5: Project Templates

In this episode of Automators David and Rose get nerdy with project templates. They start out with what a project template is and how it can help you, and go through using basic project templates all the way up to more complex options. While both of them are OmniFocus users, project templates can be used in any task management system - and is something that everyone can use.

Links and Show Notes

The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right - Atul Gawande

xkcd: Is It Worth the Time?

A comic demonstrating when automation actually pays off.

xkcd: Automation

A comic showing how you can spend more time automating things than time you gave - but as said in the podcast this isn't always the case!

Screencast: Project Planning with MacSparky

In this example, David demonstrates how to build a Siri Shortcut Script to create a new project template in OmniFocus.

OmniFocusVideo Field Guide — MacSparky

Contains 45 minutes of material for project templates

Populate Template Placeholders in OmniFocus—curtclifton.net

Take a project with «variables» and replace those with words and create a new project with AppleScript

How to Fill Out OmniFocus Project Templates with Workflow | Colter Reed

Tweaking OmniFocus: Project Template Applescript — MacSparky

Using Drafts 5 Taskpaper with OmniFocus | Rosemary Orchard

Screencast: Using Drafts to Create OmniFocus Project Templates

In this screencast Rose demonstrates how to use the action group she created for Drafts to create a project for OmniFocus.

OF Taskpaper | Drafts Action Directory

The action group that Rose created in Drafts to enable easy TaskPaper creation and manipulation.

Workflow: Essay To OmniFocus

Dynamic creation of an essay project for OmniFocus

Workflow: Essay To Things

Dynamic creation of an essay project for Things

Workflow: OmniFocus Travel Plans | Rosemary Orchard

TripList Pro - Packing List Manager

The packing list app Rose uses

Bookworm – Podcast Book Club

A podcast hosted by Joe Buehlig and Mike Schmitz in which they review books.

How to Create OmniFocus Projects with Workflow | Colter Reed

Templates and Predefined Lists in Things — Matthew Palmer

Create Travel Checklist in Things with AppleScript – Coding Bull Junky

Creating Projects with Relative Due Dates in Todoist (Reddit)

Automators 1 Screencast: Numbers & Fantastical for Batch Events

From episode 1, Rose demonstrates the numbers sheet and Keyboard Maestro Macro you can use to bulk add lots of similar events to your calendar.

Create OmniFocus Project Templates with AppleScript | Colter Reed

Colter shows you how you can build project templates (for OmniFocus but you could also translate this to Things) in AppleScript and offers example scripts too.