OmniFocus for Mac

User Reviews

• Somewhere in the middle

  Lars_MDecember 1, 2012

  Pros

  Offers good GTD support and was one of the first on the market

  Cons

  I've been an OmniFocus user from the beginning. But it still lives with it's first hour limitations and design flaws. Most painfully with the limitation to one context per task. Some things simply have more than one context. If you have a task together with two colleagues, which context will you assign? This makes OmniFocus nice for my shopping list, but almost useless for my daily business and tasks for my team. Since OmniFocus started several tools emerged that do this better and much easier. Organize:Pro from taskfabric and The Hit List from Potion Facroty are the logical consequence.

  Summary

  Was great once, but missed to resolve fundamental issues. Others moved ahead.

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• OK, but too complex for my needs.

  manny khoolApril 14, 2011

  Pros

  OF syncs well and has tons of features for those who are right into the GTD system.

  Cons

  OF is ok if you like process more than actually accomplishing your todos. I find it takes way too long to get a snap shot of my most important tasks on any given day. I spend far too much time hunting down or inputting data.

  Summary

  Too complicated and way too expensive. I've really come to appreciate the KISS system after using OF. GTD is just to convoluted for me.

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• Complexity may be appealing but it will get in your way

  mrbobbo2October 7, 2010

  Pros

  Full-featured GTD-oriented task manager. You can slice and dice almost any way you want.

  Cons

  In practice the complexity of the product and the inconsistent UI divert significant attention away from getting things done and towards configuring the product.

  Summary

  I used OF for several months and finally gave up due to its complexity. I have understood, used, and not used every bell-and-whistle, and I can tell you OF refuses to just "sit there" while I get my work done. There's always something that is not intuitive or not obvious! In contract, Things, which I've started using recently is so wonderfully simple that GTD takes virtually no effort. I'm really getting things done with Things. A word to those who are concerned that Things does not currently support sequential projects: Omnifocus does have that support. But I found that in almost every project the real sequence is more complicated that a simple list of tasks. There are multiple dependencies, some tasks have no dependencies, etc. Omnifocus attempts to manage this with an outline (group) capability inside projects, and I tried to use that. But I found that it's more detail than I require and it is too complex to be transparent. Instead, Things permits me only to mark some of a project's task as Someday. I do that and leave the few remaining to review in Next Tasks in no particular order. The simplicity of this approach makes my work go much smoother than it did when I was worrying about dependencies in Omnifocus. So I urge you to try Things first. If you think Things is a better solution but you're concerned about sequential projects, my advice is to not worry. The capability is more trouble than its worth. And if you have a project with tens of task and multiple dependences, I suggest you use a real project management application, like OmniPlan or Merlin. GTD is not designed for project management, it is designed for task management.

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• A useful task management application

  nturrillSeptember 29, 2010

  Pros

  Nice layout and tree structure of tasks.

  Cons

  It would be nice to be able to put reminder alarms on To Do items that can be either dismissed or delayed as appropriate.

  Summary

  I find this product to be quite useful in helping me keep track of tasks that I must get done.

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• Great standalone product but ...

  johnoPetersonSeptember 16, 2010

  Pros

  Great id you want to use it as a standalone product.

  Cons

  A major limitation of this software is its inability to import data from other company's applications. If you use mindjet mindmanager, or fasttrack Omni cant import your mindmaps or project plans.

  Summary

  Dont bother purchasing this product unless you want to manually type entries or only use Omni software.

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• The best, most flexible to do program around.

  jeffanonyOctober 30, 2009

  Pros

  Tremendous flexibility. A very full feature set. Many, many ways to display, analyze, and control items. It is completely intuitive. There's a decent (though expensive) iPhone application that synchronizes.

  Cons

  The one glaring omission is the alarms. You have to actively engage with the program to know what's due when.

  Summary

  I love this program. The designers have done a really smart job.

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• Expensive and tied to outdated GTD method

  Jadey BiveyOctober 1, 2009

  Pros

  Software looks good and offers many thoughtful features

  Cons

  No way out of rigid GTD orthodoxy. Overly complex for all but David Allen's family members.

  Summary

  GTD requires more management of the system than time spent on task. OmniFocus would do well to offer other approaches less complicated.

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• No way to try before you buy

  thomasmarchAugust 28, 2009

  Pros

  Cons

  Summary

  This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />There's no way to try this app before you buy it. Downloading an extracting it simply gives you a crazy message about "no password or too many people using the application - exit". So don't bother unless you feel like shelling out $$$ without knowing what you're getting.

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• a great power tool, but only for geeks in love wit...

  VancouverRMTJune 16, 2009

  Pros

  Cons

  Summary

  ...<br />This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />With extensive usage, I have slowly become less enthusiastic about OmniFocus than I once was. It?s generally an amazing piece of software. However, it is also extremely complex, and I don?t mean in a power-user kind of way: I mean in a confusing way. No matter how well I learn the software, I still ?lose? my data. There are so many ways to sort and view and filter your data that it is also amazingly difficult to find things. I?ve seen this problem discussed ad infinitum on the Omni forums. It?s such a serious flaw that I would never recommend the software, despite its other virtues. This app is a power tool for geeks in love with GTD. Syncing with the iPhone application was so consistently error-prone over several months of experimentation that I eventually gave up. OmniFocus support, generally excellent in my experience over the years, was not exactly perfect either. Ultimately they dropped the ball, offering to examine my database for the cause of my chronic syncing problems, but then taking much too long to follow-up (weeks).

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• Final Decision: The winner is OmniFocus!

  robbnashvilleJanuary 5, 2009

  Pros

  Cons

  Summary

  This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />I began testing both THINGS and OMNIFOCUS last summer and didn't make my final choice until after the near-final version of Things was released a few days ago to those using the beta version. Things is a beautiful program & it is very easy to use. However, my final decision is to go with OmniFocus because of it's superb power. IMO the purpose of a program like this is the ability to organize and view data easily in a number of ways to facilitate planning and actually accomplishing goals. While Things provides a great deal of what I need, the bottom line is that I found it's approach a little too scattered. It was often difficult for me to see all my actions & projects in one view for a given period of time. Because I am an organizer, I would file some tasks in "Someday", others in "Scheduled" and the rest in "Next". When I would try to see where I had an opening for another task or project, I often could not get a clear sense of my planning with Things. It's heavy use of tags is just not to my liking. I prefer the use of contexts, which are like categories. OmniFocus follows the use of contexts. (Things has something similar called "Areas"; but they are just not the same thing in practice.) Things does not allow the use of start dates as well as due dates. Even though it is true that projects should be constructed of single actions that can be accomplished at a given time, the ability of OmniFocus to assign start dates allows tasks to be unavailable until their start date. This approach gets them out of the way until I am ready to review them or focus on them. Also, Things just doesn't use dates well. OmniFocus not only allows easy entry of dates, it also presents the due date more clearly for each task and, because it has an inspector panel, it's easy to see more about repeating items, when items are due for review, etc.l. The final straw that broke the camel's back for me was the difference between the iPhone clients. If iCal had been able to handle to do items better (especially repeating tasks) and present them on the iPhone, I might never have started this journey. Both Things and OmniFocus have iPhone clients; but there's no real comparison. Things, like it's desktop counterpart, is very scattered on the iPhone, while OmniFocus is just as organized on the iPhone as it is on the desktop. Things only allows syncing while on the same wireless network. OmniFocus allows syncing via a number of methods; and since I am a MobileMe subscriber, I use that method, which allows me to sync from anywhere. I'm sure Things will meet the needs of many people; and for those who place a big emphasis on price, it will probably win. For me, time is money; and OmniFocus helps me get the most done.

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