OmniFocus is an amazing tool. I need this app like Smeagol needs his ring. If I don’t do my morning task audit, I get the shakes and start blurting out incoherent rambling about blown deadlines and crashing plates.

One feature missing in my precious however is the ability to create project templates. Everybody has some little group of tasks that gets repeated. For instance, I had a set of tasks that got repeated for each chapter of The Book. So how do I use this unsupported feature in OmniFocus? The answer is Applescript, that ubiquitous tool (that almost nobody uses) that lets you add features and bolt applications together like so many pieces of a digital erector set. In this case, I didn’t even write the script myself. Instead, I downloaded from Curt Clifton’s outstanding collection of OmniFocus scripts. Specifically, I’m using the Populate Template Placeholders script.

The download includes instructions but since so many find Applescript intimidating, I’m going to walk through it.

First a word about Applescript

Applescript is Apple’s own natural language scripting language that lets Macintosh applications hook up. You can tell one application to generate data and then send that data to a different application to lay it out, or print it, or post it to the Internet. It enables you to make your good apps great and your great apps awesome. It takes a little bit of time to figure out. The best way to learn it is to buy Sal’s book.

Regardless, even if you don’t want to learn Applescript, you can still use it. People like Curt develop all sorts of useful scripts and then post them to the Interwebs. You just download, install, and use without knowing a lick of Applescript code. This template script is just such an example. So here is how you go about it with my Mac Power Users show template:

Step 1: Install

Download the script and copy the script file to your script directory, located at:

~/Library/Scripts/Applications/OmniFocus

Most likely you don’t have an OmniFocus directory, so create one.

Step 2: Create

Create a project template in OmniFocus. This is set of tasks the Applescript will copy and populate for every new instance of the project.

Starting out, it looks just like any other project you may create except this one is more generic and includes Placeholders (nerd translation: variables). Placeholders are declared by adding them to the last line of the Notes section of the project description. They get surrounded by guillemets, those double-bracket looking symbols «like this». You can create them on a US keyboard by pressing (Option + \) for « and (Option + Shift + \) for ».

Once declared you can add the Placeholders to your project name and task items. As you can see from the example, I’ve created placeholders for the show name and show number. (If you want to prove your geek cred, open the Applescript and change the Placeholder symbols to something else.)

Step 3: Run

You can run the script from the script menu in your menubar. If you don’t see the script menu, which looks like this …

you can enable it in the preference pane of Applescript editor, an application on every Mac found in the Applications/Utilities folder.

Once you trigger the script, Applescript prompts you for the Placeholder variables …

and creates a new project replacing the Placeholders with your supplied data. Once you’ve got the script installed, setting up new templates projects takes a fraction of the time it did before.

Step 4: Drag

Drag the newly created project to wherever it belongs in your OmniFocus Project list.

Bonus Points

If you want to add start and due dates to templates projects, go nuts. The project itself, however, must have a start or due date in order for it work. Alternatively, if you add a line to the Project Template Note (above the Placeholder line) that reads Due date is, you will be prompted to type in your dates when you run the script. While I like start dates, I’m not a big fan of due dates and prefer adding dates (if any) manually later.

If you like the script, send Curt a thank you note for making this possible.

MacSparky.com is sponsored by Bee Docs Timeline 3D. Make a timeline presentation with your Mac.

I’ve written and talked a lot about my favorite task management application, OmniFocus, over the years. One of the most frequently asked questions I receive are concerning my perspective settings. In addition to Omni’s built-in perspectives, I’ve rolled a few of my own.

Today

Here is the perspective set up.

This is the perspective I use in the mornings to work through the day. It lists all projects with tasks available. One of the criteria for a task to be available is that it have an available start date. If you have an item marked not to begin until the next day (or next month), it won’t show up in this view. Using the tab key, I can fly through my task list in the morning. If there is a task showing up that I don’t intend to do today, I move the start date forward. You can push it two days by typing “2d” or move it to one week from monday at 2:00 p.m. by typing “1w mon 2pm” or August 7 by typing “8/7.” I get through my entire task list every morning in about 20 minutes. The trick is to be realistic about what you can get done in the day.

Since none of the OmniFocus built-in icons really fit, I extracted the icon file from iCal and imported it in the OmniFocus Perspective icon menu. Here it is.

Clear

Here is the perspective set up.

Despite my best intentions, some days things go a bit sideways and my morning task sort goes largely ignored. At the end of those days, I open the Clear perspective that just gives me a list of all of the available tasks without any sort. The advantage of this perspective is the ability to easily select and process multiple items using the OmniFocus Inspector.

Maybe I’ll move a bunch of items to tomorrow. Maybe I’ll send items to next week. If the day was really bad, I may send them all out two days and head to the beach. The point is, when I’m done, my day is clear.

Focussed Perspectives

Even though the word “Focus” is in the name, a lot of people don’t realize you can tell OmniFocus to limit your view to items in a given folder, project, or context. If you have a folder with all your work projects in it, Focus on that folder while at work. You can custom save that view as a perspective so tomorrow you can get there faster.

Finding Your Custom Perspectives

Once you have your custom perspectives you can access them in the Perspectives menu item, assign them keyboard shortcuts in the perspective window, or open the toolbar editor and copy the perspectives into your toolbar.

So there you have it. OmniFocus Perspective bliss. Share your favorites in the comments.