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2020-07-03 Daniel Improving your Creativity, Infrastructure, iPhone/iPad, Mac in General, Self-Improvement, Tools 1. Time is an equal opportunity employer. Each human being has exactly the same number of hours and minutes every day. OmniFocus tasks (right). Repeating Tasks. Omni Automation in OmniFocus provides the ability to set the repetition rules for a task. The repetitionRule property of the Task class is used to access and set any repeating parameters. RepetitionRule (Task. RepetitionRule or null). If repetition is.

• Published on
  February 20, 2019
• Updated on
• Read time
  6 minutes
• Category

Ever since the term Getting Things Done (GTD) was coined by David Ellen in 2001. There has been a wave of tools identifying as one of the best to-do list apps for getting things done. One such popular tool is OmniFocus.

The ever-increasing popularity of the product comes on the basis of numerous industry leaders’ recommendations. I have been motivating enough for users from all over the internet.

But there is a catch. Even with some amazing graphics and advanced features for to-do list management, OmniFocus calls for alternatives because of its cross-platform restrictions. Sometimes the integration is lacking, which makes it hard for power users to complete their work on daily basis.

We have appended some of the best Omnifocus alternatives for you to breeze through. Take a look below:

1. nTask

First up on our list of the best OmniFocus alternatives – nTask.

nTask is relatively new when stacked up against other task management tools. However, it comes with some solid features to help get things done faster. The developers kept technical glitches at bay while striving to perfect this program.

This OmniFocus alternative goes beyond the likes of basic task management by providing native modules for elaborate project management.

These modules allow you to tackle your tasks productively, successfully execute your team meetings, and resolve your issues and risks with precision.

nTask provides this spectrum of intelligent features all the while ensuring smooth navigation across the application.

✨ Key Features

• Checklist management.
• Elaborate task management.
• Gantt charts for project tracking.
• Comprehensive meeting management.
• Time tracking with tasks.
• Comments and file attachments.
• Color labels and progress status.
• Due dates and priority level.
• Powerful search filters.
• Alerts and notifications.
• Third-party application access.

😍 Pros

• Simple user-interface with a short learning curve.
• Native modules for comprehensive project management.
• Multiple views for organizing tasks.
• Free version available.

🙁 Cons

• Limited functionality of Gantt charts.
• Kanban workflow is missing (underworks).

💸 Pricing

• The tool is free for basic task management and limited workspaces. The paid plan is available at an affordable starting price at $1 per user/month.

• Are you looking for the perfect Omnifocus alternatives?

  See why teams trust nTask for task management. Create unlimited tasks, meetings & do more.

2. Todoist

A powerful task management software, Todoist helps individuals and teams to organize their tasks with flexibility. You can quickly create your daily to-dos and assign due dates to stay on track.

Todoist ranks #2 in our roundup of the top OmniFocus alternatives.

The product comes with a multi-dimensional mix of tools including document management, project scheduling, and task management to provide a complete solution under one platform.

Furthermore, with the help of ‘Karma points’, you can track your project performance over time. In addition, you can also visualize your productivity to take smarter decisions.

😍 Pros

• Quick checklist management.
• Task priorities.
• Built-in project templates.
• Recurring tasks.

😫 Cons

• No time tracking functionality.
• Built-in calendar feature is missing.
• Task labels and reminders are not available in Free plan.
• Limited features available in Free plan.

💸 Pricing

• The Free version can be upgraded to Premium and Business plans for $3 and $5 respectively.

Also Read:

3. Asana

Asana is another shortlisted application in our Omnifocus alternatives’ roundup. It is one of the first choices of many teams when it comes to project management. Asana comes with a robust set of features for organizing and managing tasks.

The core functionality of the tool revolves around project management solutions for different types of teams, including Agile. Through project portfolios, you can keep an eye on your project progress over time and plan accordingly.

Some other useful features to help teams always stay on track include project portfolio management, project reporting, dashboard, and project timeline.

😍 Pros

• Easy to setup.
• Templates for repeatable projects.
• Recurring tasks functionality.
• Free version available.

😫 Cons

• Limited features available in the Basic plan.
• No Gantt charts for project scheduling.
• Time tracking with tasks is missing. You can switch over to some other application if time is one of your main concerns.
• Timeline view is only available in paid plans.

💸 Pricing

• Apart from the Free plan, Asana comes with not 1, but 3 paid plans! Premium, Business, and Enterprise. The paid plans start from $9.99 per user/month.

4. Evernote

A popular note-taking application, Evernote grabs a fourth place in our Best Omnifocus Alternatives List. Equipped with an intelligent toolset for managing your to-dos, Evernote provides tons of built-in features for organizing your thoughts.

With the help of the web clipping feature, you don’t have to lose track anymore. Save any information you may find online to your Evernote interface and bookmark for later use.

The smart document scanning feature allows you to keep all your important documents with you wherever you go without any hassle.

In addition, this OmniFocus alternative lets you share your notebooks with team members to collaborate on ideas from desktop, web, or mobile application. These notebooks can also be edited instantly by anyone.

😍 Pros

• Elaborate note-taking features. It is a cornerstone perk for Evernote users.
• Web clipping functionality for saving important content.
• Shared spaces for team collaboration.
• Free basic version.

😫 Cons

• No time tracking is available with tasks.
• Very limited free features.
• Team collaboration features only available in the Business plan.

💸 Pricing

• Free, Premium, and Business plans. The paid plans are priced at $7.99/month and $14.99/user/month respectively.

5. Remember the Milk

Remember the Milk is one of the oldest tools out there for to-do list management. If you are looking for a fairly simple task management application as a viable Omnifocus alternative, this tool might be the runt of the litter.

Coming with a Smart lists feature, Remember the Milk allows you to instantly add your most important tasks. You can further add due dates and priority so that missing deadlines by accident is a thing of the past.

This makes Remember the Milk rank #5 on our list of the best OmniFocus alternatives.

😍 Pros

• Easy to use.
• Lists can be shared.
• Details can be quickly added to tasks through Smart Add feature.
• The basic version is free. Try it anytime you feel comfortable.

😫 Cons

• Basic version has limited features available.
• No time tracking functionality available.
• Subtasks are only available in the Pro version.
• Advanced sorting filters are missing in Free version.

💸 Pricing

• The Free version can be upgraded to Pro for $39.99 per year.

6. Float

Float is more of a ‘one and done’ type of project and resource management app. To be honest, it leans more on resource scheduling with a tinge of project and task management on the side. Yes, we know that you thought it was meant for the latter. But that’s not the case.

Anyhow, Float combines an intuitive interface with an amazing overlay of tools’ shortcuts. Everything is right where it needs to be. You get a brilliant dashboard with an overview of all your important tasks, assignees, and resources.

There’s a convenient drag and drop functionality that lets you play around with your resources and their overall management at your discretion. Float has a powerful budget management system to enable contractors and admins with their billable work hours.

To that end, Float also goes through regular updates from time to time. The dev team reportedly gets feedback from users to not only improve on features that are already in the program but also add user-requested features to keep the gears moving on in the right direction.

😍 Pros

• Offers a brilliant overview of resource understanding, scheduling, and management through visual cues.
• Manage time and resources at your discretion.
• Understand the financial health of your projects from a deeper POV.
• Easy learning curve.
• Attractive pricing and packages.
• Friendly support staff.

😫 Cons

• Not that we know of. The overall experience has been more than satisfactory.
• They don’t have Live Phone Support.

💸 Pricing

• Float comes with a free trial. The support staff might extend it for you. Paid plans start at $5.00 per month. For more details, you can contact their CSRs anytime.

Read also:

Have you used any of these top 6 OmniFocus alternatives for task management? Which one is your favorite? Let us know in the comments below. You can also send us an email to get personalized answers to your questions.

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Hey GTDers!!
I want to share my current OmniFocus set up with you for inspiration. After reviewing the official GTD set up guide and watching David Sparks’ course (https://learn.macsparky.com), I customized OmniFocus in a way that works for me, my brain, my daily actions, and workflow. If you’ve been turned off by OmniFocus, this approach may help you see it from a different perspective!
Custom Perspectives
Using the Pro-level subscription, I’ve set up a series of perspectives that work really well for my daily flow. To get them to show up on the sidebar and set up customized icons, click Perspectives from the Menu Bar and click the “star” on the right. You can also rearrange their order here. All perspectives are saved to the cloud and show up on mobile as well.
You can see them on the left side of my screen here:
I need to change the color of that Tickler icon! It looks better in dark mode
The Forecast Perspective is built into OmniFocus and you can learn more about that in the official GTD set up guide. I’m also following a lot of the foundational instructions in that guide like using the “—“ and viewing projects as “Remaining.”
The first custom perspective I have is called “Projects.” This view displays all items with the TAG Projects. I couldn’t come up with a better name. This is the purest form of the Projects term for GTD — the Complete Projects Desired Outcomes List. This is not the default Projects view that is built-in to OmniFocus. I’ll get into that later.
I keep it at the top of my list because I like to work from my Projects list to trigger next actions. I usually start all of my projects with a keyword or acronym. I like to keep a flat list of all things professional and personal that I’m working on at the Level 1 horizon.
Next, I have a perspective called Contexts. When OmniFocus changed their terminology from Contexts to Tags, I was disappointed. I like to think of these areas as my Contexts, not tags! So I created a new perspective that displays all tags . This way, I can see all of these lists at a quick glance. I just like the name Contexts better! I can easily view the original Tags page by clicking Perspectives > Tags (which I need to do sometimes).
Daily Use — I occasionally scan this during the week, but this context is really just a “master view” of all next actions.
Weekly Use — I use this perspective to quickly scan all contexts and review with ease. Makes the Weekly Review really fun.
Agendas, Waiting For, Office, Home, Errants, Someday/Maybe, and Tickler are all flat lists. They just show that context by itself on a simple, clean list. I like them in this order for how my brain works.
The Phone Perspective
I found myself not really using the Anywhere context, so I created this “Phone view” to show me anything I can do at a smart Phone. It is set up to show anything tagged with Calls, Slack, and Texts. In the next photo, you’ll see how this is set up. I have the '— symbol' in each section because I haven’t found a way for the perspective to continue showing the tag when all of its available actions are complete. (For instance, without the —, the calls and texts tags wouldn’t show. I like to see all 3 of them at all times so I can add to them from this perspective and skip the inbox. Yes, you can add this tag directly from the inbox, but often as I process my PHYSICAL inbox, I’ll go right to the action list, so this solves that problem for me.)
In the filter rules for the Phone perspective, here are the settings I created. To add a nested rule, you hold “option” and click the plus button. The master rule should be set to ANY and the sub groups set to a “ALL” for each of the ones below.
Likewise for the Computer perspective, I like to see my computer options in 2 views: Things to do on the computer AND “Surf” which is like a someday/maybe list of things that aren’t as mission critical but I still want to see when I’m at a computer.
The main Projects Default Perspective is where I keep nested lists and support material I refer to as needed. I also like to use Evernote, Ulysses, MindManager, Dropbox, and other sources — so this isn’t the only place Project Support material is stored. I make a note to myself at the PROJECT level (on the Project list) to view the support material in these folders. I also know to go here during the Weekly Review if I need to review Checklists and other reference items.
Coaching questions that have really helped me

• Are these the options I want to see when I do work?
• Do these lists attract or repel me?
• Does this work for me when I do the weekly review?

Some disclaimers:

• I do not use all of the features in OmniFocus and don’t want to
• I do not use OmniFocus for any attachments. I’ll write in the notes field if needed or a short note of where to find it.
• I am not “matchy-matchy” (Thanks Coach Kelly for that)
• I don’t use the “Review” function built into OmniFocus

Custom Icons

If this was helpful to you, let me know! I don’t think there’s ANY perfect application out there but I really like how I’ve customized OmniFocus and it makes my processing and defining and DOING time much more fun and engaging.
Happy to answer any questions if I can be of help!

Omnifocus 2020 Conference

JM