My grocery setup using Shortcuts, OmniFocus, Omni Automation, and Reminders

Shortcuts
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Hey friends! I’m excited to dive back into automation blogging. My wife might be a bit over hearing about my latest tech obsessions, I figured here’s a good spot to share with likeminded folks :slight_smile:

Here’s a little grocery shopping subsystem that includes some handy OmniFocus automation snippets. Hopefully, these can help you streamline your own processes.

Looking forward to chatting and geeking out with you all!

https://michaelpilsner.com/streamline-grocery-list-management-with-gtd-omnifocus-and-siri-automation/

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@pikemilsner - a few thoughts.

  • I don’t think that the data flow in the blog posts’s intro image is correct. In the content of the post Siri goes to Reminders goes to OmniFocus, not direct to OmniFocus bypassing Reminders. What is going from Siri to OmniFocus to Shortcuts to Reminders? It just doesn’t seem to match up to what I read.
  • Have you considered using a 'Shopping" list in Reminders instead of parsing the inbox? E.g. “Add juice to shopping list”. Then you can process that list and not have to search for key phrases and risk mismatches “Buy more juice”, vs “By more juice”, "Buy, more juice"etc.
  • Why are you moving these items to purchase into an OmniFocus project? What benefit is it giving you over Reminders?
    • There is nothing in the post to indicate why you are capturing content into one app to then build automation to move it into another app.
    • A large proportion of OmniFocus users opt not to do shopping list management in OmniFocus and use other apps for this purpose - especially where they start to integrate meal planning, multiple people accessing the shopping list.
    • On that basis, it is always useful to highlight what benefits this approach is bringing to vs just managing it in Reminders or another app. Especially considering there is additional effort in implementing the automation around it.

Hopefully that helps think about the sorts of queries an inquisitive reader might have in regard to your post.

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@sylumer, thank you for your thoughtful feedback!

Post Image: You’re absolutely right about the data flow in the image not being entirely accurate. When I created the image, I opted to skip the detailed step from Siri to Reminders to OmniFocus, as it’s a native process in OmniFocus settings. I appreciate you pointing this out, as I’m sure the theme will come up again in a future post.

Shopping List in Reminders: I haven’t deeply considered the “Add juice to shopping list” approach in Reminders because I’ve only recently started using Reminders for shopping. Historically, I’ve routed everything through OmniFocus since it’s central to my workflow. However, your suggestion of directly adding items to a shopping list in Reminders is compelling for its simplicity and efficiency. It’s a solid idea that I’ll explore.

Using the OmniFocus Project: I can see how the rationale for moving items into OmniFocus might not be fully clear. My primary reason is that I use OmniFocus extensively for meal planning (and pretty much everything else), so integrating shopping items into OmniFocus keeps everything in one place along with my keyboard Shortcuts, text replacements, etc. That said, I made a note to elaborate on the specific benefits of this approach in the post, such as consolidated task management and enhanced workflow automation.

Once again, I appreciate your insights and suggestions. Thank you!