THE OMNI SHOW

Andrew Canion: I think in defer dates and due dates, I can't unlearn that stuff. It's just so within me now, and I think it's actually really helped my entire career. And I know that's strange probably to say about a piece of software, but it would have to be, only focus would have to be my most used and most beloved software in my entire life.

Andrew J. Mason: You're listening to the Omni Show, where we connect with the amazing community surrounding the Omni Group's award-winning products. My name's Andrew J. Mason, and today we learned how Andrew Canion uses OmniFocus. Well, welcome everybody to this episode of the Omni Show. My name's Andrew J. Mason, and as you can tell from behind me, we're actually not during the daytime here, and that can only mean one thing, that our guest and myself are located in two different locations in the planet. Som my guest today is Andrew Canion. He's a manager, a podcaster, and a basketball commentator, and we're just going to learn more about how he happens to use OmniFocus. Andrew, thank you so much for joining us today.

Andrew Canion: It's an absolute pleasure, and I'm not sure what you're talking about. It's bright, beautiful sunlight right where I'm sitting. So, I'm excited to be here to talk on a podcast that I've listened to for such a long time. It's a thrill.

Andrew J. Mason: Oh, man, absolutely, and the honor is ours. And I'd love if you would, I mentioned three roles there, and I know it's probably even more expansive than just those three roles of manager, podcaster, and basketball commentator, but give a little bit more color around who you are, what you do, and where you find yourself.

Andrew Canion: Yeah, for sure. So probably most importantly, I'm a dad as well, I've got two kids. Two boys, 13 and 9, so a lot of my time is spent dealing with those two. But yeah, I'm also a manager, I work for an organization called the West Australian Police and Community Youth Centers, which is a bit of a mouthful, but basically I am the operations manager there at that organization. So responsible for the strategic direction of the company, making sure that all our centers that we have, we have 16 of them around our state of Western Australia where I'm located, are all running effectively. So, just to give that some context, because people here, Western Australia, and I'm from Perth, which is the capital there. It's one of the most isolated capital cities in the world, actually, by geographical direction. And the state of Western Australia is about one-third of all of Australia, and it's... I got some stats here on the US. It's actually just slightly smaller than the combined area of Alaska and Texas.

Andrew J. Mason: Holy [inaudible 00:02:40].

Andrew Canion: If that helps you.

Andrew J. Mason: It does.

Andrew Canion: And it's bigger than the entirety of Western Europe. So when I say we've got our 16 centers scattered around the place, to get from one to the other, our two most distant ones, it would take a day and 12 hours of non-stop driving to do it. So, Western Australia is a very big place.

Andrew J. Mason: It's so funny to me the context between that and Delaware, which is the second smallest state in the United States. And I don't know how many Delawares fit in an Australia, but I think there's still quite a few, I would say

Andrew Canion: Plenty, plenty.

Andrew J. Mason: Yes, plenty of those. And then talk to me more about your role as a podcaster and a basketball commentator.

Andrew Canion: Yeah, for sure. So podcasting is something, I've listened to podcasts forever and a day, before they were even a podcast, I was right into them being a bit of the nerd that I am. But over the last few years I got into actually producing podcasts and there's two of them on the go at the moment. There's one around the basketball world that I'm involved in, that's the NBL podcast, where I talk about the Australian Basketball League. But the one that is probably more relevant to this audience is Hemispheric Views, and that's what we describe as a tech-adjacent podcast, where we talk about the cultural differences between Australia and America. It's three hosts. It's myself here in Perth, there's Martin Feld, who's also an Australian but on the other side of Australia in Wollongong, and then America is represented, or the USA, is represented by Jason Burk, who's in Portland, Oregon. So, we have very different views, but we like to keep it lighthearted. Two of the areas we focus on are ensuring that we have a really good edit, and ensuring that our show notes are top rate. We really put value on that as the traditional podcasting values.

Andrew J. Mason: Talk to me a little bit about how you came across the Omni Group and OmniFocus. Where did that enter your life, your space? And talk to us a little bit about, do you have any recollection as to when that was?

Andrew Canion: I do. I had to put my thinking cap on and come back to this, but actually, Omni Group are responsible for me buying my first Mac.

Andrew J. Mason: Wow.

Andrew Canion: Yeah, it goes back to, I think it was around 2007 when I got my first Mac. Been lusting after them for a long time, but the ultimate push was the Omni Outliner at the time. I wanted to use Omni Outliner so badly, so I got... yeah, it was a 17-inch core two duo MacBook Pro.

Andrew J. Mason: Yes, sir.

Andrew Canion: One of the first Intel machines that they released. I got that and it was, yeah, I loved it. And yes, it was the Omni Group, literally seeing Omni Outliner was what I was so excited to use, so it's their fault.

Andrew J. Mason: Yeah, that's incredible that that was your introductory point there. And talk to me a little bit about OmniFocus. Did you happen to shift in that direction over time? Did you see OmniFocus first for a second and think, eh, not for me, but then over time realized like, okay, maybe this is something I could use?

Andrew Canion: Yeah, no, I was right into it from the start. I don't know if you recall when Ethan Schoonover developed the Kinkless GTD scripts that ran in Omni Outliner. I got into those and that was the precursor to OmniFocus for real. And then I was on the beta train of the OmniFocus one and just was loving it.

Andrew J. Mason: Andrew, you're about as original as it gets, I think, when it comes to that. Because my timeline is a little bit later, I jumped in maybe 2010, 2011, but I know this story well. I've heard of Ethan's work well and I've heard almost this movement that starts to realize like, oh my gosh, we can start to do context-based work around all of this thing. And when you're first starting in that, it's completely morphed here about context and tags and how everybody uses it and all of that, it's transformed into something totally different. But when it was first starting and people started to say, "I think we have a bit of a superpower now, it's a bit of a competitive advantage to the fact that we can only see only what we need to see in this moment at a given time."

Andrew Canion: It was truly transformational, and I don't say that lightly. It actually changed the way that I worked and has changed the way I work in every job I've ever held since. It's actually changed, I feel like it's changed my brain construction, the way that I think. I now think in projects and sequences, whether they're parallel or sequential. I think in defer dates and due dates, I can't unlearn that stuff. It's just so within me now, and I think it's actually really helped my entire career. And I know that's strange probably to say about a piece of software, but it would have to be, OmniFocus my most used and most beloved software in my entire life. That's a strange thing to say, but it's so crucial. And I don't know what I would do if it went away tomorrow. I would be wandering the planet aimlessly, I think.

Andrew J. Mason: Well, it's funny, somebody says I'm attaching emotion or a feeling to the idea of software, but it's what all that represents. There are things that I can now do that I wasn't able to do maybe at a level that I wasn't able to do them previously, because of the ways of being able to slice and dice data that I wasn't able to do that previously. And so, getting to see it in that way, I think it's a really, really helpful thing. What do you say to somebody who maybe is coming into it now? So it's 2025, different landscape, different tech-scape than 2008, 2009, and even different overall work styles as well. You still have some work from home happening, you still have some blended context happening, a lot of talk of work-life integration happening. What do you say? What do you talk to for somebody that's like, okay, I know I'm kind of coming into this place of enhanced responsibility, I have more to do than really I thought I knew how to do, maybe a to-do list might not cut it for me anymore. What's your first kind of go-to low hanging fruit bit of advice for somebody that says okay, I need to do something to start keeping track of ideas and tasks?

Andrew Canion: Yeah, and I think right now it's a more difficult time to start in a sense, because back when OmniFocus started, files were always in a certain location. Things were in a certain place. You would either make a phone call at a phone, which was not always with you. Yet you would... files were more easily identifiable, they're on your hard drive. Nowadays, we have network drive, SharePoint thing, Teams access, where easily all this stuff, it's coming at us from every different angle. So the first bit of advice I would say is don't worry about building the perfect system. It's more about capturing in the moment. Understand that your memory is fallible and things aren't necessarily as easily findable as they once were. So, keep a track of where you've put that information and capturing into that lovely OmniFocus inbox is as good as place as any. Give yourself some breadcrumbs from which to work back from, because otherwise you spend too much time thinking about, I know I saw that bit of information somewhere, or where did I put that file? If you can create some sort of link with a URL link or something to a file, put it in the notes field in OmniFocus, at least you can get back to where you were. And just don't think about having to build that perfect system, you just want that trusted place.

Andrew J. Mason: David Allen always has this quote or this conversation where he talks about in the moment when you're feeling inspired or you feel like you have the right idea or you're pointed in the right direction, and you're supposed to, this is the prime time when you're supposed to capture that and write it down, especially if you're not going to get to it right then in the moment. And we trick ourselves, we say, "Oh, I'll think of it when the time is right. Oh, I've got it. When the time shows up for me to remember that thing or buy the bread or put the batteries in the flashlight or whatever the example might be, it'll come to me at the exact right time." We're so good at fooling ourselves, and yet I don't know why we are surprised when the majority of us spend so much time scrolling through TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube Reels, all these things and see so much information flowing by, and the most we give our attention span to it is like six, seven seconds. How thoroughly we can convince ourselves that we'll hold onto that piece of information for the next 20, 30 minutes or whenever it becomes critical. So yeah, I mean, I totally agree. Write it down, for goodness sakes. It's just a small amount of caloric expenditure in your brain to have to do that and know that you'll have peace of mind, especially when, what does he say? The difference between buying bread and buying the company hold up the same amount of space in your brain anyway, so might as well do it. Talk to me about the overall context of OmniFocus for your life's work. So, you do have a lot of roles happening there. What kind of information flows into it? Does any information, or is it just action that kind of flows out of it for you? Talk to me about where it sits within software and just kind of how you end up using it day to day.

Andrew Canion: So really, everything in my life goes into OmniFocus. I don't know whether that's a reflection of an ADHD brain that I have or a lack of personal accountability, but I just find it's easiest to just put everything into that one piece of software and let it help me down the track, it's like a gift to my future self. The way I do it is that I actually slice, probably not unusual, but I slice my life into sectors. And thanks to, it's actually a blogger out there called Beck Tench, once introduced me to this concept of be a good as a way of slicing up your life, instead of just having personal and work. It's like, be a good father, be a good podcaster, be a good basketball commentator, be a good employee. And then you can create those folders, they're essentially folders that are breaking down those elements of your life. And I find that's a nice little, it's a little bit of subtle motivation. It's like I'm not just doing work, I'm being a good employee. It's nothing really, but it does help the mindset I find sometimes.

Andrew J. Mason: Just to call out, and I want you to keep going, that invisible standard that's held up there, because when it's like, what should I put in? I don't know, what am I going to do? But when you start to ask, okay, what would a good father do? What would a good podcaster do? And suddenly start, you have at least some internal standards that are revealed for what the answers to that should be. Whether or not you want to actually do that, that's up to you, but being able to at least say, "Okay, here's where that would play if that's what I'm looking for."

Andrew Canion: Exactly.

Andrew J. Mason: Yeah, keep going.

Andrew Canion: Yeah, I don't always keep up to my own standards as well, it's much easier to say it than to do it sometimes. And then the other thing is in terms of the way I use the software. So I capture into the inbox and then I try and keep that inbox fairly thin and have them dedicated to projects and contexts. I'm a bit persnickety when it comes to that sort of thing. I'll make sure a task always has both a project and a tag, if not multiple tags, because that gets you down to the real, what I think is one of the superpowers of OmniFocus. The software is called OmniFocus and probably one of the things that we necessarily don't always think about is the fact that you can just focus on anything. You can focus on any area, one of those, be a goods. You can focus on a single project. You can focus on a tag. Just right click on the software and choose focus, and it just swoops away everything that doesn't matter in that instant. And I think that was actually harder to do in the older versions of OmniFocus, but nowadays it's right there and I think it's a superpower that doesn't necessarily get talked about a lot. People get caught up in building perspectives, which are really great custom views and everything, but sometimes you don't even need to do that. Getting back to the kiss principle, just focus on what you're looking at right now and let all that other stuff go away.

Andrew J. Mason: Yeah, it makes me think of the task switching where they talk about multitasking is a myth, but what we're really doing is just shifting and switching our attention and being able to say, "You know what? I'm going to just pull everything away. Just look into this one drawer and put the blinders on and think about how deep can I go on this one project, and not have the other stuff screaming at me, yelling at me." You need that. These are things that I've committed to or potentially have attention on, but I don't want them screaming at me right now. So to be able to visually just kind of put those aside and say, "This is what I'm focusing on right now." I would agree with you, that's really, even in some ways underutilized thing, especially when we get caught up with all the attractiveness of all the special features and automation and all the different things that you get to do with it. Yeah, just being able to click it away.

Andrew Canion: And look, don't get me wrong, I spend plenty of time trying to build the perfect custom perspective and looking at automations and all that kind of stuff, but I find a lot of the time I don't, actually. I spend a lot of time building it, but then I don't necessarily use it. Whereas those simple features of the software is just always there, always accessible. Your shortcut script isn't going to break, it will just work every single time. There's something to be said for that.

Andrew J. Mason: Yeah, actually, I mean, let's use that transition to ask, do you actually do any style of automation at all, or? And that can be as complex as like a plugin JavaScript style stuff, Omni Automation, or as simple as, hey, this is a repeating task that I know needs to happen every other Thursday. Got to take the trash out to the bin or whatever. Or even perspectives, or other perspectives that you would consider to be, you know what? I think these are somewhat custom. A couple of them kind of show up out of the box, but this is something that I've really built and I feel like is probably unique to me.

Andrew Canion: Yeah, it's interesting because I've been using OmniFocus for so long, I actually have no memory of what's custom and what isn't anymore, because it's been through so many different iterations on my desktop and it just keeps building over. But in terms of automations, I mean, obviously I use the repeating schedules and setting a deferred date or a due date and having them cycle around. It's as simple as, yeah, putting the rubbish bins out. We have three rubbish bins, one goes out every week and the other two alternate between two weeks. You think I can keep those straight in my head? No.

Andrew J. Mason: That'll mess you up easily, yep.

Andrew Canion: No, no. You have to have that in OmniFocus and you have to have it on a two-week repeating cycle so you know what's going on, so you put the right bin out. But then I use those same sort of repeats for standard processes at work as well. If they're a monthly report that needs to get written, it is hidden away by a defer date until the 20th of the month, in which case it comes due, it comes available, and then I have six days to write the thing. It's due after six days, I do it, it goes away and repeats that cycle in another month. So, all those autopilot functions are just, they're simple automations but they save a lot of time and anxiety. In terms of bigger ones, probably the one I use the most from a scripting point of view is, it's based on the old Curt Clifton complete and await reply. It's gone through a few different versions since then. I'm actually not sure of the version I'm using anymore, but I know it's on my toolbar and I click it all the time because when I do something and it's sent off to somebody else, I click that button and the task gets rebuilt and a waiting tag gets applied to it so that I can know what's out there that needs to be kept track of. Because as much as I'd like to be able to trust everybody to use their own version of OmniFocus, it doesn't quite always work that way.

Andrew J. Mason: No, and I love, you're calling that out too for folks. If you're wondering, man, somebody acts like they have an executive assistant all the time, they are just on top of their stuff. This is the internal semantics as to how that gets done. For somebody that's thinking, man, they always seem to follow up with me or ask me three days later. It's because they've written it down. Now, they might not have told you, they might've made it sound like, oh yeah, I was just thinking and it comes very natural in the course of conversation. But odds tend to wants that you have, somebody has tracked that, had it waiting for you, you're in there waiting for side, and also for how do you make sure that you follow up on the things that need to be followed up on? When you say a repeating task that shows up five days before it's due, you're like, okay, yeah, that's great. What's the big deal? But scale that by the amount of responsibility that you currently have. You mentioned the six different locations, scale that by the responsibility of six different locations and having all of those show up on the exact day that you need to focus on. Suddenly that seems like, okay, this is making me feel like I can have peace of mind and not wake up at 2:00 AM saying, "Oh, shoot, I didn't do that."

Andrew Canion: Exactly. I mean, one of the things I spent a lot of time in. In a previous career, I was a management consultant and spent a lot of time thinking about lean processing, which is a manufacturing theory, and it goes into the whole agile software development side and all that kind of stuff as well. But basically, everything you do should be able to be a process, should be able to be systematized to an extent. And the more you can do that, the more waste you remove from the system, whether it's just remembering to do that thing or optimizing the way you do it. Checklist, manifesto, that whole situation, it's just all about optimizing and just every time, if you can just improve the way you do things a little bit more. And having that OmniFocus approach to it just fits right into that thinking.

Andrew J. Mason: Talk to me about, there's a reason people are drawn to this or any software that helps them to kind of do the things that they want to do more efficiently or more effectively or without waste or as leanly as possible. What do you think that is for you? When you lean into it and you look, okay, beyond the checkboxes and the semantics and even the nerdiness of like, man, I'm doing this on the Mac and it's a cool thing and it's a lot of fun. There is something deeper that's like, hey, I want to be the best that I can be for whatever reason, potential expressed, something shows up there. What would you say it is that makes you passionate about being as productive as you possibly can be?

Andrew Canion: It's a good question because you don't have to be this way.

Andrew J. Mason: You don't. There's so many people that aren't.

Andrew Canion: I think for some of it's pride in my own self. I want to be the best at whatever it is I'm doing, and if there's a way through software or a product that I can help be that person, sort of create an actuality about it, then I think that's a great thing. The fact that you're relying on software isn't a representation that you're a worse person or you can't keep it all in your head so you're somehow failing. It's actually, you're supporting yourself, it's infrastructure that helps you focus on the things that actually matter. You don't have to retain all those little thoughts in your head. You outsource those, and it lets you then sort of go about, it's the David Allen, mind like water. It's like you can just go around and whatever it is you're dealing with at the moment, you can focus on that, knowing that all the other stuff, it's okay. The software has your back. So, I like that. I find it makes me a more relaxed person. And as somebody who, speaking openly, has in the past battled anxiety, not having to stress about that stuff helps my state of mind on a day-to-day basis. It's a strange thing, it's almost like a medical product.

Andrew J. Mason: Yeah, no, I would agree that there's no guilt around that. It's almost as if, okay, you understand the semantics or the science or the inner workings of how a blade of grass grows, is it still not amazing that the ground is growing? That's incredible, wow. And so, I think it's the same ideas. Okay. We're understanding the semantics of how a person can properly manage one's life in a way that helps them to be most efficient and effective. And it's still really cool feeling when you're able to say, check in on somebody and be responsible and say like, "Hey, I was just checking in. How's that going?" And they're like, "Oh, yeah, I meant to send you that email. That's awesome, thank you for that." It's like, man, we're both better because of that, that's great.

Andrew Canion: Yeah, yeah. Even down to little things, I never miss paying a bill. That happens. Everything is just taken care of, and you just follow the script, man. Just look at your forecast view for the day, and what do I have to do? Okay, and I just love it. It's just such a great dashboard into my existence.

Andrew J. Mason: Tell me a little bit more about how you happen to use the review process. I know there's a built-in review functionality in OmniFocus. How does that play out for you?

Andrew Canion: Yeah, I think the review process is something that's really useful, but it can be a bit daunting because the default review comes in and then everything you've set up bangs in on the same day and you're like, look at this massive list of things you have to review. You just end up clicking review, review, review, because it's so overwhelming. But I think regular project reviews is like eating vegetables at a meal. It may not be the most exciting part of it, but it really is important to keep you healthy and your system functioning well. So, I encourage people to look at the projects in singularity, and then look at the review date for that project, and try and get the cadences matched up. So, how rapidly is this project moving and do I need to review it every three days or every six weeks? And just try and start setting that review date to match that project and then review it. And what you'll find is that all your reviews kind of get out of sync, but they match to the importance or the speed at which that project is moving. And I find that that can help you really focus in on giving a good review and making sure, is this project lining up with reality? Do I need to delete some stuff or add some stuff in? And you actually, because you're not overwhelmed with the whole list of them all at once, I find it's a really helpful way of keeping that hygiene into your system.

Andrew J. Mason: I want to hear one more slice before we let you go, and I would love to hear, is there anything that as you're kind of building this out, because you have had a lot of history with us, 2007, 2008. Is there anything that you've come across where you thought like, hey, this'll be a massive improvement or a game changer or a positive tweak to my system? But as you start to implement it or work it out, you realize, not necessarily the worst thing ever or a mistake or I've gone astray in my life or anything like that. So you're responsible for losing millions of dollars, no, nothing like that. But just something that shows up where you're like, you know what? It didn't really work for me the way that I thought it would or it didn't have the gains that I thought it would. And it could be instructional for somebody who happens to be listening that's considering the same thing saying, "It may very well work for you in this way, but for me it's a pass."

Andrew Canion: Yeah. It's probably one of my greatest weaknesses, is an interest in software. Now, OmniFocus I've stuck with, and I've stayed very loyal, haven't bothered moving to a different task manager or anything like that. But give me a different category of application and I'll try everything under the sun. The worst thing is knowing that you know you've taken that note, you know you have that document saved somewhere, but is it in Devon Think, Bare, Notes, Obsidian, Envy Alt? Where is that note saved? And I am terrible for that. That is my great weakness, and I try and sample apps and then I try and keep the corpus of data and move it to the next one so I kind of keep... no, but it never quite works. So I would say to anybody, just pick a handful of apps that you are just going to use and they just don't go away from that. Just accept its weaknesses, there's nothing that much better out there. I've settled now on OmniFocus to manage my life, Devon Think the store my stuff, and Omni Outliner to think through projects in the moment. And with that suite, I can pretty much do everything, but you waste a lot of time switching and changing.

Andrew J. Mason: Andrew, this has been a really, really cool conversation, and super grateful for your time. Thank you for helping us sync time zones because it's definitely a conversation that needed to be had, but also worth having as well. If folks are interested in listening to your podcasts or hearing anything else about you in the worlds that you travel in, how can they reach you?

Andrew Canion: Well, the easiest way is probably links to everything is from my homepage, AndrewCanion.com, and that's like Grand Canyon but with an I. That includes links to all my Mastodon place, my blog, all the places online that I hang out. And the podcast, also linked there, but Hemisphericviews.com is where you'll find that one. And look, I encourage people to listen to that one, it's like a little love of mine. And I think audiences of this particular show would probably find some enjoyment in that one too. So, sorry for the self-promotion, but I hope you don't mind.

Andrew J. Mason: No, please, promote away. That's exactly what we're asking for. Fantastic. Andrew, this has been such a cool conversation. Grateful to have you on. Thanks for joining us.

Andrew Canion: Oh, I loved it. It's exciting. Thank you.

Andrew J. Mason: Thank you. Hey, and thank all of you for listening today too. You can find us on Mastodon at the Omni Show, at OmniGroup.com. You can also find out everything that's happening with the Omni Group at OmniGroup.com/blog.