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If you believe in David Allen’s Getting Things Done (GTD) workflow philosophy, the Omni Group’s app for the Mac, OmniFocus, has an iPhone counterpart that is an excellent utility to help you manage your tasks. There is a slight learning curve because of the addition of a “context” category which isn’t entirely intuitive at first. But once you get used to it, I find it to be very helpful that you can complete tasks based on contexts. For example, you can use a context for all the things you want to do when you’re downtown, or another for the market, or yet another for when you’re traveling to visit your sister.

Watch this video for a comprehensive guide to getting started with OmniFocus for iPhone.

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Excerpt from Macworld Review

For those unfamiliar with OmniFocus, it works like this: You create actions (To-Do items) within the Inbox—found on the Home screen—by tapping a Plus button, entering the name of the action (Wash the Car, for example), and, if you choose, assigning it to a Context (a location or state in which you’re likely to take on the task) and a Project. If you like, also assign start and due times to it, and either flag it or not. You can also append a note to the action.

Additionally, with the iPhone version you can add a picture to the action by tapping the Take Photo button and using the iPhone’s camera to grab an appropriate picture. (Unfortunately you can’t append a picture from the iPhone’s Photos area.) And you can record a bit of audio and attach it to the action. (Although OmniFocus works on the iPod touch as well, these two specific features are not supported, as the touch lacks a camera and microphone.)

OmniFocus for the iPhone attempts to leverage the iPhone’s advantages by adding a Location feature that gathers together contexts based on their location and then grouping together those contexts. You do this by assigning locations to contexts. So, for example, you might assign a central street name downtown‚ Main Street, for instance‚ as your Errands location. Tap the Locations icon and you’re taken to a nearby screen where you see your contexts and associated actions sorted by location. Tap the location next to a particular context, and the Maps application launches and shows you that location. From there you can search within Maps for business types—grocery or hardware stores, for instance. Or you can assign a particular business type‚ say, the market‚ as a location and when you choose the context associated with that business, OmniFocus will locate the businesses of that type to you.

If you’re looking for a way to create to-do items on your iPhone, OmniFocus for the iPhone can do it, but it’s overkill. If, on the other hand, you seek a powerful (though sometimes challenging) mobile application for creating action items and organizing them within contexts and projects—and one that also acts as an extension of an even more powerful desktop application—OmniFocus for the iPhone can clearly help you get that done.

Available from the iPhone App Store for $19.99.

Things

Head spinning? Those without experience with OmniFocus, who are looking for a more straightforward to-do application (and OmniFocus is clearly more than that) that offers some GTD elements, are probably going to be more comfortable with something like Cultured Code’s $10 Things for iPhone.

(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

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