When I first started my job, I had a Windows machine as my primary desktop, and this made task management difficult — after all, I was used to OmniFocus!
Thankfully I now have a Mac at work too, but as part of my job I have to connect to a variety of different machines and get work done on those too. Some of these machines are “mine,” and some are full-blown servers — but none of them run macOS: they run Linux and Windows.
For a while I switched back to my Mac to work in OmniFocus, or used my iPad — but this wasn’t ideal, just because it’s fiddly and distracting to switch from one device to the other and back again.
So when OmniFocus for the Web came along I jumped right in.
There’s one machine where I primarily use OmniFocus for the Web — my virtual Windows 10 machine. I use it when my Mac is unavailable or when I have to run Windows-only software. I also use it when working from home, instead of carting my work Mac to and from the office.
OmniFocus for the Web has become a crucial part of my workflow on this Windows computer. It lives in a pinned tab in Firefox — which makes it easy to find and come back to all the time. Most of the time I’m just working, checking off tasks as I go. However, every so often, I need to add tasks or projects, and manage them — and being able to do everything without switching to another device has greatly increased my productivity.
I mostly use OmniFocus for the Web in a very focused manner. I know what project I’m working on, so I open it up in OmniFocus and work through it. As things happen throughout my day, as emails come in, phone calls get answered, and people pop by my desk for a quick chat, I add most tasks to my inbox — just like I would on iOS or macOS! I can easily visit my flagged tasks after lunch and work through the tasks I consider important.
While I prefer to sit down with my Mac at the end of every week for review and planning, being able to do all this on the web has been invaluable.
When I’m logged into a server, I can plan out the next set of maintenance tasks without moving back to my Mac or picking up one of my iOS devices. I can assign defer dates quickly in the inspector — which is one of the key ways I work in OmniFocus.
I have also attended training courses without my Mac — and been able to log into OmniFocus for the Web and organize my tasks, clear out my Inbox, and even plan new projects in detail. This has made life much easier for me.
While I use a Mac at work most of the time, at home I mostly use my 11” iPad Pro or my MacBook Pro, and when I switch over to my Windows machine — as I need to, from time to time, when doing work for university — I like to open OmniFocus for the Web in its own window and put it on the edge of my second monitor.
I also use this machine to play games! So it’s a good way to keep myself on task as I can see the project I intend to work on, without it taking over my main working area. Here I tend to either view my “Windows PC” tag, or the project I’m working on — though I make sure to always check the “Windows PC” tag even if I’m doing very project-focused work. I don’t want to miss patch Tuesday by accident!
Rose Orchard podcasts at Automators — and she’s co-written a book: Build Your OmniFocus Workflow. She’s on Micro.blog @rosemaryorchard, and you’ll often find her being helpful on Omni’s Slack group.
