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How are you Mac folks doing reminders and structuring to-dos?

Scott | Nov 29 2007

As of Leopard, I’m a transplant from Entourage to the Mail/Address Book/iCal/.mac combo. Over in Entourage for the past 7 years, I created a slick Zero Inbox system by using delayed reminders, using a cool combo of Applescripts that removed emails out of the Inbox until a time when I needed to deal with them. I haven’t figured out a system yet in the Mail world.

I’d love to hear how you Mac GTD’ers are using timers/reminders to postpone to-dos until the time you need to deal with them. I’m intrigued by OmniFocus, but it doesn’t seem to be set up to do timers; more, it looks like a way to order ones to-dos in the sequence they need to be done. It might work, to switch from a popup timer world, to just remembering to look at a list. But before I dive in to OmniFocus, I’d love to hear how others are dealing with their to-dos using the Mail/Address Book/iCal/.mac combo.

Thanks for any ideas.

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TOPICS: Getting Things Done, Entourage, GTD, Personal Productivity, reminder, to-do lists
derx's picture

Try Bento

Submitted by derx on November 30, 2007 - 1:06am.

In less than 15 minutes you can create a Bento Project database plus an Automater action to add a new To-Do from anywhere on your Mac.
Step 1. Download the Bento webinar at www.filemaker.com.
Step 2. Download the Bento program (free preview) at www.filemaker.com.
Step 3. Add a new library in Bento using the Work template “Projects”.
Step 4. Select the iCal Tasks library and add a new field named Context in the Fields pane.
Step 5. Select the iCal Events library and add a new field named Context in the Fields pane.
Step 6. Go to the Projects library you created. Select the Detail view. Click on Tasks and select Context in the Fields pane. Then Click on Events and select Context in the Fields pane.

At this point you have a system that is quite usable and you’ll know enough about Bento to be able to customize your solution to meet your needs.

An easy Automator script can be made to Mimic Quick Entry from OMNIfocus.
Step 1. Open Automator and create a custom work flow.
Step 2. Select the Text library and drag “Ask for Text” into the workflow pane.
Step 3. Select “New To Do Item” from the iCal library.
Step 4. “Save As” the workflow as a Script Menu Plug-In.
Step 5. Open the Applescript Utility program and turn on Show Script Menu in Menu Bar.
Whenever you get inspired to throw something in your To-Do list select your workflow from the Applescript menu. Get fancy with Quicksilver and create a keyboard shortcut to activate Automator actions…
http://www.macdevcenter.com/pub/a/mac/2007/06/08/hit-and-run-launching-applescripts-with-keyboard-shortcuts.html?page=last

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