I use the Perspectives in OmniFocus a lot. In the picture below, you see the Perspectives I use, and I have explained below how these are built up.
I use the same Perspectives on the iPad, iWatch, and iPhone. The Perspectives marked with the star mean that they are shown on the sidebar. The non-marked (star) Perspectives are added to the Toolbar.
I have listed the setup of all Perspectives. It is based on the OmniFocus setup I am using, which is described here. You still need to adjust it to your setup.
You can customize the fields you want to view and customize. In the picture you see the settings I use.
Prepare for Flight contains all the untagged tasks that do not have a Tag and/ or a Project and/or an Estimated Duration. It helps maintain a trusted system.
Like many of you, I have more work at hand than hours in a day. I use the concept to add to every task the estimated duration (in 5-minute blocks). In the morning, during the Reveille routine, I can see how much time is remaining (total working time minus meeting duration) for doing specific tasks. In this way, I can plan the remaining time with tasks I can finish, and at the closure of the day, I can be 🥳joyful that I could finish my plan for the day.
The inbox’s default configuration is pre-defined, yet it offers flexibility for customization. Users retain the ability to tailor the view, including the selection and arrangement of displayed and editable fields. On the right, I show how I use it.
Events are an overview of all coming events, for which I can also add agenda topics to a specific event—everything in one place. I use a Shortcut, which runs daily automatically in the background, to add new Calendar items to the Event list and suggest removing the deleted meetings in the past. You can download the shortcut here.
Furthermore I use a Keyboard Maestro macro to facilitate easy event and agenda points management. You can download this macro here.
Communication is about all communications I have to do.
The Do perspective is a more complex perspective and works in combination with “Today Next Actions.”
In the day start process, I schedule from all available actions shown in the Today Next Actions perspective when I want to do this. I use the Omni Automation script Schedule, which you can find here, to schedule tasks during the week. Those scheduled tasks are shown in the Do perspective.
It looks back one week and forward until Friday.
Today’s next actions is the perspective containing the “central” list of actionable actions used for planning the day and week. It shows all available actions. I select which actions I want to do, using the above-mentioned Schedule Omni Automation Script.
Weekly Review shows all the checks/ actions I do during the weekly Review, further explained here.
The Monthly Review shows all the checks/ actions done based on role-based setup, further explained here.
The Quarterly Review shows all the checks/ actions done based on the role-based setup, further explained here.
The Waiting for perspective shows all the tasks I have delegated or for which I am waiting on an answer without an agreed-upon deadline (open ends). I follow these up daily.
The Waiting for due perspective shows all the tasks I have delegated or waiting on an answer with an agreed deadline. I will follow these up at the deadline if not completed.
The below Perspectives are not part of the sidebar but of the Toolbar
The Reveille perspective shows all checks and tasks for the morning routing, further explained here.
The Dialy digest shows the news sources I want to check within a 30 minutes timer, further explained here.
Closure of the day shows all the tasks for shutting down the day, further explained here.
Payments prive shows all payments open and sorted on the Due date
Clear perspective shows all remaining actions. It is like all Today Next Actions but now including also “not” available actions. Used for cleaning the task database.
Goals give you a holistic overview of all my goals, for myself and delegated goals.
I’m so glad you’ve updated this guide. I came across it back in 2022 and revisited as I needed to refresh my setup. One quick note: For some perspectives, the projects or tags on the inclusion/exlcusions lists are cutoff. Could you add (in picture or text) the ones you include for the different perspectives? I just want to make sure I’m not missing anything.
Thanks again!
Sure, can you send an example of the issue with a print screen. From my side it is looking okay.
Thanks for the quick response!
Not sure if I can attach screenshots to the comments, but one example is for the Clear perspective.
You have
Tagged with any – I can see Administration and Communication. But Communication is already cut off and I can’t tell if there should be other tags included
Same with Contained within a project or folder – I can only see husband and can’t tell if there should be other projects included.
Based on another version of the setup (https://bertkruisdijk.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/screenshot-2021-01-20-at-08.11.15.png) I see there were 4 tags and 3 projects included. If thats the same, then the screenshots in this post are definitely cutting something off
This pretty much the “standard” selection of all perspectives. If you need more, please let me know.
Thanks!