OmniFocus is a fantastic GTD application, boasting many great features. One of my favorite features is the quick entry box. This allows you to tap a key combination to call up a task entry box. That entry box will hover over whatever app you’re using and then disappear after you enter your task and hit the Return key. The big problem is that OmniFocus is a Mac-only app. I’ve liked it enough as I tested alternatives to Toodledo, that I looked for a way to make it easier to implement in a world dominated by Windows. I found a very slick free app called Win2GTD that brings an OmniFocus quick entry box to Windows.
Win2GTD was released by “GrumpyDave,” a user in the OmniFocus forums. Props to him for creating such an elegant tool. Check out the post there to download the app. As his post explains, the app has functionality that supports not only OmniFocus but Yojimbo, an Evernote-like Mac app. This functionality allows you to create notes from scratch to send into either or both apps, and also to clip content to send into either app. I don’t use Yojimbo, so I’ve only been using the OmniFocus functionality.
I generally just use the quick entry box, too. That alone, though, is pretty sweet. I simply hit the Window key plus the O key (the key selection is configurable in the app’s .ini file), and a nice entry box pops up, regardless of what app I’m using on my Windows machine. I enter my task, hit Enter, and seconds later it ends up in OmniFocus over on my Mac.
The app isn’t dead simple to set up, but isn’t hard, either. The instructions are in the download, and involve installing files on both your Windows machine and your Mac. One of the installation steps involves installing Autohotkey-L on your Windows machine. I found that the easiest set up method was to use Dropbox to have the task move nearly instantaneously from the Windows machine to the Mac.
All in all, I’m thrilled with the ability to quickly enter tasks from my Windows machine. If you’re an OmniFocus user and have some other tricks to use it with a Windows machine, let us know in the comments.
Nina says:
As I understand it, Win2GTD only works for sending tasks to Omnifocus on the Mac, not to the iPhone app? I’d love to try Omnifocus on my phone, but I’m on Windows and not planning to buy a new computer.
February 28, 2012 — 7:23 am
Evan Kline says:
I believe so, yes. I’ve set up Win2GTD to use Dropbox, and that’s how it ends up on the Mac.
February 28, 2012 — 8:37 pm
Jaemie Gyurik says:
Did you use this as a folder action, or do you have Hazel monitoring your folder?
June 15, 2012 — 2:28 pm