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Tools needed:

• Omnifocus for mac
• Omnifocus for iPhone
• iPhone
• GMail
• Send and Archive GMail extension

It’s basically GTD and Inbox Zero.

I’ve setup Contexts for my work. A Context is a place I need to be or something I have to have in order to get things done. Currently, my Contexts are:

• Home (stuff I can do at home)
• Errands (stuff that I need a car for)
• Office (stuff that I need to be in my office for)
• Computer (stuff that I need a computer for)
• Phone (stuff I need to call people about)
• People
  • Spouse (stuff I need to talk to the wife about)
• Waiting (stuff I’m waiting for)
• Some Day (stuff I might do someday)
• Whitepages (stuff I need to be at Whitepages for)

In Omnifocus, when I enter a task, I usually give it a Context. Whenever I have some free time, I look at the task at the top of the list of the Context that I’m in and I do it.

The trick is to break down projects/tasks into actionable pieces. This is really important. Breaking down tasks into physical actions means that you’ve done a bit of thinking and know what will be required—and it makes it really simple to later see all the things you can do in a given Context.

For example, if I have to return something, but I need the address first, that would be three tasks:

1. Lookup the address (computer or phone context)
2. Pack up the stuff (home context)
3. Ship it (errand context)

Those three tasks go into a Project; anytime tasks depend on a different task, you should have a Project for that group of tasks. I’ve configured Omnifocus to only show me tasks that are available to me. For example, above, if I haven’t looked up the address yet, and I’m on an errand, I wouldn’t see the “Ship It” task; I would only see that once I’ve completed the first two tasks.

Omnifocus on my desktop/laptops are configured to sync automatically with omnifocus on my iphone.

For email, every bit of mail processed and removed from the inbox everytime I check my email. There’s four actions for mail:

1. Answer it and archive it
2. Archive it
3. Delete it
4. Move it to the ‘Action’ folder

Anything in the Action folder means I need to either respond to it later, or do a task based on that email. A couple times a week, I sit down and scan through the emails in the Action folder and figure out what to do—either respond/archive, delete it if it’s not relevant anymore, or make a task in omnifocus for it.

I feel like I keep track of all my tasks and email pretty well with this system. The overhead is pretty low; the omnifocus apps are pretty slick. The send/archive lab feature in GMail helps me quickly deal with mail. It’s pretty simple to archive mail on an iphone as well; just move it to the ‘All Mail’ folder.