Here is why I keep coming back to OmniFocus. It forces me to simplify and once I've done so I am much more productive. OmniFocus Pro 2.0.2 is at the top of its class. Unless you’ve really got to have that AppleScript support, the basic version is sure to serve you well. If $40 still seems a bit dear for a task.
OmniFocus is the personal task management tool that helps you keep track of all the goals, plans, errands, and aspirations that come up in your life. Now in a universal version you can use on any device with iOS 9, OmniFocus 2 for iOS is even better at helping keep you on top of everything you need to do throughout your day.
Available on your iPad, iPhone, and Apple Watch (through the OmniFocus for Apple Watch extension), OmniFocus for iOS is packed full of tools to help you prioritize steps within complex projects or simply jot a quick to-do list for a weekly meeting. OmniFocus works great as a standalone productivity aid or in conjunction with whatever time and task-management scheme suits your personal style.
Note OmniFocus for iOS (the subject of this manual) is available on the App Store, and works on all of your iOS devices as well as your Apple Watch (through the OmniFocus for Apple Watch extension).
OmniFocus for Mac is available both on the Mac App Store and directly from The Omni Group.
OmniFocus for iOS is the mobile counterpart to OmniFocus for Mac, and works seamlessly to bring all the power and versatility of the OmniFocus system to your fingertips. It uses the newest iOS and Apple hardware updates to help you get things done when it's most sensible, convenient, and efficient to do them.
For a video tour of the features of OmniFocus, check out:
How This Documentation is Organized
This manual that you have before you (online, in iBooks on your Mac or iOS device, or both) has been assembled in such a way that you’re provided with a complete tour of OmniFocus.
We designed this book to help both new and experienced OmniFocus users hit the ground running with the latest version of OmniFocus for your mobile devices. The chapters that follow explain the layout of the app, and then delve into the various perspectives that help you get a handle on the panorama of tasks that fill your day. The manual finishes with ways you can get even more out of OmniFocus, diving inward to the details of scheduling and enriching your tasks, and branching outward to the wide world of interactions OmniFocus has with other apps and platforms you use.
To help guide you through the documentation and better learn all the things you need to know about OmniFocus, here’s a list of all of the chapters in this book:
Chapter 1,Getting Synced
Before you start using OmniFocus in earnest it's a good idea to set up a sync account, and this chapter explains how. Even if you only have OmniFocus on one iOS device, syncing is a great way to keep a second copy of your data handy — and if you're running OmniFocus in multiple places, syncing keeps you up to date no matter where you are.
Chapters 2-4, Guided Tour (iPad, iPhone, iPhone 6/6s Plus)
After you're all synced up, it's time to start exploring OmniFocus. The Guided Tour chapter for your particular device is the place to earn your OmniFocus navigator's license, acting as your guide from the home screen to the contextual menus throughout the app — a great jumping-off point for further adventures in productivity.
Chapter 5,Collecting with the Inbox
The Inbox is the indispensable first point of entry for notes, goals, tasks, and aspirations that come up throughout your day. Whether you're just starting with OmniFocus or a seasoned veteran, adding to, then working through the items in your Inbox is a great way to get started.
Chapter 6,Planning with Projects
When a task has multiple moving parts, steps that need completing, or a scope more complex than a one-off shopping trip, organizing multiple simple actions into a project can help you handle even the most daunting of challenges. This chapter covers the various types of projects and how they can be used to most effectively aid your productivity.
Chapter 7,Organizing with Contexts
Setting a context for a person, place, or thing needed to move a task along helps you track and complete otherwise unrelated actions when it's most convenient. This chapter delves into the concept of contexts, and shows how OmniFocus can be location-aware with alerts to remind you when you're near a nexus of potential activity.
Chapter 8,Looking Ahead with Forecast
If you use OmniFocus for time-sensitive projects, the Forecast perspective is your friend. This chapter helps you ground your OmniFocus experience among everything else happening in a busy week, and guides you through integration of your external Calendars with OmniFocus.
Chapter 9,Prioritizing with Flags
The Flagged perspective offers another way to mark important projects and actions. By design the exact meaning of 'flagged' isn't defined, so you can use it for whatever you like — and this chapter explains how flagging items works.
Chapter 10,Taking Action Nearby
If you've set up location information for a context, the Nearby perspective provides a look at the context — and its associated actions — based on physical proximity. This chapter describes how to use the Map and List views to get stuff done, geographically.
Chapter 11,Updating Project Status with Review
After you've been using OmniFocus for awhile you may find that you've accumulated a daunting list of tasks. This chapter helps you set up regular reviews of your work in progress to keep the most important projects on track.
Chapter 12,Working with Perspectives
There's a whole lot you can do with the default perspectives included with OmniFocus. With custom perspectives, views on your projects and contexts become infinite — this chapter delves into the ways you can use the OmniFocus Pro upgrade to customize OmniFocus to suit your exact needs.
Chapter 13,Using Notes and Attachments
Adding custom data to actions and projects is a great way to ensure they fully and accurately describe your goals. This chapter helps make sure your vision is realized through attached images, sounds, and text.
Chapter 14,Using Dates and Times
OmniFocus is all about things you need to do in the gaps between events scheduled on your calendar. How you express when projects and actions become available for work, are due, and (possibly) recur is important, and this chapter dives into the details of how OmniFocus items can be grounded in time.
Chapter 15,OmniFocus Extended
While it works great as a standalone app on your device, OmniFocus can be so much more. This chapter describes how you can integrate OmniFocus into your broader workflow, working with email, Siri, the Calendar app, iOS 9 extensions, and more.
Chapter 16,OmniFocus Settings
This chapter describes the various configuration options available in OmniFocus Settings.
Chapter 17,Glossary
This chapter provides an alphabetical list of terminology associated with OmniFocus. If you see a word used in this manual that you can't puzzle out, it's (hopefully) included here.
Chapter 18,Keyboard Shortcuts
If you're using OmniFocus for iOS with an external keyboard connected to your device, you can take advantage of the app's built-in keyboard shortcuts. This chapter provides a list of the available shortcuts based on where you are and what you're doing in OmniFocus.
Chapter 19,Getting Help
Finally, if there's something OmniFocus-related you're having trouble with — anything at all — this chapter contains resources for finding a solution.
Using This Book
One of the beauties of having OmniFocus's documentation available in electronic form is that it's always available whenever you need it. We have put all of the documentation on our website where it can be searched and bookmarked. We're also continuing to create EPUB versions of the documentation that are freely available on the iBooks Store.
What's New in OmniFocus 2.9 for iOS
OmniFocus 2.9 for iOS introduces keyboard shortcuts for use with Bluetooth or other keyboards connected to any iPad with OmniFocus. Press and hold the Command key on your keyboard to view a list of shortcuts applicable to your current location in the app.
In addition to the keyboard shortcuts new in version 2.9, recent OmniFocus updates include several other features that take advantage of new technologies in iOS 9. On devices that support it, 3D touch is available from the OmniFocus app icon on the iOS home screen — you can launch straight into the perspective most important to you, or begin creating a new inbox item right away.
OmniFocus items — including contexts, folders, and perspectives — are also now discoverable through the updated Spotlight Search function (drag down on the center of the iOS home screen to reveal it), and if you're using OmniFocus on a device that supports it, you can take advantage of Split View to multitask like never before.
We've also updated the OmniFocus for Apple Watch extension to run natively on the brand-new watchOS 2 (a free update with iOS 9). What this means is more view flexibility, more customization, and last but not least — the addition of an OmniFocus complication that you can add to your Apple Watch face to get an even more convenient summary of your day.
If you're new to OmniFocus for Apple Watch, or would like a more detailed look at the updated features for watchOS 2, we've prepared this support article on the Omni website just for you.
Note One additional change in iOS 9 that affects OmniFocus is the behavior of Reminders Capture. Siri's capabilities have been expanded, but the access OmniFocus is granted to them has not. You won't lose anything by capturing with Siri — we're committed to full preservation of your data — but if you use Siri to capture reminders into OmniFocus you'll want to check the Reminders Capture section of the manual for more information.
Making the Transition
If you've been using an earlier version of OmniFocus or have OmniFocus on another device, getting up to speed with OmniFocus for iOS is a breeze.
Migrating your Database
Syncing OmniFocus 2 for iOS to your existing OmniFocus database in the cloud is the recommended method for migrating from other versions, including earlier versions of OmniFocus for iOS. It provides a straightforward pathway for keeping your data up to date, and keeps all versions of OmniFocus playing nicely together if you're running the app on multiple devices.
Tip Confused about the sync setup process? Check out Getting Synced for a refresher.
While it's not recommended, if you choose not to sync the first time you launch the app you'll have the option set up sync later from the in-app Settings; remember that any changes you make locally can't be merged with your remote database, so setting up sync when you first open OmniFocus is the best way to be sure your data is preserved.
Interface Improvements in OmniFocus 2
If you're completely new to OmniFocus 2, you might want to take a few minutes to get up to speed with recent improvements to the interface that we've adopted across the OmniFocus family to make the apps even more powerful and easy to use.
Summary Dots — These handy bits represent an overview of the amount and priority of items within a project or context, giving you an at-a-glance estimate of the size and urgency of things relative to other things.
Status Circles — Checkboxes for marking items complete have been replaced by status circles. Still great for checking things off when they're finished, status circles also convey the status of an item at a glance: whether it's due soon (amber), overdue (red), or flagged (orange). Repeating items are also distinct by virtue of the elipses in their center – when you see them, you know they'll keep coming back for more.
Got an action that’s more than one status, like flagged and overdue? The circle will take on multiple status colors simultaneously—half orange on top, half red on bottom—to communicate everything that's going on. Likewise, an item that's nested inside a flagged project or group will inherit the flagged property; when a flag is inherited, its icon is hollow rather than filled.
Secret Bar — Drag down on the sidebar or home screen to reveal the secret bar, where the Sync, Settings, and Search buttons are safely tucked away.
Toggle between lists of all available perspectives and just your favorite ones (and with the Pro upgrade installed, you'll create new perspectives and edit the tiled layout of your home screen here, too).
Changing Terminology
To help better represent their function, a few things have changed about how OmniFocus 2 describes certain features of the app.
Start dates are now defer dates. This is to more accurately capture the intent that an item shouldn't be considered until a later time—it's been deferred.
Next actions are now first available actions. This helps explain view options more clearly, and helps further disambiguate sequential projects, parallel projects, and single action lists.
Project and Context-based perspectives have become Use Project Hierarchy and Don't Use Project Hierarchy, respectively. This is to better reflect the role this choice plays in affecting other aspects of a custom perspective's view settings.
Since the act of “focusing” has such a specific meaning in OmniFocus, the Focus command in contextual menus has been replaced with the more accurate Go To Project and Go to Context. Its functionality remains the same.
Note On iPad or iPhone 6/6s Plus (in landscape orientation), if you've delved in to view a subset of your items in the Project or Context perspectives (perhaps via Go to Project or Go to Context), you can quickly ascend to the perspective's top level by tapping its name in the toolbar or sidebar header.
First thing that made me think whether OmniFocus is good or not, was that it’s Apple only credo, that they follow for so long. You can only get OmniFocus on iOS and OS X. While this keeps it limited for anyone who isn’t totally under Apple umbrella, it has it’s own advantages.
Since I basically migrated from Evernote, I have some major complaints about Omnifocus, but also I have major kudos as well. Omnifocus is a near perfect task manager, especially for “GTD” practitioners. Omnifocus is a robust database, but it has great features. I will review all three parts of this state of the art software.
Desktop Client: This is the weakest link in the OmniFocus chain. The desktop application seems great for capturing information and web clipping, but learning how to use it efficiently has it’s own learning curve. You have to give it some effort, prior to utilizing it properly. What I found amazing, and great, is that some guy wrote a widget for OS X Dashboard that lets you clip with ease. I am using dashboard frequently, so I find it awesome.
One of the power user tips I recommend is to actually save your Omnifocus backups in your Dropbox folder, so you have your OmniFocus database with you, even in case you aren’t near your computer. OmniFocus backups can be quite big, as they add up through time, so you should watch out on that. Cookie 5 7 5 – protect your online privacy violations. The Asian Efficiency guys are having a neat trick, with the use of additional program that is basically a maid for your OS X, deleting unnecessary files.
iPad client: This is the area where you can see how much effort Omni Group is putting into their new products. So far, I know that the development of the new desktop client has been stalled in order to finish up and brush the iPad application. It is truly amazing, and worth the money. I bought it by accident. I wasn’t ready to pay 40$ to get it, but once it already happened, I was totally cool with it. I didn’t have a choice, but I was happy with it.
It has a SLICK design, which is following the Apple philosophy of simplicity, and intuitiveness. Seems that anyone who is following Apple design guidelines when it comes down to app creation, is having massive success. And Omni Group made a hit with this product. And I assume quite a bunch of money, while adding value respectively.
I found one tiny bug. It won’t show your calendar events in Forecasts on iPad. I will try reinstalling the application, and see if it’s only happening on my end, or it’s indeed a bug.
iPhone client: My all time favorite, pocket client. Forecasts is great, it helps me manage on the go, integrates perfectly into the calendar. Allows reminders, and bunch of other things. Collection of information on the go, with the help of audio recording and pictures. It gets the job done.
Spectacular thing about iPhone app is that it has geo located contexts. It can show you your tasks right on the map. I know that iPhone 4s users are in for the threat, because Siri is already integrated, so you can input your tasks into OmniFocus instead of default reminders.
Sync: Now there are couple of solutions offered for your sync. I have chosen to give Omni Group a try with their free beta syncing service. I am not impressed, but the service is still in beta and for this kind of pricey software, sync should remain free as a function.
It offers also WebDAV syncing service, along with Mobile Me. I assume there will also be an option in the future that will allow iCloud sync. Omni Sync is a bit sluggish, but it gets the job done.
OmniFocus flaws: Even though OmniFocus is great, there are some features that I miss terribly. The Number one feature is designated email, where you can send stuff to your inbox. You won’t miss this function while you are in front of your MAC, because of it’s deep system wide, integration. Right click anywhere and you are already clipping.
But once you get on your iPhone or iPad, you will have to copy and paste, and go back, and fourth between apps. That is unnecessary friction, but for the time being, I don’t have any other solution, and I am waiting on the Omni Group to fix the issue.
Desktop client needs a revamp. It has some awesome features, but the design behind it, isn’t as awesome as those on iOS. This is going to be fixed soon, when OmniFocus 2.0 comes out, but until that time, I feel as the desktop clients’ only purpose is to collect information. I have to clarify that this point of view comes from my newbie perspective.
Regarding Evernote integration, during my email correspondence with OmniFocus PR team, they said it’s going to be on it’s way, because apparently a lot of people asked for it, myself included. By a chance, I am also getting traffic based on keywords “Evernote OmniFocus integration”. That certainly explains the demand for this feature.
Omnifocus 2 Download
OmniFocus advantages: Apart from the minor flaws, which I assume will be fixed in the near future, I can safely assume that for the time being, OmniFocus is the best task manager out there! It has significant power user features, like estimated time for time completion, and recurring tasks, grouped by projects, and contexts. It offers different perspectives which you can switch according to your mood.
A huge advantage of OmniFocus is it’s evolving community of users. They have forums, where people are discussing their strategies, and tips, and tricks behind this great platform. They are engaged and helpful, which is in all honesty, the biggest strength of any platform.
Omnifocus 2 Vs 3
Verdict: This platform is created for specific audience, GTD practitioners in particular. I am a firm believer, that even people who aren’t following David Allen’s GTD methodology, can draw massive power out of it. You will have to reconsider getting this software, in case you own some non-Apple devices, like Android tablets or Windows phones.
Second thing that you need to consider is whether your task load requires OmniFocus? Do you really have that many things going on? OmniFocus is definitively not for beginners! In order to know weather OmniFocus is the right tool for you, you should answer these questions:
Is your current task manager giving you headache to look at it?
Do you have too many tasks for you to organize?
Are you using Apple products only?
Do you practice GTD?
If you answered all of the questions above with Yes, than this platform is the perfect match for you! Give it a go! It has 14 day free trial, before you make your decision. It’s a pricey application, but if you are going to stick with it, it’s definitively a good bang for your buck. And lastly, I myself, completely moved to OmniFocus, and I am considering making it my one, and only task manager utility. If this is not the thing for you, check out Google Tasks and Evernote as task manager, until your needs grow, or until you improve your hardware.