Notion Omnifocus

Notion And Omnifocus
Notion Vs Omnifocus
Notion Omnifocus

Last year, I spent the time reading The Bullet Journal Method, by Ryder Carroll, and also wrote about digital bankruptcy with analog saving me.

While the principles of this are often a saving grace of augmented focus, I love the advantages of a digital system:

I can search and refer back
The right metadata surfaces the right things at the right time
It is easily re-organized based on changing needs

Of course, aspects like metadata, information architectures, and infinite choice make digital systems complex and nuanced. I need something sustainable through simplicity, particularly to make sure I’m ready for change, like how Rosemary Orchard and I talked about on our Nested Folders podcast (and, more recently, on Automators episode 49).

Our Notion Course Supercharge your Productivity is currently closed for enrollment, but sign up here to be notified when we re-open. The average knowledge worker spends 4.5 hours a week looking for missing files. That’s nearly 20 days a year. Table rows as pages and self-referencing filters from Notion. ClickUp, Airtable and Coda's integration options and API. (Integromat is life!) Native apps like Craft. The Siri and iOS widget integrations from Todoist and OmniFocus. Notion's fairly low (or free) subscription cost. Powerful math functions from Google Sheets. Notion is ranked 11th while Omnifocus is ranked 64th. The most important reason people chose Notion is: To-dos in Notion aren't just dot point lists. Omnifocus in 2008. Evernote in 2010. Airtable in 2015. When I discovered the GTD app Omnifocus and I immediately started teaching my finance colleagues how it could help them ascend the corporate ladder. A decade later (many of them now run their own firms), they still thank me for introducing them to this 'secret weapon.'

Thinking of this, I embarked on a journey to digitally bullet journal. After a few iterations, I came up with a list of interoperating tools, which I think will prove a very effective stack.

The platform consists of five pieces on iOS:

Agenda: This acts as the journal and reference system.
OmniFocus: This is for action management.
Daily Journal Shortcut: I’ve written about this shortcut before, but to recap, this Shortcut sets up a daily journal (that’s why it’s named that way) with today’s weather, calendar appointments, and OmniFocus due, flagged, and forecast-tagged actions.
Rapid Logger Shortcut: This is the game-changer. When run, it asks for input, where I can Bullet Journal style add multiple items, each thing on a fresh line. Each line then gets appended to today’s daily journal in Agenda, timestamped. If a line starts with a dash, it gets treated like an action, and so appears as a checklist item in the Agenda daily journal note, but also gets added to my OmniFocus inbox as an action. As a bonus, the text going in to OmniFocus is treated as TaskPaper, so I can add flags, tags, and dates accordingly, which is awesome, but that metadata is not included in the Agenda note, keeping that list clean and tidy.
Daily Wrap Shortcut: This is the icing on the cake. When run, this Shortcut helps me reflect on the day by asking guiding questions, the answers to which are then appended to the daily journal note in Agenda, along with a list of the tasks I completed today from OmniFocus.

These parts working together are helping to create structure in my life, but even better, it’s sustainable structure, because I can apply the simple notion of rapid-logging from Bullet Journaling combined with the complexities of a nuanced digital system.

Great side effect: I am more disciplined about what I log. A historical problem for me in my collection of actions is overuse of shorthand as a “bookmark” of thinking for later. That’s how I’ve ended up with items in my OmniFocus inbox like “Fifty-four”. I’m sure I knew what I was referring to when I wrote it down, but no idea later. With rapid logging, and thinking of things not just as actions or notes but as journaled facts for future reflection, my capturing is much more robust.

2020 was a great year for productivity apps.

With the rise of Notion, Coda, and other no-code tools plus the exploding need for productivity apps due to everyone working at home during the pandemic, this genre has been flooded with possibilities.

Notion And Omnifocus

I have a great love for organizing things and testing out new tech so trying all of these apps has been a veritable playground for me.

I've taken a deep dive into quite a few of these apps during the past year, going so far as to set up a full Life Operating System (inspired by August Bradley and Marie Poulin, thanks y'all!) in both Notion and Coda as well as extensively using quite a few others. (Stayed tuned for some videos and articles going through my Life OS)

Notion Vs Omnifocus

What I've Tried

Here are the main applications that I used in 2020:

Notion
Coda
Craft
Evernote
Roam
Obsidian
Google Tables
Airtable
Google Sheets
ClickUp
Todoist
Dropbox Paper

The ones that I used the most extensively were Notion, Coda, Airtable and ClickUp. I set up a full system in the first two and went as far as I could to do so with the last two.

I've learned quite a bit about each product along the way and will cover them individually in detail in future posts.

I've also learned a lot about what I do and don't want in a productivity app and what I do and don't need.

The app that I have ended up fully adopting is Coda. At the same time, while I love so much about it, there are still some key features that it's missing for my workflow. In fact, my top apps all seem to be just one small change away from really satisfying my needs.

So I'm in somewhat of a holding pattern, waiting to see which product will release the next big update fulfilling what I'm looking for. Which one will win the race to integrate 'the missing feature'?

What I'm Looking For

So what am I looking for?

If I could build my perfect productivity app, here is what it might look like:

Local storage, open source and privacy of AnyType.
The power and flexibility of Coda's formulas. Inline formulas too!
Task management from ClickUp, Todoist and OmniFocus.
Databases/tables from Airtable, Notion and Coda.
Craft's speed, UI and just plain slickness.
Notion's aesthetic and doc organization.
Backlinks and networked thought à la Roam Research.
ClickUp's roadmap and feature request transparency.
Notion's community engagement and availability of learning resources.
The cross-platform quick entry/web-clipper options of Evernote.
Scalability and performance of Airtable and Google Sheets when it comes to larger tables.
Coda's customer service.
Table rows as pages and self-referencing filters from Notion.
ClickUp, Airtable and Coda's integration options and API. (Integromat is life!)
Native apps like Craft.
Coda's charts.
The Siri and iOS widget integrations from Todoist and OmniFocus.
Notion's fairly low (or free) subscription cost.
Powerful math functions from Google Sheets.

Now, as someone with programming, UX and development experience, I understand that some of these wishlist items directly conflict with each other and just aren't practical in one product (although I think the folks at ClickUp might think otherwise! lol).

My Frontrunners

I know there are going to be trade-offs.

So of my top apps here are the main things I'm looking for to fully make a switch:

Notion: More powerful, flexible and inline formulas. API access and automations (recurring tasks is a deal breaker for me).

Coda: Table rows as pages. More flexible page layouts. Self-referencing filters.

ClickUp: Documents as first class citizens, different navigation and greatly simplifying the UI.

**I will continue using Roam until someone integrates backlinks like they do. Also, I'm waiting to get access to the AnyType alpha, so I'll reserve further judgement until then.

Basically, whoever implements these items first will get my business. From some of my discussions I think we're super close to seeing some of these. My understanding is that these 3 products are working on items from my list right now.