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Workspaces: Focus w/out OmniFocus

I'm sure someone has thought of this before but I just discovered a way for me to make my life less cluttered and more focused. I'm one of those guys that can have (what seems like) 100 things flying through his head at any moment, and have far too many "projects" and tasks to keep track of. I get overwhelmed sometimes.

I just set up different user accts on my mac to help me focus on the tasks at hand. For example:

I set up a family user acct that lets me deal with family finances, family emails, schedules, etc.,

I also set up a newspaper user acct, that lets me deal with and focus just on the newspaper (a little project that take 4-8 hours each week).

And I could setup a "Homework" user acct, that let's me focus on getting my homework done, blocking out the little procrastination distractions in my life.

All of this serves to provide me with work spaces which help me to focus, yet easily switch gears if need be (via fast user switching) while returning to the previous workspace as I left it, thus helping me to refocus quickly.

The Spaces thing is coming in Leopard, but you don't have to wait. And if you use .Mac, you might buy a family pack just so you can have all the extra accts to keep your .Mac life sorted out as well.

I know this isn't rocket science, but it is helping me to separate and focus without buying OmniFocus.

TOPICS: Mac OS X
Berko's picture

I'm sure someone has thought...

dancingbrook;9178 wrote:
I'm sure someone has thought of this before but I just discovered a way for me to make my life less cluttered and more focused. I'm one of those guys that can have (what seems like) 100 things flying through his head at any moment, and have far too many "projects" and tasks to keep track of. I get overwhelmed sometimes.

I just set up different user accts on my mac to help me focus on the tasks at hand. For example:

I set up a family user acct that lets me deal with family finances, family emails, schedules, etc.,

I also set up a newspaper user acct, that lets me deal with and focus just on the newspaper (a little project that take 4-8 hours each week).

And I could setup a "Homework" user acct, that let's me focus on getting my homework done, blocking out the little procrastination distractions in my life.

All of this serves to provide me with work spaces which help me to focus, yet easily switch gears if need be (via fast user switching) while returning to the previous workspace as I left it, thus helping me to refocus quickly.

The Spaces thing is coming in Leopard, but you don't have to wait. And if you use .Mac, you might buy a family pack just so you can have all the extra accts to keep your .Mac life sorted out as well.

I know this isn't rocket science, but it is helping me to separate and focus without buying OmniFocus.

I tried this a while back but I found that the way my life overlaps at so many places it just wasn't maintainable. I'm glad it's working for you, though!

 
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