Why To-Do?

I’ve been a long-term user of Omnifocus, and consider it to be the most comprehensive and complete GTD based software in existence. I used it all the way back when it was “Kinkless GTD”, a heavily customized OmniOutliner outline that eventually became it’s own product. However, for the last year or so, I’ve been using Microsoft To-Do instead for two reasons; the weight of infrastructure, and data security and integration.

Infrastructure Weight

Omnifocus has a ton of great features – the best review system on the planet, and the ability to “defer dates” – to pick a time in the future when the to-do appears and to keep it off your lists until then. A few years ago, in a LifeHacker article, I compared it to the Vickers machine gun / band saw comparison in Cryptomonicron – suffice it to say, this is the biggest, baddest task manager of them all, but that come with a cost.

The problem with this infrastructure is that there can be a lot to manage if you don’t need all of it, and that its visually hard to manage. I mainly use an iPad and like to keep the iPad as a key part of my workflow – and the Omnifocus 4.0 beta seems very cluttered with all this infrastructure. It also just feels like a lot – I’ve been trying to be more nimble as I’m no longer doing a strict GTD, and am instead keeping track of tasks electronically, then highlighting some key things to block time for. I’m usually capturing those key things in my notebook for the day, although some days I just star them if I’m not working at a desk.

Data Security and Integration

As you may know, I work for a large company with data privacy policies, and I’m legally required to protect client data and some propriatary information due to some licenses and accreditations I have. My office uses the Microsoft suite for most of our needs. Using Microsoft ToDo means I never have to worry about if I’m putting in too much detail, syncing in the wrong place etc.

Beyond the data policy concerns, this integration has some great uses. My favorite thing about ToDo is the flagged email feature – if I flag an email in Outlook, on the PC, on my iPad, or using the Outlook app on a personal or company phone, a todo is created. If I unflag the email, the ToDo is crossed off. I can then edit that todo to have a more clear next action, a tag, etc as part of my system to get things done. Best of all, there’s a link that pulls up the email, either via O365 on the web if I’m on a desktop, or via the outlook mobile app if I’m on iPadOS or iOS.