I’m currently trying out TaskPaper as my task manager of choice, after almost five years with OmniFocus. More on that in the future, but for now don’t read too much into this – OmniFocus is a great app, and if it works for you, I don’t recommend switching.
TaskPaper has many strengths (again, more on that in the future), but one weakness is its lack of integration with third party apps when it comes to capturing tasks. On iOS, for example, native TaskPaper integration isn’t built into any email apps. There is a thread in the TaskPaper forums that points to a workflow, using the iOS Workflow app, to get Airmail email links into TaskPaper. I couldn’t get that working, though.
Instead, I stumbled upon a thread with instructions on how to get items from the Reminders app into TaskPaper (scroll down in the thread for the script). I set the JavaScript in that thread up on my Mac, and have Keyboard Maestro run the script every 10 minutes. That script slurps anything that appears in a designated list in Reminders into TaskPaper. Of course, for this to work, you’ll need to make sure you have Reminders syncing between your Mac and your iOS device.
Suddenly, TaskPaper is WAY more functional for me. I can use any iOS or Mac app that supports Reminders to get tasks into TaskPaper. One of those is Airmail, and the task contains a link back to the mail message.
More to come on how I’m using this Reminders integration to open up all sorts of possibilities with TaskPaper.
Paul says:
maybe it is interesting for your readers: at the moment you can save 25% on taskpaper, scrivener, devonthink and other tools
http://www.eastgate.com/Tinderbox/Specials/WinterFest.html
found on macsparky.com
December 29, 2016 — 1:18 am
Evan Kline says:
Thanks, Paul. I should have mentioned it. That was actually the deal I used to buy TaskPaper. I started testing it out, and really liked it.
December 29, 2016 — 8:30 am
Paul says:
regarding your switch away from omnifocus… at the moment I am thinking about leaving OF too. But in the opposite way you do. You are going to a reduced plain text list, I was looking for a more visual approach of todo/task management. So I am going to droptask.com
But after years of omnifocus it is difficult to leave because of its integration. From Airmail to Omnifocus, from devonthink to omnifocus, its only one tap and done…
But in omnifocus I am missing the “big picture” which droptask delivers
December 29, 2016 — 1:26 am
Evan Kline says:
I’ll probably post on it at some point, but I just felt like I was losing site of things in Omnifocus. As I test TaskPaper, I’ll be trying to figure out if that was because of Omnifocus itself, because I have too much stuff, or if I just need to better use Omnifocus. The lack of tags and/or multiple contexts in Omnifocus is a big limitation I found myself constantly trying to work around.
December 29, 2016 — 8:32 am