. So I really...

We're supposed to do it before you get in the pool and then again after you get out of the pool. What's the point in showering off before you get in the pool? Is there logic to that? You know, your grossness off.

No one wants to like marinate in your grossness in the pool. That's a courtesy for the pool. Like we don't want your body oil and whatever, you know, body lotion and stuff that you have just like lingering on your body. We don't want that.

It clogs up the filters. But yeah, once you pre-wash, just like pre-soaking your dishes, man. So you pre-wash and then you get in the actual pool and then you, you know, wash again afterwards to get all the chlorine off your skin. Okay.

I learned something today. So... When we used to do swim in high school, that's what we had to do. It was just always, you know, procedure.

You shower before you got in the pool, you get in the pool and you, you know, do your swim and then you shower again when you got out of the pool. You learn something new today that you're spreading your body filth all over the place when you get in the pool without showering. Yeah, Lou doesn't find his way in pools very often though. So I feel like I haven't broken this world too often.

So, okay. I know you don't like the beach very much, right? Is that a fair statement? I know you've said you go to the beach, but you're not like a fan of the beach.

Yeah. I mean, like I'll go to the beach, but I really don't find myself at the beach often. And when I'm there, I'm more a fan of like the being at the beach, but not being in the water kind of thing. So, you know, like, if I'm at the beach, and I think Adam, you know, this might go from playing volleyball in college.

And so like I would love to just, you know, like, Hey, let's hang out and play beach volleyball or, you know, let's go for a hike or walk along the beach or something like that. But I don't really want to be in the water, if that makes sense. And I'm definitely not all about that tanning thing. That's not really me.

Well, yeah. To some degree, pools and, you know, tanning kind of go along as well. So, you know, yeah, I'm not a big fan of that. So I don't really want to just sit there.

But I mean, I do find pool time sometimes nice if the temperature is right, it's definitely nice and direct place to like plow through some podcasts. So I'll definitely do that at a pool. As far as like getting in the pool, yeah, I mean, I'll get in it for a few minutes and kind of cool off quote unquote, but it's, it's not a place that I just like go and I'm like, Oh, I want to spend my afternoon at the pool. It's, I don't know, doesn't, doesn't really appeal to me.

I mean, you've talked about me being like a person of utility. You know, the utility of a pool is to cool off. And so, you know, I go to the pool. It's not just to get exercise to have fun is to enjoy yourself.

You guys where you're like 50 years old already, you know, you're younger than me and you're already like 50. Well, I've been told this like all my life like when I was 15, people were telling me I was like 35 to 40. So, you know, I think it's just scaling. Yeah.

Enjoy yourself, man. Yoda, you only live once as the young kids would say. Thank you for reminding me what the young kids say as you're older than me. I love it.

Anyway, so the other thing that came up or I was like thinking about this today is that net neutrality is like officially gone. The day we're recording today is like net neutrality is done so. And so I think I should say like with a little caveat here though, because like there are a couple of states that have repealed this or, you know, kind of put in like state laws that say, you know, no, this is not a thing. Currently the state we're in isn't one of those.

So this is kind of a bummer. But, you know, I think this is one of those things that Adam's going to just say like, hopefully you just use a VPN to get around this, right? Well, I mean, the whole scare of net neutrality is gone. It's like, well, we just went back to the old method where the Internet service providers weren't as regulated or didn't have as much oversight as they did in the past, or they didn't the last couple years, right?

So I guess the thing is like, the VPN is not going to solve anything for you here, you know, most of the cases where it's like, hey, you know, you use a VPN, you'd find out that they were slowing you down, right? And if you weren't, they weren't slowing you down or there were a bunch of different cases where it's sad because yes, the some regulation that we did have on Internet service providers is now gone. But there's two ways to look at it. One is like, oh my gosh, like it's dead.

It's never coming back, you know, and yes, it is very difficult, especially when you have an oversight committee that is very much controlled by the party in power at the moment. We just need more legislation on it, right? So unless you can actually get a lot of written for this, it's always going to be like this. It'll flop back if, you know, the other, you know, the other, a different party is elected, you know, next, next round.

And it's, it's always going back and forth. So is it scary? Well, right now, not really, you know, we'll see what happens. But at some point, there will be enough people, you know, rigging, you know, alarms about this.

And I think it's been a topic that a lot of people have discussed. So I think it's still fresh on a fair number of people's minds. And the more you talk about it, the more you bring awareness to it, you know, the more exposure is going to have. And if you tell people like, hey, if you care about this, you know, write your state legislature, you know, like, support, you know, candidates that also support net neutrality and bits are bits.

That's my whole thing, right? I don't want to get into a whole soapbox around here, but bits should be bits. They shouldn't, you know, be prioritized or slowed down and they should just be treated as bits. And I think, you know, carriers have an obligation to just serve the same bits to everybody.

And in no way should perform alter the delivery of those bits to set individuals. So that's my opinion. And I've made sure that cast my ballot for people who also support that ideal. Yeah, I think for the most part, you pretty much summed up what I was going to say.

And I'm of the same boat. I'm pretty sure most people intimately connected to tech in a way, you know, kind of we are the, they're going to share a pretty similar view as us. So anyway, we should move on to a little bit of follow-up here. So you have picked my episodes for this month and we should put in here a little bit of back around that this was the month where I was negating one movie at the, you know, option of, hey, I have to watch three episodes of Hoarders, right?

Yeah, so in lieu of Lou's movie for the month, you like what I did there? Just came up with that. Ha ha, very cute. Yep, there we go.

So in lieu of the movie that you would need to watch this month, yes, we gave you a pass and said, hey, you don't have to watch Snatch, which was the movie. You get to watch three episodes of Hoarders because I've definitely made fun of you or poked fun at you for a fair, fair, but a time now that you are a digital hoarder where you just continue to hold on to things like when password logins, like files, just on the off chance of where your justification is. Well, someday I might need it. And everything that you said, just reminded me of an episode of Hoarders.

So hey, here's three episodes that I picked, handpicked from the large variety of Hoarders episodes to kind of share with you. So if anyone is a die-hard Hoarders fan or wants to follow along with what you're going to watch, it is Episode 32, Episode 74, and Episode 79 are the ones you have to watch. And like I mentioned, last time, these aren't all going to be gross hoarding episodes. One of them definitely is, but not all of them are.

Some are just going to be, you know, just getting an idea of what the disease is, you know, because it is a serious mental disease where, you know, people have this inability to let go of things. So it's going to be kind of like spreading the gamut, like intro to Hoarders, like ultimate level Hoarders, where it's like harming your body, you know, because of all the filth. And then this is probably what you're doing with all your digital data Hoarders, you know, which I think is the last episode that you'll get to. I am looking forward to finally having you watch some episodes of Hoarders, and then hopefully just we'll have follow up in two weeks where it's like, Hey, Luke did a mass exodus cleaning of all of his, you know, data hard drives, external hard drives and, you know, his home folder got cleaned out.

So that's my, that's my wish. So like all delete, is that where we're going for here? Well, see, and you'll learn this from the episode. It's not just like getting rid of all of it.

Once you actually actually go through the process of getting rid of it, like you have to make a conscious decision to get rid of it. Because if you just command a delete everything, you're not fixing the problem, right? Because it was just, you know, a massive brand new collection of things and you'll be right back where you were in six months. So it's actually looking as like, do I need this?

Is this really important? Is this something that I need to have with me? And am I okay with actually letting this get deleted? So you'll go through the process.

Once you watch the episode, you'll understand, and I'm hoping that you'll schedule an omnifocus project for cleaning out your hard drives. So a little like real time following going into this. I have a terabyte hard drive in my computer, and I have 290 gigs of it used. So I don't really feel like I'm digital hoarding as it is now, but we'll see, we'll see.

We're more talking about your media folder. And your one password vault, which seems to take a lot of physical space, but it's a lot of things, a lot of things you probably don't need. Yeah, so I should insert here just a little story about the one password vault. So I was going through and changing some of the websites in my one password vault because they were letting you know that they weren't HTTPS now that one password seven like alerts you of that.

And so I was like, okay, cool, I'm changing around changing around. I'm just verifying that they're actually still like valid websites and links to websites. And I definitely found like three or four services that I had signed up for. They're not even in service anymore.

So I thought you would enjoy that. Yep, there it is. That's what I'm talking about. Anyway, alright, so let's move on.

One last thing I want to say in follow up was we got a little fancy last week or I should say I got a little fancy and we actually changed some chapter art. And so if you are on a podcast player that supports the chapter art being changed as you go through the podcast itself, you'll notice that there's a picture of each of the bags that we talked about while we're talking about it. But one interesting thing I learned this week is that chapter art is not supported with JPEG pictures. It's supported with PNGs, but not JPEG, which seems a little odd to me.

But that's the only thing I can come up with because of six backpacks I put chapter art in for. Five of them were PNGs and one was JPEG. And the only one that didn't come through was the JPEG one. So I'll mop it up as a lesson learned and, you know, for future chapter art, everything will be in PNG.

Nice. We're learning here. We're learning. You know, this is the reason it's called syntax there after all, right?

I censored myself, but I shouldn't. We don't know what the fuck we're doing. Pretty much, pretty much. Anyway, all right.

So with that said, this week was totally your pick at them. So I kind of am curious what made you pick this topic and I'll let you kind of briefly introduce it. Yeah. So this week, it's a topic I wanted to talk about for a long time and one that we touched on a couple of different times, but we never really like delved, you know, super in depth is productivity.

And I was waiting and holding off on doing this until Omni Focus 3 for the Mac was coming out. And since it wasn't coming out soonish, I figure, hey, you know, Omni Focus 3 for, you know, iPhone iPad is here. Let's, you know, might as well do this productivity episode because I definitely have a passion for Omni Focus as we'll find out. And I figure, hey, while this is fresh in my mind, let's talk about it because I love task managers.

I don't know why it's just one of the things that I really enjoy doing, which is weird. And I'm looking back at that now and it does sound weird, but I love task managers. So I figured, hey, let's talk about productivity. And while I patiently wait for Omni Focus 3, let's talk about what we do with task management and productivity apps.

Very cool. So, and I did here this week that you are on Omni Focus 3 for iOS now. So that is a set and stone thing, correct? Yeah.

So definitely, as soon as Omni Focus 3 got released, like out of beta, out of the test light, I was like, yep, done, installed, migrating everything over to Omni Focus again. Awesome. Very cool. All right.

So we've, like you said, we've kind of talked a little bit of task management before, but I guess, I would first say that before we dive too deep into this, I'm also an Omni Focus user and this is something that I should say, you know, I had before Omni Focus used several other apps and we'll kind of dive into those in a little bit here. But, you know, like a lot of things, you know, Adam taught me the ways with Omni Focus. And really, I think the big thing you did for me, Adam, was you taught me how to think about my tasks and sort of a task management system or methodology. And so, you know, the first question here in the outline is, you know, do you subscribe to methodology?

And I'm going to say that, you know, sort of, I kind of do. I never really read a book or anything, but I kind of tried to follow the right path. But are you a little bit rigid with your methodology in terms of how you, you know, organize and sort your Omni Focus database? So, there's a couple of ways you can go about this.

And I'm going to answer that question with a really long, long-winded explanation, which is going to be boring, but hey, just deal with it. Is you going to be really rigid with your task system where you're like, hey, you know, this is the methodology, this is exactly how I'm going to follow it. I'm going to do exactly what this says and follow step by step. But I have to say that what you need to do is make something that's good for you, right, that fits you.

So, what I do is I subscribe to the Getting Things Done methodology. I always forget the name of the guy who kind of founded this, but it basically falls into three basic categories where you just collect all of the things you need to do, you organize those things, and then you do those things. And that's very simple, right? You can kind of mold that however you want, but each phase has its own meaning and its own purpose, and there are apps that kind of will mold that into their workflows where it's like you have a collect phase where it's like, hey, you just collect whatever you can, and then you have an organized phase where you organize everything and then you have a do phase where you do everything.

So I have to say that I subscribe to the GTD methodology, but I'm not like religious in the sense where I follow every step of it like it's, you know, gospel. I will bend the rules when I need to, and I will kind of just make it my own, so. All right. Well, that was actually fairly concise.

I am fully like, snap back and said, hey, I'm ready to listen for a little bit there. I didn't want to go too far into it. I was like, there's already more than me saying, I subscribe to the GTD methodology, but I'm not that rigid about it. I put some justification behind it, but yeah, I mean, same thing.

I'm not going to talk to you at your offer 10 minutes about productivity. Otherwise, we'll just be known as the podcast I put people to sleep. Yeah, well, you know, I was ready to be a market for that though. Here, listen to Adam explain the ins and outs of GTD.

The night we're going to talk about task methodologies and first phase collection in next week. Oh my God, so creepy, so creepy. I'm just trying out that you, Mike. Seeing how close I can get to it without being super awkward.

All right. So, yeah, I mean, my education with GTD and, you know, to a degree, I follow GTD as well, but I mean, what I learned was from you, mainly. So, you know, you explained when when trying to get my head wrapped around on the focus and how you do what you do with it. I was like, hey, bring it up into it, organize that stuff, accomplish that stuff.

And, you know, for the most part is what I still follow. Yeah, that's it. It's the best thing. Three easy steps.

Yeah. And so it works out fairly well. I have to admit, I'm better at it with work, if that makes sense, like work stuff than home stuff. And so I just, I don't know why I also have to be careful not to put, I guess, I would say small things in there and we'll go over that a little bit more.

Well, yeah. So you say that it's easier to put work stuff in there or you're better with work stuff because you have more work stuff to do, right? Your personal life is pretty straightforward. If I, you know, can project a little bit is, I mean, you're not married.

You don't have kids. You don't have, you know, a house. You don't have all these things. It's like you're, you know, your single personal life is, I know you're not single, but you're not married.

So your personal life is pretty straightforward. And, you know, not a lot of people's life is the same way. But I think, you know, you kind of have your life on cruise control at the moment. And we've talked about this too.

You know, it's like, hey, you know, the most I'm going to put in here is like maybe personal development stuff I want to work on. But at work, you're much more apt to probably have like, oh, you know, I have to get this project done by this time, or I have to do this, or I have to remind myself to do that. And the great thing about task managers is, like you said, the brain dump is getting it out of your head because the last thing you want to do when you go home is have to think about something at work. And it's like, oh, I got to remind myself to do this or I have to remember tomorrow when I go in to do this.

And that's the whole reason these things exist. So when I'm preaching, you know, task managers, my whole thing is like, hey, all the stuff that you, you know, having your head, stuff that you think you want to do, get rid of it. Like you shouldn't have that. It should just be like, hey, it's in my head.

I put in my task manager. Boom, done. Forget about it. Move on with your life.

And, you know, that's a very liberating kind of ideal or ideology for a lot of people is like, hey, I can, you know, just put it here and then deal with it later. So I think, like you said, it's easier with work because you just have more things to do with work, right? You have your life on lockdown. You know, it's like you can handle that, but work, you know, can get out of hand sometimes.

And that's when these things really become helpful. Yeah, that's totally true. And I mean, you can see in my database that you have actually showed somebody my database. My home life is pretty interesting because there's only like three sub contacts to home.

And so, or sub tags, I guess, is the correct term now. And so, yeah, and there is a girlfriend sub tag. So that is in there, but it really rarely gets used. The home stuff is much more backseat, but I'm kind of curious.

What do you all put in your task manager? Like what is the kind of stuff you're dumping in there on a daily basis? So essentially what I dump in is everything that's not a bookmark to a web page, like a read it later type service that stays out of on me focus or shopping list items, things like grocery lists and anything that's just kind of like really quick, but everything else like chores, you know, stuff I have for work, projects that I wanted to do for like personal stuff, like I want to build a retro pie at one point, which is a Raspberry Pi, you know, with an OS to run, you know, emulators. So all that stuff goes in on me focus.

The only thing that doesn't, it's much easier to list off of things that don't is just my grocery list and what was the other thing I mentioned. And just really small items like things like take out the trash. You know, those don't go in my only focus. There's no point.

But anything else that's going to require more than two minutes of work is going to go in on me focus. Yeah, I think for the most part, I follow a similar idea. Occasionally, if I have a lot to get done though, I'll just open like notes as a scratch pad. If I'm doing something like all is the same day, you know, like I'm just going to sit down and I need to bang out like 10 things and it's all going to be at the desk and I'm just, you know, you know, working on these five or 10 things.

I'll just open notes and create a little checklist for me and just do it that way because it's way easier than, especially if I'm going to tackle it like right now, you know, it's, there's no point in me putting it in on me focus to tackle it. You know, it's like I don't need to put it in, sort it, and then mark it off as I do it. I'm just going to do it, you know what I mean? Yeah, and this is kind of the beauty of a task management system is like I mentioned, it's the collection phase is just when you're out about like, oh, I need to do this, right?

And that's when you collect that information and put it down. You talk about the brain dump, which is like the first thing you do when you're like, you're going to set up an omnifocus or something like a task management. It's like you want to get everything out of your head into there as quick as you can, but after that you're just like, it's not a full fire hose. It's just, you know, drip, drip, drip, you know, as things, you know, kind of come into your head, you put them in the task manager, but I can totally understand, you know, it's like, yeah, you're not going to put something in a task management system to then immediately start doing it and then check it off.

Like that's just, I don't know. That's kind of like stroking your own ego in a way, or unless you really, really get satisfaction out of, you know, putting something in and like checking it off at the checkmark, but like you said, notes is a perfectly reasonable way to do that. And if it's something you know you're going to be getting done and you don't need to defer and you don't need to put it off, the only thing I would say is like, if you have a bunch of stuff that may bleed into other days, that's when I'll put something in omnifocus. But I'm kind of in the same boat, like, yeah, if there's something quick, then I'll just write it down in a note or usually I won't need to because it's quick and I can just do it right then and there.

Yeah, that totally makes sense. And that, to a degree, is my own fault because a lot of times those sort of things I know I need to do ahead of time, but I didn't put them in omnifocus. And to your point, you know, if you're going to sit down and do it right now, there's no point in putting an omnifocus, but if you're going to do it on another day, you know, it probably should be an omnifocus and I probably knew a day or two ahead of time, hey, I need to do that. And so it should have been an omnifocus.

But sometimes I, you know, for whatever reason, I didn't bring up it and I just sit down at the desk and I, you know, all right, go on and make a quick list. So I could be better, I guess, I say, and with that, I guess I digress. But I guess my next question is something of a point of contention, I think in the GTD community in general, which is the use of flags. So is that something you use at all, Adam?

So I mentioned before, like, there's so many ways that you can skin this cat. There are so many ways that you can. This is a tool that you can use to do whatever you want. So I do use flags and the way that I use flags are as I'm going through review.

And I know there are some things that I need to either schedule for the week or, you know, go through, as I'm going through review, I'm usually going through it pretty quick. I like to do, like, a cursory, just, like, triage of all the projects and just make sure everything's okay. But then if there's something I want to schedule for the week or I need to, you know, like look in a little more detail later, I'll flag those items. So the only thing I use flags for is just a temporary, you know, holding place almost without giving them, like, a context or a flag or a project.

I use that almost as, like, a separate place from the inbox. Like, hey, I already know it's in a project, but I know I need to take some form of action on this, like, give it another due date or, you know, add some, you know, things to it, or I need to flesh out this idea. Those are when I'll use flags. So I do use flags, but they're seldom used and they're temporary.

They're not a permanent thing. Something is only flags for however long it takes me to go in there and flesh out the idea. And after that, it's unflagged. Okay.

That's interesting. So yeah, I don't, this is where we differ. I don't use flags at all. I don't think I've ever flagged anything.

I'm not sure I really have a reason to, but I'm also somebody that is a little harder about due dates, which I think is something we may be different on. And so when I set a due date, I definitely complete it. And I'm much more commonly will set a due date for something maybe as I actually put it in army focus. And I will often defer it though.

So stuff is usually deferred with a due date set roughly when I actually am going to do it. And every once and a while, I'll put something in and I won't even put a due date just to defer date and so that it comes up. But that sort of workflow or mindset is something that causes me to not really use flags much at all. So just a difference of thought, I think.

So for you, Adam, do you subscribe to hard due dates or setting due dates as you put stuff in? Due dates, the only time I put something with a due date is if it actually needs to be done on that date or by that date. So due dates are kind of the hard and fast rules. Like, hey, if this is not done by the state, shit will hit the fan.

And anything else is deferred. So I'll just hide it from the project view until I want to take action on it. So I don't really set due dates except for things that are time sensitive, things that are actually due on a certain date. Because you mentioned, you know, all defer these dates or I'll go in there and add a week to a due date.

I view that it's just kicking a can down the road and I'd much rather not have a date where it's like, hey, you need to do it by the state. And then when it approaches that date, oh my God, jeez, I haven't gotten this done. It's just kind of like a feeling of defeat. And that's not like a source of encouragement for using the task management.

So I'm like, hey, I'll defer it. And then it'll appear. I'm like, oh, cool. I can take action on this, you know, or oh, no, actually, you know what, I have a lot of stuff going on.

So I can defer this and I can come back up in my, my task list a little bit later. This is very much like the whole snooze button for me in email where it's like, hey, I'll defer something. So I don't have a visible and then it will pop back up at hopefully a better time for me to take action on. But the due dates, like I said, it has to be a dire or a hard set date for me to use those.

You know, this is one reason I love having some of these conversations is because while I, you know, have always done this the way I do it, you know, I understand the logic of why you do it. And, you know, maybe this will rub off. I mean, I'll try it and see if that works for me and maybe it'll be more successful. Maybe it won't be.

I don't know. But, you know, getting these perspectives is sometimes really, really, really helpful. And so I'm a hard due date person. Pretty much doesn't matter what it is.

It's got a due date. But that's really interesting to hear your perspective on. So anyway, one of the other things that I think is, it comes up a lot with OmniFocus is how you choose what sits in your inbox. And so just speaking for myself, when I do that brain dump into the inbox, something remains in the inbox until it has a project and a context assigned to it.

Not a due date, not a deferred date or any of that. It just has to have a project and a context assigned to it that drops out of the inbox. But I know with OmniFocus you can control when it drops out of the inbox. So I was kind of curious for you.

Are you the same in that way that it needs to have that project in context? Or is there something different for you that removes it from the inbox itself? Yeah. So mine is, I only require it to have a project to remove from the inbox because context or tags as they're going now is something you can add at another time.

And a lot of times when I'm triaging an inbox, it's just like, hey, I know this belongs to this project. And I find tags and context useful when you need to go into a project that's been fully fleshed out. That's when I find context great, right? And tags like how cool, like show me all the things that I need to do with, you know, Alex with my wife.

And then I can have it all done. But for something to get out of my inbox because I like to live the inbox zero lifestyle, I want as little friction as possible to get something out. I'll only say like, hey, it just has to have a project. And once it's put into a project, usually then because the projects all get reviewed on the review date, if there's something in there without a context or a tag, I'll go in there and add it if it's appropriate.

But I only require an item attached to have a project to get it out of the inbox. Okay. That's fair. I mean, I can understand the lie there.

You must then, with some regularity, review your OmniFocus and actually comb through it. You've mentioned that a few times that you're looking through it with some, you know, regularity and moving stuff around and assigning, you know, due dates sometimes. So do you have some sort of schedule? Because that's something I don't really do.

Because of the way I use it, I set a due date and I set a context to the project. And I'm done. You know, I close OmniFocus and that's it. It's done and it's taken care of.

I may, if I'm in the process of brain dumping, like just, you know, be sitting in the inbox and just brain dumping for 10 minutes. But then I, you know, start triaging that like on the fly while I'm in there. And I sign all those things so that I get back to inbox zero and everything's done. But I don't, that forces me into a, you know, weird area where I'm not really actively reviewing the actual database.

Is that one more time? So my question is, do you review your database with some, with some frequency? Like do you have a weekly interval or a monthly interval you're looking through your database on? Do you just set stuff as active or on pause or do?

Well, careful, careful. Don't go too long. You know, otherwise, Scott's going to have a hard time keeping up like this last time. So yeah, they got to pace yourself here.

The concise is the key. So the question is, do I review? Yes, absolutely. So when I mentioned before, like, things only need a project to get out of the inbox.

And then when I review them, I go through another date because my whole goal, especially getting stuff into my focus, like, hey, get it out of the inbox and into another, you know, sorting area as quick as possible. And if it's something that needs to be dealt with right then and there or something that is time sensitive, add that information, but otherwise come back to it when you have time. Because that's the key is like when you have time. So for reviews, I actually schedule a chunk of time for myself every couple weeks, every month.

Some projects will be, you know, more than others. But usually I have a time where it's like, hey, this is my time to review what I have. In-task management, see if there's anything that I can take action on right away. See if there's anything that I want to move around.

See if there's anything that I want to move around. See if there's anything that I want to kind of give more tasks to you or kind of flesh out a little bit more. But usually that's, you know, every two weeks on a Friday. Usually I was like, hey, you know what, I'm going to go get breakfast.

I'm going to take my computer with me. And I'm going to spend just like two hours, you know, listening to podcasts and going through and triaging all of my tasks. Now two hours sounds like overkill. And for me, it probably is because I probably finished in like half hour 45 minutes, but I block out the two hours of time and say I'm not available at this time because I'm going to spend this time doing my kind of clean up in my review of my tasks.

And the reason I do that is because like, hey, as I'm looking through things, I might add things. I might move things around. I might assign some, you know, some defer dates and say like, hey, I actually want to, you know, do this next week or I might say, hey, you know what, this is actually really important now. It needs to be done.

So you mentioned that you kind of start flushing these out as you're entering them. I'm very much like get it out of my head and I'll work with it as I need to. So when I put it in Omni focus, it's really, this is the task and these are the things I know about it at this given moment. And after that, it leaves my head.

So I don't fill in the rest of the details until that review time. So the review is super important for me because it gives me a chance to kind of complete the process of giving something like structure with a project and flags and contacts and tags and everything. And also kind of allows me to, like I said, reprioritize because if I'm not reprioritizing, like everything's in there and I'm just going to be kicking the can down the road all the time whenever a due date pops up. But if I'm reviewing, I can look at just all of my projects on the whole and say like, hey, cool, I have this going on, this going on, this going on.

I actually need to like readjust what I'm doing. Or hey, this month I really want to work on this so I can reprioritize it as I need to. So it just gives me like a nice chunk of time to reflect and like adjust, right? Because otherwise when you're, what I find is when your task management is too rigid, that's when you just feel like you're hurting yourself at a time or you feel like you're so behind, right?

You're like, oh my gosh, I have so many things to do and just not have time to do it. And that's not a place I want to be. I would much rather be like, cool, like this is malleable. Like I can adjust this and hold this to how my month is going or how my week is going.

So the review is super important for me. Yeah, that's cool. It really sounds like it gives you a time to like reflect and course correct, which is, I guess I would say it seems like it would be very valuable. Yeah, man.

Otherwise it's just like any other task manager. It's like it's reminders. It's got due dates and it's got things. It's like, okay, fine, but it's there.

But the beauty of Omnifocus is you can set projects to review on like every two months, every two weeks, you know, every week. So a lot of times that's what I'll do is I have this time scheduled out every two weeks, but some projects I review every four months, you know, so things like finances, stuff like that. Like those projects, I don't, I don't review them all the time. Otherwise, like, it's like, okay, cool.

It's, you know, it's time to review this project again. Nothing's new and I just mark it as reviewed. But if I say, hey, remind me in three months or four months, it's like, oh, yeah. Definitely things have changed.

There's definitely things that I need to, you know, put in here. But like I said, it depends on the project of how often I review it. But every two weeks is when I have that dedicated time to do it. Okay.

Very cool. So one of the more power user features of Omnifocus is custom perspectives. And if I'm not mistaken, this is behind an extra paywall for Omnifocus. What do I call it?

Pro, Adam? Yeah. So you need to have pro to have custom perspectives. But I put this in here because I'm curious if you use any custom perspectives.

So by default, you get things like the inbox and projects and contacts in a forecast. But do you have any like custom perspectives that you use or have you used this at all? Yeah. So I do use this.

And one could argue I could use just the nearby feature to probably do exactly what I am doing. Because basically what I do is I use a shared database for both home and work. And so I have custom perspectives for home and work. And so it allows me to just kind of block the two out and not have to see all the projects and contacts and things that are associated with the other when I'm only at home or only at work.

And so like I said, you could argue, why don't you just use nearby? I mean, if you're using nearby and you sign, you know, the address to home and the address to work, you're pretty well, you know, got that figured out. But it's just nice to sometimes I am at home and I need to add something to the work and I can just jump in perspective itself and, you know, bring it up real quick or vice versa. I'm not working.

I think, oh crap, I need to do that from home. So I use it primarily for that. I teetered with for a little while. Some other ones like like at my Mac or, you know, like a little bit weirder off shoots, I guess I would say.

But I just kind of found myself rooted back with home and work. Gotcha. Yeah. The only customer perspective I use is I just have it today, which is purely just today items.

The forecast is great, but it has all the calendar and things like that, which I know you can turn off. But the forecast usually gives me a week, but I do want to see some things that are just due today. So I have a custom perspective for just today, which is everything that is due or was deferred until today. So that's the only customer perspective that I have.

I've had others for like, oh, you know, if I, you know, put this text anywhere in here, then it appears in this customer perspective, you know, things that need super or super sensitive in time or in their, just in their nature, but I don't, I don't use customer perspectives too much, but I like the ability of having that power, that flexibility. So it's something I'll probably get into more as I go along, but I don't use them as much as I could. Oh, one thing I wanted to touch on though is you mentioned, you know, like, you know, separate out my work and home. And if you remember, this was the whole reason I went off of Omni Focus and into things was I didn't want, you know, my home and work life mixing in Omni Focus.

Like I never want to see those two things together. And it's the same now. So I have a separate Omni Focus database for, for home and I have one for work and that gets working at times, especially when you're using devices, you know, that you carry with you and you take to work and you want to record things. So I do have a convoluted setup of how to get things into the particular database that they need to go into.

But yeah, man, I never want to mix working home. Like I never want to see them in the same thing. So if I was ever reviewing, like I don't want to see work stuff if I'm at home, like I have a separate home review time and a separate work review time. And the home review time is much more lenient is more like, Hey, I'm at the computer.

I have my coffee, like I'm going to review my stuff and Omni Focus. But yeah, the whole work versus home thing, work versus personal. I'm, I want those things so far apart. Like I don't want them ever touching each other.

Yeah, that totally makes sense. I mean, and that's kind of why I've set up what I've got. And, you know, I have even entertained the option of going to two different databases and some sort of rigmarole of like sign out, sign in and, you know, re-download the database and all that jazz. And for right now custom perspective is sort of solving that for me.

And that's why I haven't. And so, you know, I think one of the coolest parts of Omni Focus and one piece I think that, you know, in some ways might be kind of cool if the Omni Group did was to sort of, if users are okay with it, divulge some of how other people organize their database. Because I think one of the hardest parts about getting started was something like this. For most people, it seems approachability wise, tough.

I mean, there's kind of a, you know, they try to make it easier with Omni Focus 3, I think, to approach it. But it is, it seems like a lot to digest. If you, if this is like the first time you're hearing about Omni Focus, you're like, whoa, eyes glazed over. And so, you know, seeing someone's contacts or their, their, you know, projects and, you know, maybe a little backstory of like, you know, hey, Joe is in, you know, whatever field, like, you know, business and he does sales for a pharmaceutical company.

This is an example of like, Joe's projects for home and Joe's projects for work or whatever. It's like, it's kind of cool to see how people organize their stuff because I think that's where you really start to get ideas. And it took a lot of me getting sold on it was bouncing ideas off of you and being like, okay, how do you handle this? Or how do you do this?

And that's where it became really approachable for me. So I think it would be really cool if they did something like that in the future. Yeah. So they definitely have the starter project that they give you, which is like, hey, you know, do this and this just shows you the ins and outs.

Right. I can, I can see some benefits to like having, let's say, a home renovation project or like a moving project right or some form of example, just to kind of get, like I said, give you ideas or something to draw inspiration from. Because I want to say that there's a fine line you need to walk between like here, let me hold your hand and show you exactly how to use the app and exactly how you should do things and say like, hey, this is a tool for however you want to work, whatever you want to do, however you want to, you know, make this fit your lifestyle and workflow, you can do. So I'm, I'm leery to say like, hey, you know, add all this stuff in here.

I had this Uber tutorial method mode or add all these example projects in context because a lot of things is like, Hey, you know what? This tool is meant to work for you and you can do whatever you want with it. So just do whatever feels comfortable. It feels natural, right?

And you kind of just change that and it evolves as you continue using the task manager. And they show you all the basic features. And as long as you know what those are, you know how you can apply those to your lifestyle and your workflow. So yeah, I agree.

It can be intimidating at times. But that's why I say like, Hey, there's three things. There's all the stuff that you need to collect. There's all the stuff that you need to organize and there's all stuff you need to do.

And when you break it down to those things like cool, you put everything in the inbox, cool. You go to the projects to sort it all out and then cool. You go to review or your forecast to do everything. Then that's it.

That's all you need to know. So I like keeping it simple because it allows people to set up their own task management system, not rip off whatever Adam has. I'm just kidding. I don't mind if you draw inspiration from my task management.

Yeah, no, it's cool. I mean, I just think there are a lot of really power users that are out there and just kind of drawing some inspiration from them is kind of fun. I mean, I understand that we all are going to use it in our own unique way. And so it's all unique snowflakes, Lou.

You have to remember this. That seems like a reference. Okay. Yeah, we're all unique snowflakes and it's good to be different and use it in your own way.

I think how someone else does it is kind of cool. So anyway, so you kind of alluded to this already. You've had a past with task management apps. And so what task managers have you used in the past?

And obviously you've recently gone away from things, but have you used any others? And what were sort of your 30 second takes on each of them that you've used? 30 seconds on each one. We're going to be here for a long time.

You know, I actually haven't used that many task managers, at least serious task management. I've used things like Clear, if you remember that app for iPhone, where it's just a very simple, you know, checklist app. I've used, I can't even remember a lot of the ones that I've used because I jumped on Omnifocus too, I believe. And once I was on Omnifocus, that was kind of the end for me.

And most recently, like I said, I switched to Things just because I was looking at getting some task management for Alex, my wife, and Omnifocus, like I said, is a little power user heavy. So things was a little more approachable for her. So that's when I was also, you know, dealing with the two different databases for personal and work life. So I started using Things for my personal life.

And Things is a very pretty app. It's very nice. It takes everything that we've talked about and really kind of holds your hand through it, where I talk about, you know, one of the reasons I wanted a custom perspective of today is because I really, really like the today view and things. I think that's a great way to basically surface like, hey, here's the things you can do today.

And it's a low number or something that's very achievable. It's something that I really like and that I brought over to Omnifocus using a custom perspective. But Things was very focused on text navigation and, or sorry, like point and click on the Mac. I know like global shortcut for me to add tags, right?

Have to set like an individual shortcut for each tag that I want to add to multiple items. So I just found that the power user features of editing multiple items and keyboard navigation was just a little bit more convoluted in things, which I hear on iOS got a full blown makeover and their keyboard navigation in iOS is like freaking awesome. So I'm kind of like, okay, well, maybe I should take a look at the iOS version again and the iPad version and see if I can dig into that. But I mean, in terms of full blown task managers where I've poured all of my heart and soul, and all of my brain into these things, I've only really used Omnifocus since Omnifocus version 2 and things.

So I haven't gone too crazy. All right. Well, I guess I would say as far as task management goes, I'm fairly similar. So I started with Omnifocus 2 as well because I started after you and I've used things before as well.

I sort of fell off the bandwagon with it. It wasn't for me. I've used Clear as well. And the other one that comes to mind is Do.

And I really like Do. Do is D-U-E. And the only reason I like Do is it was sort of great for sort of the low bar reminders that I would say are the sort of thing that's like take out the trash, you know? That's a great like use to do, which isn't exactly task management at that point.

It kind of definitely borders the more reminders side of things. But the one feature that I really, really like would do was just the repeated reminder that it would give you. So Do was like really famous for like being able to nag you. So you could tell it, you know, hey, like send me a notification every five minutes until I mark this off.

And you know, when it comes to something like trash is like, oh, okay, you know, like on this, when trash has got to go out, start at nine o'clock and send me a reminder every five minutes until my butt actually gets up and does it. That was kind of cool. Would do that. That definitely kind of motivated me because I would get annoyed by seeing notifications and I would go do something rather than be like, oh, cool.

I'll get that done in a few minutes and then forget about it and Friday morning I wake up and I'm like, damn it, I didn't do that. You know? So Do was kind of a great place. Of course, I've used reminders on iOS, but that is a really, really low bar for anything task management wise.

I mean, you can create different lists, but yeah, it's definitely a big void between that and on the focus. So the one thing I'll say for reminders is it's great for shared shopping lists. And I think the integration with, you know, Apple's digital assistant, right? So if I say, hey, Siri, add milk to the shopping list, like it's gone.

Okay. I don't have a shopping list, apparently. But hey, Siri, add milk to the grocery list. All right, there we go.

So I think just the integration with the digital assistant was the best thing for reminders and the fact that I can, you know, share a common list with, you know, my family with family sharing was awesome. So like I said, all the little things, the things like take out the trash or chores for your friends or grocery lists or shopping lists or whatever it is, it's easy to open to reminders just because I can do so without ever really opening the app. And then the only time I ever need to open the app is when we go to the grocery store to actually buy everything. And the argument could be made like, hey, OmniFocus supports, you know, add things with Siri or add things with Insert name of digital assistant here.

But there's something about not cluttering your OmniFocus with little things. And that's what reminders is good for. It's kind of like that of the little holding bin for stuff that you don't want to or you don't need to put into something like OmniFocus. Yeah, I totally agree with that.

So everybody, if you're going to, you know, tackle something like OmniFocus or things, you need some sort of secondary day-to-day reminders app that can kind of hold the simple things and those repeated tasks that are kind of more common on a weekly basis, but don't deserve the right to be in the premium task management system. Well, is there anything else you want to add? Adam, this is sort of your show. So before we wrap this episode up.

This show will be forever known as my love letter to OmniFocus. And I'm sorry, I left OmniFocus. I went to, you know, things for a little bit and then thought I could make it work, but lo and behold, when you guys come up with a new version of something, it just brought me right back. So I'm trying to think of some cliche Taylor Swift song that probably has this exact storyline in it, but I can't remember what it is.

So I don't know. I think we could, you know, this was a lot of letter to OmniFocus, but you can apply all of these concepts to pretty much any task management system that kind of takes inspiration from the GT methodology of task collection and task management. Like you can pretty much, you know, just sub OmniFocus for your Apple choice. And it will probably have a feature that's equivalent to what we talked about today.

So OmniFocus, I love you and not as much as, you know, like my family and my kids and my wife, but you're definitely my favorite application on my device. So thank you for doing what you do. I think wherever Ken Case is right now, he's smiling. And for those of you who don't know who Ken Case is, he's the CEO of the OmniGroup.

Yep, follow him on Twitter. He's always releasing tidbits of information. Yeah, he's a pretty cool dude because he is probably one of a few CEOs out there that, you know, really kind of started in the weeds in the sense that like he definitely codes and does a lot of hard work over the years in the weeds and then has, you know, risen to be a CEO of his own little company. So that's cool.

But yeah, very cool. I'm happy we got to do this episode for you, Adam. It's for me. It's all for me, Lou.

It's all for me. Full circle, man. See that? That's called the full circle.

Yep. Yep. Anyway, so in a bit of wrap up, I see you want to know my beard progress, huh? Yeah, I forgot about it last week.

And I realized two weeks is even better to get a beard progress update. It's there. So it's getting longer. I would say I can like fully grasp the hair on the chin now.

So it sticks pictures pictures or it didn't happen. I need I need photographic evidence. Please. I will hold on the line and keep everyone entertained while you send me.

I don't even have to keep people entertained. You can cuddle this out anyway. The beauty of editing and post. But yes, I want to see your Lou face with a Lou goatee.

Yeah, I can. The hair on the chin is definitely getting longer. And you can you'll see in this picture that it's been a few days since I've shaved the hair on the sides. The hair on the sides of the cheeks and stuff is actually a little furry there too.

But so it needs a little cleaning up right now. But and I've had to you know, trim it a little bit just you know, it's already going into the mouth and stuff. So you know, you got to kind of keep it controlled. It's right.

You got to start taming that beard. Oh, funny. It's funny because I debated shaving mine just the other day. I was like, maybe I'll shave the beard because it's getting warm.

You know, like you said, summer is here. Well, summer is 10 days away. But I thought about shaving mine, but then I decided against it. And whenever I think about shaving mine, I just shave it really close.

And I'll trim it really close. And I'm like, oh, guys, this is close enough. Close enough to actually shaving. But so you're past the itchy phase and everything, right?

Yeah, for the most part. And to be honest, like I saw you, I ended up using some beer oil and that really did help just giving it like combed in. And tomorrow, but I'm definitely past the itchy phase. And to some degree, I've definitely thought about shaving it like I don't know that I'm going to keep it on forever.

But it is something that like I'll probably let it go another week or two at least. And then I may consider the option of shaving it because. Man, you got to keep it. It looks good.

Yeah. It's not as much as it gets further along. But I definitely want to run with it for like a solid month, which I think I'm like three weeks in now. So at least a month, like a bare minimum.

I'm not shaving before that, but we'll see. Oh, we forgot the most important question. What does Hillary think of it? Oh, she hates it.

She hates when there's even like two days of scruff. So yeah, she hates it. No. But that's okay.

She doesn't really have a choice in that. Well, yeah, you say that now. But you'll, I don't know, just make sure that she's comfortable with you. I guess having it.

That's sad. And Hillary, come on. This is my my my ask to you. Just let him have let him have this thing.

Let him have the goatee. It looks good. He looks, he looks like he's 50 now. Oh, yeah, I got, I got to match the 50.

Yeah. I don't want to be a, I feel like if I turned out to be 50, I'm going to be like, like, where's the creeper van? Where's the creeper van? Oh, no.

No, yeah. If you listen to casual dads, like Phil is convinced that, you know, if I shave, that I would look like the creeper van guy. So he says I have to keep my beard to avoid that status, which whatever. But I don't know, man.

I stand by my original comments. It's like, look at my facial hair. I think you should keep the facial hair. I think I think you're good, man.

Just, yeah. Keep the, uh, keep the stuff shaved. Like don't let it get too scruffy or at least define the scruff. So you've got the long parts and then the scruff parts, but, uh, the neck beard, you got to stay away from the neck beard.

Yeah. The neck beard is never going to be a thing. I definitely am one of those shavers that I'm like, oh, you know, I guess I'll shave today because it's been like four days. So, and then I should have had it and then, you know, kind of clean it up.

It stays tidy then and then back to life, you know, and four or five days later. Oh, it's long again. And for instance, we're feet. That's what I do.

Yeah. I'm the same way. All right. I'll just set an army focus to remind me and we're sorry, defer up here in two weeks to check again.

Yeah, definitely. It's, uh, see that blue. That's called the full circle. Full circle.

Uh, I can't wait until you go through a review of this. This will be funny. Hey, with a magic of editing, I can do a lot if I want to do it. That's true.

Leave the exit is that and then do the end. Did it deliver yet? Yeah, man. It's there.

I'm looking at the bacon. There's a good picture with you and Hillary with the facial hair. You got to get the facial hair. Why is there a salad here?

What? That was the Caesar salad. Yeah, I don't care about a salad. Like forget the salad.

All right. So there's a rib and then there's your freezer full of meat.