Automate task entry from PC to Omnifocus or Things

macOS
1

Hi there,

I share the problem of many - I have mac/ios at home and PC at work, where I spend most of my time…

I’m wavering between Things and Omnifocus (I prefer the look of Things, but Omnifocus seems to be doing more of what I need it to do…). I thought I could have a running text file in taskpaper format on my PC at work and at the end of the day have it converted to tasks in either Omnifocus or Things.

I love the idea of automating this, but I am an absolute newbie (two days ago I opened the script editor for the first time…).

So, the idea would be:

  • have an open text file at work on PC where I add tasks throughout the day (e.g. with Notebook app) called tasks.txt
  • have an app (Hazel?) that watches the dropbox folder in which tasks.txt is saved, and executes an automation (macOS? script? automator? iOS Shortcuts?) on this file at a pre-defined time (say 10pm) to populate the task manager with individual tasks.
  • upon successful porting to task manager delete/strike-through text in tasks.txt

Is that possible?

Oh, and for my wishlist…

  • add a step where tasks with a particular tag (e.g. @schedule) also get scheduled into the calendar on the defer/start day

too much? :slight_smile:

2

OK, so I managed to answer my own question by writing my very first Siri Shortcuts from scratch :slight_smile: It’s probably to easy for most, but exciting for me, and perhaps some other newbies will find it helpful:

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02B19DAD-2F69-49E6-92E4-B425D276F221.jpeg750×1334 104 KB

step two is automating it, though I think I might actually enjoy hitting the shortcut on my home screen as part of my “done with work for today, thank you very much”-routine as I leave the office. I might instead record a Siri voice command such as “done with today” and that will run the shortcut.

now for the calendar scheduling…! Where’s that wonderful @RosemaryOrchard OF to Calendar Shortcut again…? :slight_smile: not to worry I will find it