Prepped week WeekNumber (I kept different template projects for different courses.)Ĭopying from a Templates folder is great for basic projects.Administered Course Number Exam Exam Number.Posted Committee Minutes for MeetingDate.Here are a few other template projects that I used as an academic:
OmniFocus keeps dropped folders around, but hides them by default. To keep the “originals” of my sample projects from cluttering my to-do list, I set the Template folder status to “Dropped”.
Brainstorm list of changes to the course made or planned for next timeĪt the end of a term, I could just open my Templates folder in OmniFocus, copy the project, switch to my Teaching folder, paste in the new project, and tweak its title to include the right course number. 
Post link from homepage to course snapshot. Collect final ABET samples for accreditation. For example, here’s a project template that I used for making sure I took care of the necessary details at the end of each term: I kept a folder named “Templates” containing sample projects. OmniFocus is great for managing small projects like these. Around those there is a huge cloud of repetitive tasks that we have to complete, like preparing course materials, writing grants, designing exams, and arranging conference travel. The joys of an academic career come from pursuing interesting ideas and nurturing students. A day or two before these meetings, I could review the context for that committee and quickly compose an email with the agenda and reminders of the commitments other members had made. I kept a context for each committee on which I served. OmniFocus was also useful for preparing for regularly scheduled meetings. Then when I met with them, I could check their context in OmniFocus and be sure to cover everything in one meeting. If I thought of a paper to recommend or a gentle reminder that I needed to pass along to someone, I’d create a task in OmniFocus (Quick Entry again!) and set the context to the student or colleague in question. Under that, I had contexts for my advisees and the colleagues with whom I most often met. To be prepared for ad hoc meetings, I used an Agenda context. I used OmniFocus “Contexts” to make sure that time was well spent. To display due dates in OmniFocus proper, you can go to the View menu, choose Columns, and make sure Due Date is checked.Īs an academic, I spent much of my time meeting with students or colleagues. To display due dates in the Quick Entry window, you can click the gear icon and make sure Due Date is checked in the list. Because of this, I set up OmniFocus to display due dates everywhere. I found that academic work was much more deadline driven than my work in industry-class sessions happen as scheduled and conference deadlines are firm. I could select the portion of an email that needed additional action, hit my clipping shortcut keys, and add details to the new task in the Quick Entry window.īy default, the Quick Entry window doesn’t include due dates. My department chair was a great one for delegating by email, so many tasks made their way into my system through the OmniFocus Clipping Service. 
I made heavy use of the Quick Entry window for dropping new tasks into my system as they occurred to me. I found that having a detailed list of the tasks that I needed to finish, including due dates, helped me to quickly choose the next thing to do when I got back to my office or finished helping a student. Between classes, committees, and meetings with students, my train of thought sometimes spent more time switching tracks than moving forward. Many of my days as an academic seemed to be a rapid succession of context switches. I want to touch on four areas where OmniFocus was especially helpful to me as an academic: dealing with interruptions, preparing for meetings, tracking projects, and saying “No.” Dealing with Interruptions
OMNIFOCUS STUDENT FOR MAC
To keep the discussion simple, I’m going to concentrate on OmniFocus for Mac here. You can get OmniFocus for your Mac, iPhone, or iPad. I always found summer was a great time to regroup and gear up for the coming year, so I thought it might be a good time to share some of the OmniFocus techniques that worked for me. As an academic, I relied on OmniFocus to stay on top of the wide variety of demands on my time and attention. Before joining the engineering team at The Omni Group, I was an associate professor at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology.
0 kommentar(er)
