German-based Sven Fechner of SimplicityIsBliss.com is a great fan of OmniFocus, the project and task manager application for Mac, iPad and iPhone. But even if you use another program you will learn a lot from his great new series Reviewing Your Productivity System. Part I (Capture) starts thus:
Have you been fiddling with your productivity setup lately? Be honest. Most of us have. And by fiddling I mean (temporarily) replacing one of your tools with the latest buzz from your Twitter timeline, migrating your task management or notes and reference material application, adding an AppleScript here or some folder action there. I have been guilty of this numerous times myself until I realised that neither my goals, my responsibilities nor my job description include “Endlessly tune your productivity setup to perfection” or “Try every productivity application ever released for Mac OS X or iOS”. It’s even worse as every change typically breaks some aspect of your well trained workflows.
Guilty as Charged, m’Lud. He goes on to offer help with organising your various inboxes and your “weapons of mass capture”. But his strongest advice is not to keep fiddling endlessly with your productivity system. Decide on something that works for you and give it a good run before deciding to fiddle. Sven recommends setting a reminder to review your productivity set up every three months and there is a lot to be said for this approach.