OmniFocus ♡ Siri

Two weeks ago, my friends at the Omni Group told me OmniFocus was about to get Siri friendly and asked if I’d do some demonstration videos for them. Hell yes. So I’ve been sitting on my hands the last two weeks as I added tasks to my OmniFocus inbox using Siri and not telling anyone. It is a fantastic feature that completely removes all of the hacks we’ve all been using for years to quickly capture new task items.

There are three videos. Here is my favorite.

OmniFocus + Siri: Configuration from The Omni Group on Vimeo.

You can watch all three on Omni’s blog post.

So having used this feature for a few weeks, here are some tips.

• Asking Siri “Remind me to …” always results in Siri prompting you for second question, “When would you like me to remind you”. That creates an OmniFocus due date for the task.
• Asking Siri “Remember to …” creates the task without prompting for a date.
• Although you don’t have to, creating a separate Reminders list called “OmniFocus” [including capitalization] creates a nice place to put OmniFocus bound tasks. When OmniFocus adds those tasks to your OmniFocus inbox, it clears them out of the Reminders list. Doing it this way you can also keep non-OmniFocus tasks. For instance, I have a Reminders list called “Groceries”. With the Siri command, “Add Haggis to my Grocery List”, Siri puts it in my Grocery list Reminders list and OmniFocus leaves it there.

This really takes OmniFocus to a new level for me. If I think of something while driving down the road, walking to lunch, or gazing at clouds, I’m just one Siri click away from capture.

As for making the videos, it was a blast and the process probably merits its own extended post. Suffice it to say it was a lot more work than I expected but all fun. Also, thanks to JF Brissette (Twitter - @profmac) for the most excellent music.