Getting Things Done, or GTD for the aficionados, can be tough. Once you master the basics, you need to find a tool to support this way of doing things.
I’ve been an avid Omnifocus user for a few years, but lately I’ve been toying with the idea of simplifying my workflow by using the simple Reminders app that we all have on our Mac, iPhone and iPad.
The idea came from by Sven Fechner. Sven is one of the out there and I got curious to read what he had to say about Reminders. If you want to start your GTD workflow without investing in a sophisticated software like Omnifocus, I suggest you read his article. I’m sure you’re going to find inspiration and get started with the GTD philosophy.
As a test, I’ve tried using Reminders for a week, after migrating most of my tasks to this application. Given that I rely heavily on Omnifocus on a day-to-day basis, I kept Omnifocus open alongside Reminders, just as a backup solution in case Reminders failed.
The main gripes I’ve found using Reminders are:
Lack of start dates
In Omnifocus, you can set your view to show only reminders with a start date in the past (overdue tasks) or today (today tasks). This view is called Available. This option helps you focus on what you can do today rather than worry about the long list of tasks you have scheduled in the future.
In Reminders, on the other hand, all tasks in a list are visible at all times. There isn’t any way to add tasks you don’t want to see. That means your eyes will always see an endless list of tasks, which can be overwhelming. The beauty of GTD is that at the end of your working day your list of tasks is empty, which gives you a sense of freedom and the clear idea you’ve achieved something during the day. Unfortunately, you can forget about that in Reminders.
Lack of Contexts
Somehow you can bypass the lack of native support for contexts in Reminders by creating a separate list for each of them (e.g. , @Mac, , , etc.).
The fact that you must work with contexts by disguising them as lists is a bigger problem than you think. A bigger problem because also your projects will appear as lists. That means there is not any simple way to visually separate contexts from project. You can make up for this lack of functionality by prefixing projects with something like [Project 1]: string, but that is just a workaround.
The beauty of Omnifocus is that not only do you have native support for projects and contexts, you also have a two-dimensional view of your tasks. Let me explain this point. In Omnifocus, you can either work on a project regardless of the context (i.e. home improvements), or you can concentrate on the context itself (i.e. at home) and work sequentially on the lists of tasks associated with that context.
For this reason Reminders will always be limited when it comes to implementing a real GTD workflow.
Limited selection of recurring events
Reminders only allows you to repeat a task:
– Every day
– Every week
– Every two weeks
– Every month
– Every year
To me this is a big limitation because I regularly have quarterly tasks that must be completed for contractual reasons. I also have other tasks (in the tickler) that I like to complete every 3–4 days. Again, I can only set these tasks with Omnifocus, not with Reminders.
After a week, I was happy to go back full time to Omnifocus. It’s not a coincidence that this software is widely recognized as one of the best GTD solutions out there. Reminders remains an excellent application for simple lists though. Groceries and lists that you can delete the moment you complete all tasks in them are easily managed in Reminders. For anything more complicated, you should invest in .