As part of my new gig, I get to spend some time working on a Surface Pro 3 running Windows 10. That in and of itself is actually rather enjoyable, but when I try marrying my love for iOS-centric productivity tools with my newfound computing platform, things get a bit…messy.
Windows as a context, not an OS. Substitute Windows for tool belt and knowledge worker for carpenter, and that’s where lots of you are today. 9 cut 1 2 1 – pictures cutting software. I’m sure you’re sharper than Joe, but you want essentially the same thing he does. You love OmniFocus; you use OmniFocus; and you want OmniFocus to sync with all of your (non-Apple) tools. Your tasks and perspectives everywhere. Near-instant push sync across all platforms: Mac, iOS, and web. Your Graffle documents and stencils on iPad, iPhone, and Mac. All in sync with OmniPresence. Your Outliner documents and templates on iPad, iPhone, and Mac.
Luckily, there's Breevy for all my text expansion needs, and 1Password has a Windows client. But there's one app that I rely on that doesn't have a presence (or a truly compatible counterpart) on Windows: OmniFocus.
- A lot of people ask me how I get by using OmniFocus when I spend time every day on a Windows machine. I’ve never clamored for a Web-based or Windows version of OmniFocus. I’ve always viewed the Windows computer as a device to accomplish very specific tasks, none of which involve.
- Pros: OmniFocus is the best and the most powerful GTD software that I have used. Especially in the OmniFocus 3, the tag (replace the context from OF2) and the great iPhone app can help me tag anything, including places and contacts and so on, and keep track with everything.
OmniFocus is where my entire life exists in to-do list form. I rely on it to keep up with everything I do, and it's often one of the first apps I check in the morning, and one of the last ones I check at night. It's also incredibly complex -- it's possible to sort different tasks by project, context and even combine whole groups of them into particular perspectives. In other words, migrating to a new, cross-platform to-do list system isn't in the cards for me either.
To make OmniFocus work with the Surface, I tied together a bunch of different features that means I can now use Outlook on my Surface as an inbox for to-do list items that show up on my Macs and iOS devices. To set things up, you'll need an Exchange account, Outlook for Windows, and OmniFocus for iOS.
![Web Web](https://appfluence.com/productivity/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/photo1.png)
Step 1: Hook your iPhone or iPad up to the Exchange account, and make sure that the account is enabled to handle tasks. That should create a to-do list in Apple's built-in Reminders app for iOS called 'Tasks' that syncs with the list of tasks in your exchange account. (It's easy enough to test this by adding a task in Outlook and seeing if it shows up on your iPhone.
Step 2: Open OmniFocus on your iPhone or iPad, and go to Settings > Capture Reminders. Toggle 'Reminders Capture' on, and then check the Tasks list in the list of possible reminders. Now, whenever you add a task in Outlook, it should sync to the iPhone, and then add itself to OmniFocus's inbox.
Step 3: Design elements gn templates 1 2. To take that one step further, it's possible to use Siri to add tasks to the OmniFocus inbox by going to Settings > Reminders > Default List and setting Tasks as the default list. Now, when you say 'Hey Siri, remind me to take out the trash,' Apple's virtual assistant will create a 'Take out the trash' reminder in the Tasks list, which will then sync to OmniFocus!
Omnifocus Alternatives
It's not a fully-featured OmniFocus client on my Surface (which I would love) but for me, it's the next best thing.
OmniFocus from Windows
There's no doubt that OmniFocus by the Omni Group is the quintessential mac app. It's elegant, easy to use and simply makes work easier. It has nearly solved the digital ubiquitous capture problem. It's an iPhone app, it's an iPad app, it's desktop app, it's a whipped topping. Unfortunately it is not a windows app (yet).I spend most of my work hours on a Windows machine. I have developed a couple of rountines that allow me to integrate OmniFocus with my workflow on Windows. An easy way to add tasks to OmniFocus is by way of email. I'll briefly describe the hack and subsequently tell you that it is no longer needed.
Tasks by email
This is really just a modification of the excellent workflow described by Shawn Blanc. I've made some changes that make it a little more accurate and contemporaneous. All of this requires a mac at home running full time. That's not a problem for me since I already had my mac running as a server for several reasons. Maybe I'll write some posts about those other users. In OmniFocus for Mac, turn on the mail rule in the preferences
Head over to Apple's Mail.app and look at the newly added mail rule. I added an extra trigger that looks for mail to a special gmail address.I actually signed up for another email account that was prefixed with 'qqq' so that it's easy to remember and type and is likely to be unique in my address book. Gmail also allows you to place a dot in the middle of your gmail address and still receive the mail. Skylum software. For example, '[email protected]' also works as '[email protected]' for receiving messages. Give it a try. I use the 'qqq' prefix because it's easy to type to get an auto-suggestion in Outlook. I also added a rule that only accepts tasks from my preferred list of email addresses (Note that you can set that in the OmniFocus settings as well). Namely, my personal and work email accounts. This helps, in case the spammers get smart enough to start sending OmniFocus enabled emails. How aweful would it be to get spam tasks. The horror!
Adding a task from Outlook on Windows is simple. Fire up Outlook and send an email to your special address like this:
Now we have a precise rule that adds tasks to OmniFocus, except we have to wait for OmniFocus Mac to sync to the cloud before that task is available everywhere else. I wasn't happy with waiting. I decided to modify the Applescript that the Mail.app rule uses. I added a couple of lines to force OmniFocus to initiate a sync everytime it receives a taks from Mail.app.
tellapplication 'OmniFocus'
synchronizedefault document
endtell
Everything is working well. So why did I abandon this workflow? Spootnik!
Omnifocus Android Windows
Spootnik Sync
I first discovered Spootnik when I was looking for sync server for OmniFocus on iOS. This was before Omni Group offered their terrific and free sync service. Spootnik is much more than a sync server though. The primary reason I continue to pay the $3 per month for Spootnik is for the fantastic web interface. I can now access my task list from any browser. Specifically IE and Firefox from my work computer. I can review, check-off and add tasks from the web interface. It's a pretty full featured product. The only things you can not do is add due times to tasks or move tasks to another project. It is primarily intended as a simple web front end to your tasks in OmniFocus. It accomplishes that very well.Spootnik also offers integration with Bascamp from 37Signals. I'm not a Basecamp user so I can not describe the integration or the quality of the results. Based on the sync and web services from Spootnik, I'd bet it is a good implementation of Basecamp.
I first discovered Spootnik when I was looking for sync server for OmniFocus on iOS. This was before Omni Group offered their terrific and free sync service. Spootnik is much more than a sync server though. The primary reason I continue to pay the $3 per month for Spootnik is for the fantastic web interface. I can now access my task list from any browser. Specifically IE and Firefox from my work computer. I can review, check-off and add tasks from the web interface. It's a pretty full featured product. The only things you can not do is add due times to tasks or move tasks to another project. It is primarily intended as a simple web front end to your tasks in OmniFocus. It accomplishes that very well.Spootnik also offers integration with Bascamp from 37Signals. I'm not a Basecamp user so I can not describe the integration or the quality of the results. Based on the sync and web services from Spootnik, I'd bet it is a good implementation of Basecamp.