The Reminders Experiment

Over the past month I’ve been experimenting with cutting down on the number of applications I use on my Mac. One in particular I though was going to stick was moving my task management system over from OmniFocus to Reminders. I enjoyed the everywhere integration of Reminders, like how Siri would include any tasks I had scheduled for the day when I asked my HomePod “What’s my update?”. Unfortunately, when I sat down at the end of the holiday break to think about the projects I had going at work, and how to schedule them out for the upcoming week, I realized I needed to open OmniFocus, and once it was open, I knew the experiment was over.

I’ve been using the GTD system for so long now it’s a part of how I think. OmniFocus was built around that system. It’s the only to-do app that I’m aware of that does things like defer dates and built-in weekly reviews. It might be a deep and complex app, but I’ve got it customized to my liking. I know which parts of it I use (perspectives) and which parts I never touch (flagged tasks).

The long and the short of it is that I’ve got a complicated job as a senior devops engineer, I teach two courses at the local community college at night, I’ve got a family, and I’ve got a home and vehicles to take care of. To be able to focus, to be there for my family, for my work, I need a system that I can trust. For me, OmniFocus is the foundation of that system. I’m not excited about the new direction of their mobile app, but I can live with it. I imagine that OmniFocus and I are going to be together for a long time.