I virtually never use Start Dates, and so my daily to-do list is usually filled with a dozen items which I want to do that day, but perhaps only one or two of them need to be done.

David Sparks recommends using Start Dates to populate your future-to-do list, and use Due Dates only for those items which have consequence if they are not done by the day they’re due.

Over the past week, I’ve been talking a lot about OmniFocus, but I haven’t really focused in on the biggest change that came from adopting this system and watching David’s excellent walkthrough¹. When using Things, everything had or didn’t have a Due Date. OmniFocus, on the other hand, introduced the idea of Start Dates.

I used to use Due Dates to remind me to start tasks. Now I only use them to remind me when they are due. This way when I see yellow (OmniFocus’ default color for items that are looming) or red (items that are due or past due) I know I need to focus and get them done. Using Due Dates in this way alongside Start Dates gave me a clear way to separate the “want-to-do” items on my list from those I “need-to-do”.

At first, like Shawn, I never used Start Dates, but over time, they have become the best way to focus in on my day. Sure, I could use flag the tasks I want to accomplish and leave everything on the list, but using Start Dates to either defer tasks until a specific date or even push something forward a day or two gets unnecessary information temporarily off my screen and out of my head. More than anything else, this has helped me to better plan my days and balance the work I want to do with the things that need to get done in a given day.

If you haven’t experimented with Start Dates, give them a try. While your mileage will certainly vary, this subtle shift was game changing for me.

1. I know I sound like a broken record, if you want to use this app, watch these videos.

As Terry Lucy puts it:

So here’s my definition of a personal computer:

A Personal Computer (PC) is a device that one can interact with seamlessly. A device that can store memories, media, books, TV and film for the user to consume on-demand. A device that the user can create and share their own content from. A personal computer is a device that is easy to use for anyone. [...]

When Apple released the iPad, I would argue that it actually released the first, truly personal, computer.

And that’s a truly remarkable point¹, but as Patrick Moorhead argues:

The way technology is headed in the future, calling the iPad a PC will set precedence that will only lead to even more confusion and misinformation. […] Let’s stop classifying the iPad as a PC, it only serves to confuse people.

My thoughts… who gives a crap? We need to stop obsessing about what we call the device and focus on how we use them. People are going to gravitate toward the device that best suits their needs. For a filmmaker, a desktop is likely the most personal. For a writer, it could be a MacBook Air. For a college student, the iPad is likely ideal. For a person on the move, the iPhone might be more personal than them all.

At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what you call the device sitting upon your desk, on your lap or in your pocket. It matters what you do with them. We are quickly getting to the point where several of the things in our lives could be classified as personal computers. When it comes to everything from our desktop to our phone, these devices are inarguably computers. As to the personal nature of them, well, that is up to us. When it comes to classifying our devices, their names are irrelevant; the only things that truly matter are our needs and the ability of our tools to meet them.

Don’t get me wrong, the introduction and impact of the iPad are important, as Shawn Blanc² rightly points out:

It’s fascinating that such a small and inexpensive tablet device actually has a shot at replacing someone’s large and expensive desktop computer. But what else is fascinating is that the device and the market are less than two years old and people are already starting to make that transition.

The impact matters. The distinction is a waste of time.

If you truly want to know how personal a device is, go make something with it. Test its limits. Hell, test yours. See what you can accomplish. You’ll quickly know if what you’re using is personal, a computer, or better yet, both.

1. I’m not being sarcastic, that actually is rather remarkable.
2. Note: Both of the quotes above also came from this Shawn Blanc article.

After talking about how I take all of the varying types of tasks in my life, I thought I’d run through the various ways that you can create tasks in OmniFocus using their Quick Entry or Quick Clipper. This post looks to show you how to create one or multiple tasks using Quick Entry, how to create a variety of tasks using the Quick Clipper and how to make Quick Entry in OmniFocus work with Evernote.

Too lazy to read? I’ve got you covered!

Quickly Creating Tasks in OmniFocus

Single Tasks

When setting up OmniFocus, go to preferences, select the General tab and set the Quick Entry shortcut. I use Control-Option-Space as suggested by David Sparks. From there you can quickly capture a task and add it to your inbox or fill out any relevant information including the project this action is related to, the context, a start or due date and any notes you might want to add at this time. You can also use the setting to add estimated time. Once complete, select save and your task will be added to either the inbox or your selected project.

Multiple Tasks

I also find that Quick Entry serves as a great place to do a brain dump. If you just want to get everything out of your head, use your keyboard shortcut to evoke the Quick Entry box and start entering your tasks. Once you’ve entered as much information as needed for each task as needed, type Command-Enter and you will get a new entry line. Once you’ve cleared your mind, hit save and all of your tasks will be added into the proper locations.

Using The OmniFocus Quick Clipper

Oftentimes, you are going to want to add text from a website or a specific file to your task. OmniFocus makes this easy with their Quick Clipper. Start by going into your preferences menu, go to the Clipping tab and select your shortcut. Again, per David Sparks, I use Control-Option-Command-M. With a little extra help, it can also create links that take you back to emails in Mailplane and Mail.app or notes in Evernote.

Text

Once you set a keyboard shortcut for the clipper, you can create a task that includes any highlighted text from just about any application.

Website

While this only works natively in Safari, you can highlight text, use the clipper and not only will it add the highlighted text, but a link that takes you directly back to the page. This is great for creating tasks that require you to reference a webpage at a later date. Sure you could just use a bookmarklet, but I love having the direct tie in between the task and the site.

File

Oftentimes you’ll need to use one or more files for a task. Simply highlight file(s) you’ll need, use the clipper and links to the files will be added into your task. If, like me, you work between two computers, you can save files in Dropbox in order to have links work seamlessly across computers.

Email

While you can add The OmniFocus Clip-O-Tron 300 to Mail.app directly from the Clippings Preferences inside the OmniFocus preference menu, I’m not a big fan of Mail.app. Thankfully for all of us Gmail folks out there, the team over at Mailplane came up with a great solution. It’s a plugin that allows for all of the functionality of the clipper in Safari, except instead of linking to a webpage, it links directly back into your email message. Every time I have a message that I cannot follow up on immediately, I use this clipper to create a follow up task in OmniFocus. It’s by far the easiest and fastest way I’ve found to defer email for response at a later date.

Scanned Document

Paper and I have a contentious relationship. I suck at it and it hates me. So part of saving my sanity was finding a way to properly store reference materials in a way that they could quickly be called up for use at a later date. While my love affair for my ScanSnap 1300 (affiliate link) and Evernote is a post for another day, it does play a major role in getting paper off my desk and into my system. When scanning something that requires follow up, I scan it in, right click the image on the main Evernote page (or by selecting Note menu option from the actual note) and select “Copy Note Link”. From there, evoke Quick Entry (or the Clipper if you select the note name in Evernote) and paste the link into the notes field of your task.

Bonus: One minor inconvenience of both the Quick Entry box and Clipper is that they only work when OmniFocus is open. Thankfully Shawn Blanc came to the rescue with a solution for all of you Keyboard Maestro or FastScripts users out there.

While this may not cover everything in your own personal workflow, I can tell you that just about anything digital and even most of the paper on my desk is out of whatever inbox it came from and into OmniFocus in a way that empowers me to take action at a later date. It’s helped me clean up my life and get more done; hopefully some of this will help you do the same.

Have a better way? I’m always interested in hearing one!

To learn more, subscribe for free by Email or RSS to automatically receive future Techie Scheky posts from A Better Mess.

Over the years I’ve had far too many email accounts; all doubled as to-do lists. I had an inbox on my desk (that acted as a to-do list too). I had the blinking red light on my office phone, which, yep you guessed it, that served as a to-do list. I had my desk itself, which grew more and more cluttered with papers and projects. I had the desktop of my computer which was littered with files and folders. All of it added a tremendous amount of stress and disorganization to my already disorganized and stressful world. Just about every last one of these spaces was a dead end: the email accounts were overloaded, the inbox overflowing, the red light ever blinking, the desk piled high and the desktop a mess. It was driving me crazy and it had to stop.

About a year ago, I decided to seek out a task list that could begin to pull all of these disparate threads of my life together. At the time, there were two applications that stuck out above the rest; there was Things, a focused app with a great UI and what turned out to be a terrible data syncing solution and OmniFocus, a powerhouse application that is the clear favorite of most web geeks. I tried both out and couldn’t quite get my head around OmniFocus. It was too much and the learning curve was too steep for my needs, or so I thought.

I set out with Things and quickly fell in love with the ease of adding items into it. Things allows you to create tasks using one of two pop-up boxes that can be triggered at any time the application is open by a keyboard shortcut. One that offers up an empty box and another that automatically adds highlighted text, selected files or a link back to a specific email into tasks the notes field. Unfortunately, as I mentioned before, Things did not have a great syncing solution¹ and I would often lose data between my work and home computers. This caused me to trust the system less. It also bit me in the ass a few times. I decided to give OmniFocus another look.

Thankfully, right around this time the ever-amazing David Sparks came out with a series of three videos that I now consider to be standard for starting to use OmniFocus. This series goes from the basics to the geeky and shows you from a user’s perspective how to make the most out of the app. I made the switch and I never looked back. Their cloud sync is flawless, their apps are far more powerful (especially for when you want to review all of your upcoming work) and the clipper offered some sanity-inducing options like the ability to add several tasks at once. I just didn’t get that from Things.

Now, rather than jotting things down on paper, calls, reminders, and minor tasks all go into the app. Emails that require follow up at a later date go into OmniFocus with a link that takes me directly back into the email for reply. I scan documents that require follow up into Evernote and create a task along with a link back to that note in OmniFocus². I put files in their proper place and create a task with a link to the required files.There was instantly less crap all over my desk, less email in my inbox, no perpetual blinking lights, a less cluttered desk and an organized desktop on both of my computers. Everything in my life that requires further action has became a checkbox inside a single, well organized, home inside of OmniFocus.

Come back tomorrow or subscribe for free by RSS or email as I walk you through some of the best ways that I’ve found for quickly creating tasks from various type of media in OmniFocus.

To learn more, subscribe for free by Email or RSS to automatically receive future Techie Scheky posts from A Better Mess.

1. They now offer one, but it’s been in perpetual beta.
2. Although to be honest, this isn’t as seamless as I’d like it to be.

1. I’m forgoing my regular Quick Quotes Weekly.
2. There are some subtle changes here on the site.

Both of these anomalies are in service of something that I cannot wait for you to check out. My friend Mike Vardy, a well known “productivitist”¹, and I are starting the aptly named Mikes on Mics podcast.

What’s it about? It will be a weekly conversation between two techies as we talk about striving to live a more productive life. Well, Mike strives and I struggle, but I digress… It will be a mixture of tips, tricks, tools and tactics, but we also want to take steps back to look at the bigger picture. We want to give context as to how productivity fits into our work, our hobbies and most importantly of all, our families.

So why the hell am I doing this? It’s a fair point and to be honest, it started as a sarcastic remark on Twitter to Mike Vardy. He jumped on the idea and I finally admitted that it was something I’d secretly been considering for a while. It also really jives with my personal goals for the year. My three words are Build, Connect and Deepen and this project strikes all three chords:

• It gives me the opportunity to make something using many of the techie skills I’ve picked up over the past year,
• It will allow me to drag several of my amazing internet friends on and hopefully expose more of you to more of their great work.
• Best of all, it will allow me to deepen my relationship with listeners and guests of the show. It also lets me continue to grow my budding friendship with Mr. Vardy², someone I’ve always respected and have quickly grown to trust.

Speaking of, who the hell is Mike Vardy? I’m glad you asked! Mike is a seasoned and consummate podcasting pro, which makes up for my amateurish ways. His resume could easily fill a post of its own, but you can currently find his personal writing at Vardy.me and he is one of the two editors over at Lifehack.org. Mike’s a fellow believer in the power of productivity done right³ and is a generally all around good guy⁴. If you aren’t already following him, you should be.

And why is there a need for yet another productivity podcast? Great question! Unfortunately you’re going to have to listen to Episode Zero, the aptly titled “Dear God, Not Another Productivity Podcast”, to find out why.

Our first official episode will post on Monday, but in the meantime, it would mean the world to me if you’d give Episode Zero a listen and subscribe in iTunes. We’re just getting our legs underneath us, so bear with us as Mike gets me over the podcasting learning curve. I have a feeling there are going to be several interesting conversations and amazing guests along the way. I hope you follow along.

1. It’s a thing, look it up… actually, I just looked it up and it turns out it’s not a thing…
2. He makes me call him that.
3. And by done right, we mean that all of this prep inevitably leads to you actually doing something.
4. Or at least his dark side or inner diva hasn’t quite emerged just yet.

The intention to be epic gets in the way of doing work. I know this, because I’ve tried to be epic. In the middle of the year, I decided I was only going to show up if I had something brilliant, inspirational, or ground-shattering to share or publish. I showed up rarely. When I did show up, what I wrote didn’t land as well as I thought it would. After my digital sabbatical for the month of July, I made a rule. I have to show up, no matter what. I’ll experiment every day. Even if what I write is boring, at least I showed up. What I found is sometimes the most mundane things I shared have touched people. Yes, this doesn’t mean I’m being epic every day. But life isn’t all epic. Everything I think will be epic usually isn’t. The reality is this: trying to be epic all of the time gets in the way of doing the work.


So I show up instead.

Part of hitting publish with even a moderate level of frequency is accepting that you will inevitably read some of your own work and cringe. As much as we might want to, we can’t be “on” all the time, we can only try to be. Part of getting better and part of creating requires occasionally being worse. Experiments fall flat, you were careless or you just had a bad day, but at some point you’re likely to “fail.”

You want to ask yourself, “Is it good enough?” You want to take the time to edit and you should do everything you can to publish something you’re proud of, but we are often our worst critics. As Ev says, the thing we hate, will often be the piece that connects. The opposite unfortunately often proves to be true as well, you’ll think you nailed it, but the words just don’t connect.

It also takes time to get good with any level of consistency. If you’re new to creating, doing great work isn’t something you’re going to excel at right away and for those of us who choose to do our work in public, it will occasionally haunt us.

More often than not, it isn’t a question of quality, it’s a matter of doubt. You’re looking for a reason to finally convince yourself that you’re not good enough. You’re looking for a reason to quit. Creating is hard. In fact, for those of us who aren’t adept at it, it’s damn near impossible.

Don’t try to be epic; just work hard enough to make something that is. Take Ev’s advice and show up as often as you possibly can. Do it frequently enough and one of these days you may make something that surprises you. Speaking of, if you aren’t subscribing to his brief, yet inspiring daily newsletter, you’re missing out.

As long as you’re striving (and working damn hard) to create high-quality, relevant work for your audience, you’ll never really fail. Accept that you’re in the process of improving and embrace the fact that some of what you share will miss the mark. At the end of the day, there’s only one real failure for those looking to create and that’s is not making anything at all.

Tangents come at you all day long. Shiny objects flash before your eyes; the wants and needs of others will always try and knock you off your path. While many are adept at managing these distractions, the ADHD-sufferers among us have to learn ways to filter these things out in order to forge ahead. Inevitably we have to buckle down and begin to understand the concept of focus² and work on ways to work around our own nature.

Inevitably, through experience and practice, we get better. We learn to stay on track, to keep our head down and to get things done. But the same things that help us get ahead are often the same things that end up killing our creativity. We fight so hard to stay on task that things become rote rather than instinctual. We become so focused on focusing that we lose our natural ability to take everything in.

One of the best ways to fight this is by capturing your ideas. Find fast ways to get them down and get back to what you were doing. For me, this is a combination of nvALT and Omnifocus, for you a piece of paper or a Field Notes journal and a good pen might be all that’s needed. Come back to these notes every so often and see if they still pull at your attention. It’s easy to be excited about an idea in the minute; it’s a greater challenge to reignite that spark at a later date. Getting the bones of your idea down lets you overcome the fear of losing something magical, but helps you get back to your work. Regularly visit these notes, ruthlessly eliminate the garbage and figure out what you want to do about the rest.

Then again, sometimes capturing and moving on won’t be enough. Sometimes the distraction is a message and true mastery isn’t in its elimination, but in knowing when to indulge in it. Distinguishing this particular grey area is often one of the great challenges the distractible will face. It’s learning the difference between trying to tell yourself something vs. when you are looking to avoid things. Both breeds of distraction appear to be the same on the surface, but one will quickly get you lost while the other leads you where you need to go.

Figuring out which is which… for some, this will never be a problem. For us, it will be a lifelong battle. You’ll never truly know with 100% certainly if you’re making the right choices, but if you keep looking to ask the right questions and work to determine what really matters, you have a far better chance of getting it right.

1. Then again it’s also the root of quite a few crappy ones, but another post for another day…
2. I can’t tell you how many people take a natural understanding of focus for granted…

From Gini Dietrich:

Being an introvert doesn’t mean you are shy or have no social skills. It means you get your energy from being alone while extroverts get their energy from being around people. Lots of people.

Gini’s thoughts on collaborating with introverts got me thinking about my own extroversion. I know, I know, you’re shocked to find out that I, one of the loudest humans on the planet, am a diehard extrovert. Shock aside, Gini’s thoughts on giving introverts both space and privacy to do their work got me thinking about some of my own comments surrounding the idea of a quiet mind or “boredom.”

None of my best work comes from quiet. If given space to roam freely, my brain tends towards nonsense. Sure, from time to time, I’ll have a shower revelation or use that time to plan my day, but for the most part, my brain does not spend idle time well. It doesn’t seek out those problems hiding just beneath the surface of my consciousness. It doesn’t organize my week on its own. For me, getting things done, making things and being mindful are all an active process.

At our core, we extroverts pull our energy from being around you. While this certainly extends to my face-to-face interactions, I’m also discovering that it holds true for a decent amount of my better thinking. My best ideas almost always come from you. It isn’t that I’m stealing (per se), but I get a feeling that sounds similar to the natural problem solving that I hear people speak about when they allow themselves to become bored. It happens when I engage with a book, a blog or a podcast. It often happens when I’m having a conversation with someone, which is not often ideal. My brain just revs in the background and kicks into a higher gear, especially when I’m around someone who is interesting or challenging me.

What I end up creating is only somewhat related to what the person was initially saying, but it is clearly fueled by their energy. Gini’s passion for the subject and examination of her own introversion sent me down the rabbit hole of my extroversion. I would never have come to the conclusion of why so much of the talk surrounding quiet or “boredom” rings false for me. You’ll read her post and it won’t be immediately clear how 1+1=2, but had this problem in the back of my mind never collided with her work, I wouldn’t be writing these words right now.

Rather than thinking people are full of crap when they extol the benefits of quieting their minds (I’m sorry, but for the longest time I really did think you were full of it), I think I’ve just realized that I get to the same destination by taking a very different road. I’m sure that there is a pretty good chance that I need to get better at being alone with my thoughts. It’s likely that I need to cultivate a better relationship with my own mind, but for the minute, surrounding myself with all of your ideas seems to be doing the trick.

So fellow extroverts, am I alone? Or is there something to this idea of extroverted thinking? Not finding the benefits of “boredom” or quiet? Give this a shot and let me know what you think. Find something inspiring and see if it inspires you to make something of your own.

Blogging is a sandbox

When setting out to get our act together, we’re going to have to experiment at first. We’re going to have to try things, we’re going to have to suck at them for a while and several of our ideas and initiatives are likely to fail. A blog gives us a contained environment in which we can test ourselves. It requires us to make and keep commitments. It lets us learn new technologies and shows how they can both speed up, as well as improve our work. It demands new skills and helps us to improve on our existing strengths. It’s a place where when we make a mistake, they happen in a contained and controlled environment.

Blogging is a commitment

When we decide to write for yourself, when we decide to keep a journal, we’re making a promise to ourselves. Most of our track records aren’t great here; even a cursory look at the success rate of New Years Resolutions will confirm that for you. If we skip a day, we overlook it, we come up with some pathetic excuse for why we “just couldn’t.” When we take the same commitment and make it public, we’re held to a higher standard: the expectation of others. That may sound like a great reason not to start a blog, but if you struggle with consistency public commitment may be exactly what’s needed to ensure you keep it.

Blogging is a practice

As someone who is naturally inclined toward the inconsistent, the idea of delivering five posts a week was frightening. But what started as a struggle slowly and painfully turned into a practice. It took a long time. While writing quickly became a habit, I still felt like it could fly away at any moment. It wasn’t until I pushed through habit and into practice, that I truly understood the value of what I had been doing for the past eight months. There isn’t a version of the world that I can imagine now where writing isn’t an intrinsic part of the way I look at the world. Unlike a habit, a practice goes deeper; it isn’t something that is just as easily broken as it is created. It’s a part of you. A writing practice is a great place to start and a blog is an ideal venue. If you really want to become a better version of yourself, you need to stop making the kinds of habits that break and start forming practices that last.

Blogging is a skill builder

A blog forces you to pick up a few new tricks. While you don’t need to know how to code a damn thing (I don’t), you are going to have to figure out the basics. You’re going to learn how to set of set up and maintaining a site. You’re going to learn how to format and post you’re work to the web. You’re going to discover tools and tricks for spreading the word about your work. Setting up a self-hosted blog¹ can seem frightening to many, but once you get start working your way through the process you realize that it’s more intimidating than it is challenging. This willingness to embrace, rather than eliminate new technologies can help push you forward, both on your blog and in any endeavor you attempt.

Blogging makes you a better thinker

I don’t care how smart or how stupid you think you are, regularly taking the time to work through your thoughts gives them a new kind of clarity. The more you write and unravel the mess in your mind, the better you become at it. Thinking, like exercise, gets easier with practice. As you grow stronger, you reach further. Take the time you would normally spend wandering off in front of the TV and spend it at your keyboard. It will bring you far closer to your goals and your thoughts than any quality time you’ll squander on the Kardashians.

My efforts to improve began with the creation of this site. At first, it suffered many of the same pitfalls as other projects I’ve struggled on in the past, but over time it has grown into a safe place to experiment, to reflect and to grow.

So if you’ve been wondering why I’ve been going on about learning to be a better blogger, here’s why I think you should be doing this or something like it in the first place. When you commit to writing for a site, you begin to see the world through blog-colored sunglasses. You naturally become more mindful as the very act of writing requires you to think deeply about your actions and interests. Committing to write (and in my case, committing to doing it publicly) was the start of something important for me. It was the beginning of a better understanding of my own mind, something that I think a lot of us who struggle could really use.

I hope these answer the few questions I’ve received asking why I’m both a big proponent of blogging and why I plan to spend a decent amount of this site’s time talking about how you can be better at it.

1. and dear god people, self-host your blogs

Make good stuff, then make it easy for people to buy it. There’s your anti-piracy plan.

Jonathan Coulton <— Click To Read More Smart Stuff!

Any place I can find friction, and remove it, is an area of my life or business that I can push closer to my goals.

Aaron Mahnke <— Click To Read More Smart Stuff!

The greatest opportunity cost you have as a human is not taking your own ideas seriously.

AJ Leon <— Click To Read More Smart Stuff!

I’m thinking there may be a market in being the guy who helps to un-train you of all the ‘tips’ that the ‘experts’ teach you.

Patrick Rhone (Hat tip to CJ Chilvers) <— Click To Read More Smart Stuff!

Your biggest regrets contain a storehouse of wisdom — perhaps some of your most important discoveries — yet you still must dare to explore them.

James Shelley <— Click To Read More Smart Stuff!

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