Comments on: OmniFocus v Things

By: Gary Y

Gary Y — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 08:52:10 +0000

I tried Things, but it got overwhelming, and I felt like I was spending more time moving things into and out of “Today” than actually doing things.

For a while I used Life Balance ( http://www.llamagraphics.com ) for its “auto-prioritizing” and “life balancing” features. Ultimately, its lack of a straightforward way to see upcoming due items led me to look again.

I’m now sold on Omnifocus. One thing it has that Things doesn’t (to my recollection): a way to do reviews and mark things as having been reviewed. I think this can help you get a handle on an enormous amount of stuff, and by allowing you to set project review intervals, you can set some to, say, review monthly–so your weekly review isn’t necessarily too cumbersome.

Syncing with iPod Touch was a bit tricky at first…had to restart my wireless router. But it seems OK now (just one day into it).

Hope this helps!

By: John Potter

John Potter — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 17:11:43 +0000

Hi Jeremy,
How are you? Happy New Year and all the rest – now back to commenting:
I was in exactly the same position with my own chaotic non-organisation. I am slowly learning to live with OmniFocus too. I’ve had it for a few months now. I find the sorting of the columns a bit clunky but it really wins on the syncing which ties in neatly with the iPhone which is incredibly useful – since I often remember stuff (or get given things to do!) when I am away from either laptop or dekstop(s).
But it’s a struggle nonetheless.
Will keep this under review – great blog, great post.
See you,
John

By: durbrow

durbrow — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 02:18:07 +0000

Thanks for reporting this. If you fell in love with Things you might do the same for The Hit List. Its UI, to my eye is even cleaner and allows better keyboard options and flexibility. Also, although it does not have an iPhone app apparently there are third party apps that will sync The Hit List (portion factory) with your iPhone. I’ll be interested to hear what you think.

By: Jeremy

Jeremy — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 20:34:05 +0000

If you’d like to learn more about both OmniFocus and Things then you should check out the recent Mac Power Users podcast entitled ‘Task Management Smackdown’, which takes an in-depth look at these two applications. This is well worth a listen. You’ll find it at http://macpowerusers.com/2009/11/02/mpu-013-task-management-smackdown/

By: Laurent C.

Laurent C. — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 12:41:18 +0000

I’ve been a user and fan of OmniFocus since before version 1.0, and was intrigued also by the simplicity and niceness of Things UI, but I think the 2 programs don’t have the same goal. I mean, with Omnifocus you can manage huuuge lists of projects and organize them as you want. Things approach is nicer at first, but I can’t even imagine what the program would look like if I had to enter the same amount of projects I have in Omnifocus… It’d a real mess !

On the other hand, what I miss in Omnifocus is Things’ way of organizing time with the Next, Scheduled and “Someday” buttons… I guess it would be doable with Omnifocus, but that’d need a lot of work to customize it to my needs.

I guess you can’t have it all, but as with time, things tend to become more complex, I believe Things simplicity would be overwhelmed quite quickly with the quantity of information we get to manage in our daily lives…

@rudyr : in those conditions, using the same database for both tools would make no sense…

By: rudyr

rudyr — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 13:45:33 +0000

I’m going through exactly the same dilemma now. As a long time user of OmniPlan and a fan of the Omni Group, I purchased OmniFocus. A week later ScreenCast Online covers Things and I’m thinking, “I like the simpler interface and the shorter learning curve,” so I purchased Things.

I now have two great programs where before my life was sticky notes and scraps of paper. I’m still undecided between these two great options and my rough take is that, while OmniFocus’ depth takes more time to learn, it has features others will definitely want. For me, the simplicity of the Things interface and approach has me leaning in it’s direction.

To be fair to OmniFocus, the learning curve was longer because I hadn’t used this kind of App before and the approach took some getting used to. With Things, I could apply all I leaned in OmniFocus and was up and going much faster. Still, I like the cleaner presentation of Things and that’s where I’m leaning.

If only I could use the same database for both tools.

By: Todd V

Todd V — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 04:02:49 +0000

Loved reading this post! It is especially insightful for how much it reflects our common experience of buying and second-guessing our purchasing decisions.

By: Samuel

Samuel — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 02:15:05 +0000

Good choice. You’ll be waiting for OTA syncing from Things for a long time. They have been promising that for a good year now. I’d point you to all the negative threads on culturedcode’s own forums but they’ve scrubbed the old forums because of all the complaints on poor development cycles.

I really wanted Things to get on their game, but they just kept disappointing again and again. I’ve still been following them since I moved back to Omnifocus 3 months ago, and it’s more of the same. No development. Just bug fixes.

Go Omnifocus!

By: Productivity, Motivation, and Personal Development Links – 11th October 2009 - DIGTD - Making You More Productive

Sun, 11 Oct 2009 18:08:23 +0000

[...] fourth link is a link to a nice comparison of the two leading Mac GTD Apps, OmniFocus and Things. I am a long time OmniFocus user, ever since the very early beta although I must admit that the [...]

By: Jeremy

Jeremy — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 17:25:44 +0000

John in MD : FWiW, Things and Dropbox solve the syncing problem quite nicely.

Yes - I guess that is an option. I do the same thing to sync 1Password.