Handling Daily Startup/Shutdown Routines

ivanjay205

Registered
Hi everyone,

I am a creature of habit and have a workday startup and workday shutdown routine as well as a weekend startup and evening shutdown for personal routines. I find these really help me grounded, organized, and on top of my game.

I am in the middle of reconfiguring OmniFocus, my tool of choice, and wondering what everyone thinks the best way to handle these area from a few areas:
  1. In my outlook calendar I block out each routine as I do need to hold my calendar. I assume most would agree this is important to ensure this time is dedicated to me otherwise my colleagues will steal it :)
  2. In OmniFocus I have areas of focus under business and personal and under each one areas of focus, followed by projects, etc. Under Personal I do have productivity (as I consider this a health related item, mental health anyway). That being said, this is neither work or personal. Do people create a separate area of focus (I have seen some say habits or routines)? Or best to think of it under productivity and keep it under personal since even though I might work on "work" items it is a personal health for my sanity area.
  3. How do you "prioritize" within Omnifocus? Flag it since it is high priority? Set a same day due date? Or do not said any due date or flag at all since speaking pure David Allen the world does not burn down if I miss one, just my own sanity maybe lol
  4. Any other best practices anyone has experienced?

Thanks!

-Ivan
 

cfoley

Registered
1. If you need to protect the time from meeting invitations, etc then blocking out a calendar entry seems reasonable.

2. I don't find that my GTD system can nest neatly into hierarchies like this, which is exactly the problem you are facing. Productivity is a cross-cutting area. If you find value in a hierarchy, then I would acknowledge its shortcomings and just pick one place for productivity. I think an imperfect organisation system is the lesser evil when compared to duplicate places to file something.

3. I don't use Omnifocus but I don't use flags. Due dates for real deadlines go in my calendar, and the way I engage with my system keeps me aware of the relative urgency of everything. By this, I mean I regularly scan my lists when choosing what to do and then do a deeper dive in my weekly review. I find that any sort of automation reduces my engagement with the system and thereby erodes my sense of the whole. Ironically, putting in safeguards like flags and triggers makes me more likely to forget to do things.

4. When working out how to achieve something in an electronic list manager, I ask "How would I do this in a paper system?" Using this to guide my thinking often leads to a simple and transferrable solution. In contrast, whenever I have thought "What feature of this software should I use?", the result is often complex, non-transferrable, and only partially solves my problem.
 

ivanjay205

Registered
3. I don't use Omnifocus but I don't use flags. Due dates for real deadlines go in my calendar, and the way I engage with my system keeps me aware of the relative urgency of everything. By this, I mean I regularly scan my lists when choosing what to do and then do a deeper dive in my weekly review. I find that any sort of automation reduces my engagement with the system and thereby erodes my sense of the whole. Ironically, putting in safeguards like flags and triggers makes me more likely to forget to do things.
While all your points are great this one in particular really resonated with me. Prior I used to use flags extensively. I found all I ever got done was my flagged items lol. Some help that is! I almost became immune to my other lists. So trying to stay out of that habit this time.
 

cfoley

Registered
I have exactly the same experience with using flags. Now, if I am tempted to use flags then move the less pressing projects to a Someday/Maybe list.
 
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