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Omnicodoro – A Guide

Project and Task Tracking — Time Tracking (Pomodoros) — Repeating Tasks — Collapsible Nested Projects


This guide walks through how to use each page, organised by the folders and files under those folders. It is easier to explain the general use cases then to explain each individual attribute. If you can to edit the template and make it your own, you'll have to do a bit of digger into the formulas to dissect what each attribute is for. Please read this guide in full.
This template has Projects, Tasks, and Pomodoros. Projects are nested units of responsibility that span many weeks or months. Tasks are an atomic unit of work that needs to be completed under some project. Pomodoros are units of time (25 mins) that are tracked against projects. A lot of the stylistic choices behind this template are based on . If you know the workflow, you will align with many things in this template.

Main Tables and Attributes


Tasks represent "Next Actions" to be taken towards some goal. They should be granular enough to complete them in one sitting. The following are the main attributes of a Task:
1
Name
The name of the task
2
Description
Additional information for this task that you don't want in the title
3
Project
The project to link this task to (project must already exist)
4
Date
The date this task is due (more specifically, the date you wish to work on this task)
5
Priority
The importance of this task, set as one of the options available in this table:
DB - Select - Priority
6
Repeat Frequency (↻)
If you wish a task to repeat, this option allows you to enter an amount at which this task will repeat.
There is a "✓" button that normally "completes" the task, however, if a repeat frequency has been set, this button will now show "↻" and instead of "completing" the task, it will "repeat" by changing the date to be in the future.
This field accepts a number followed directly by either "d", "w", "m", or "y". "1w" will add one week when the repeat button is pressed. "2y" will add two years when the repeat button is pressed.
The regular expression that defines how this works is a named formula: "RepeatingTask - Regex" on the page.
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Projects should be used for responsibilities that cannot be completed in a single task, but rather require many tasks. The two main attributes of projects are the Status and the Pomodoro Weekly Distribution. The following are the main attributes of a project:
1
Name
The name of the project
2
Description
Additional information for this project that you don't want in the title
3
Parent Project
The project you wish to nest this project under
4
Status
The current stage that the project is on. "Focus" and "Active" are special and utilised by this template in special ways. If you wish to alter the available statuses, keep in mind that other views or formulas may need to be modified.
5
Pomodoro Weekly Distribution
The number of Pomodoros that you have dedicated to this project for this week
6
Start Reminder
Use this when you want a reminder to start this project in the future. When this date arrives, the "Projects" section of the "Console" page will remind you by making this project visible
7
End Reminder
Use this when you want a reminder that a project should be ending at some point in the future. When this date arrives, the "Projects" section of the "Console" page will remind you by flagging this project with an emoji to draw your attention.
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Pomodoros are units of time that represent a productive sitting. They are minutes of focused work, followed by 5 minutes of relaxing, standing up, or tending to small and easy tasks. This template allows goals per week (time commitments) to be set for projects. This allows you to track how well you have achieved your weekly goals. Time is tracked against projects, since reporting should be done on a project level.
1
Name
The name of the Pomodoro
2
Project
The project this Pomodoro is linked to
3
# PDs
The number of tracked Pomodoros for this entry
4
Theme
The type of work this way. Can be any of the options available under
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Main Pages

These are the pages you will spend the most time time on. Each one has a specific use that caters to a workflow you will can use.

📬 Inbox

If you want to quickly add a task to get it off your mind, use this view. If you want to review tasks that do not have a project associated with them

🏔Console

This page is the main view of the application, acting as a dashboard for viewing the status of your projects, tasks, and pomodoros. The page is laid out with purpose:
Basic Stats (Top of page)
A few simple numbers designed to give you an overview of what your day looks like. Also, the "Inbox" number lets you know how urgently you should go through your inbox.

Projects
This section is for project-level planning for the week. At a glance, you get an idea of which projects you should be focusing on this week, as well as how much effort (time) you have put into each of them.
The table shows you all projects that are marked as state "Focus" or "Active", or have a Pomodoro Commitment assigned to it.
This table also lets you quickly add a Pomodoro entry by copying over some initial information to a new Pomodoro entry

Pomodoros
This section allows you to see your Pomodoros for the day, as well as a table that gives you an overview of your commitment and produced output for this week. Additionally, this section has three buttons that change the information displayed in the Console.
The first row of the table shows all Pomodoros tracked this week. The second row is a bit more complicated; it shows all Pomodoros tracked this week, up until the weekly commitments you have made per project. If you have commited 10 Pomodoros on a project, and then you work on it for 15 Pomodoros, only 10 of those 15 are displayed in this row. This allows you to see how "Focused" you have been in distributing your time across your commitments.
Under the table you can see the Pomodoros you have tracked today (or all week, with the button described below)
There are three buttons in this section designed to change the information displayed in the Console. These buttons are here because this section is fairly central to this page, and therefore always read to be clicked.
Personal – This button switches the entire console between "personal" and "non-personal" projects. This allows you to see one of two views at any given time, allowing you to focus at work on non-personal projects, and focus at home with just personal projects. Which root projects count as personal is defined in
DB - Variables - Linked
Projects ⏱ – This button changes the "Projects" section to also show all projects that you have tracked time against this week. By default the table only shows projects that you have committed time for this week, as well as Focus and Active projects. Sometimes, it's nice to see an overview of everything you have worked on. In these cases, click this button.
Weekly ⏱ – This button shows all Pomodoros tracked for the week. Be default, the section only shows the Pomodoros tracked today. This button toggles between those two views.

Tasks
This section has three subsections of tasks: Executive, Today, and Coming Up.
Executive is all tasks that are either overdue, or marked for today with a high priority. This section means you never miss things that need to get done. This task list also ignores "Personal" vs "Non-Personal" assignment, since if it is due today and high-priority, it should be visible.
Today is all tasks that are due today, relative to the "Personal" vs "Non-Personal" state of the Console
Coming Up is all tasks that are due up until the end of the week (Sunday)

Retrospective
The purpose of this table is to give you an idea of how much work you have been doing (in Pomodoros), with six weeks of averaged data to smooth out peaks and valleys in productivity.
Currently, this section only has one table: A six-week retrospective view on how many Pomodoros have been worked. The top row shows the total Pomodoros spent on each of the last six weeks. The second row shows a six-week running average, starting from the week in the column. For example, the first column "This week" is the average weekly Pomodoros spent averaged over the last 6 weeks. The second column, "1WA" (1 Week Ago) is the the average weekly Pomodoros spent averaged over the last six weeks, starting from one week ago. And so on.

📋Master

This page is designed to let you view all of your projects and tasks in one place. With that in mind, the information is hidden by default, and highly customisable in how you can filter what you are seeing at any given time. This is done through nested projects that can be collapsed to hide information you don't wish to see right now, and buttons that allow the content to be filtered on demand.
The buttons are self-explanatory, and open for experimentation. Not entirely sure what a button on this page does? Just try hitting it. The coloured buttons are toggles, and the rest are actions. Give it a Try!
Note regarding the sorting of the projects: They are alphabetical (emojis can be confusing). A drag-and-drop interface for ordering the projects is something I don't know is possible in Coda.
PS - The filtering to show projects that have the corresponding status is not trivial, because you also should show the parents of the children with these filters, regardless of the parents themselves.

Additional Design Decisions of Potential Interest


What do the Task Priorities mean?

Priority
Description
Deeper Description
1
🔥
Must
Theses tasks must be done today or serious consequences will follow. Use this for final deadlines, planned meetings, etc. Don't over-use this priority because you want to train your brain to react to the fire emoji.
2
🔴
Need
These tasks also need to be done today, but there are no consequences for not doing them. This priority allows you to mark tasks as "you really should do these today" while not over-crowding the important "Must" priority above.
3
🔵
Want
These tasks are things you want to do today, but understand that the number of hours in a day is limited.. 🤞🏻
4
⚪️
May
This priority is the default, and represents the lowest level of importance.
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What do the Project Statuses mean?

Status
Deeper Description
1
Focus
Projects that you dedicate time to every week, in an effort to push them along.
2
Active
Projects that are likely to take time every week, but you don't dedicate time to them.
3
Idle
Projects that are ongoing, but don't require active attention. You may have tasks on Idle projects, but those tasks dictate when you will work on the project, not the urgency or planned nature of the project itself. Mark any background project as "Idle".
4
Future
Projects that you have planned for the future. Use the "Start Reminder" field in these projects to notify yourself when it is time to start work on these projects.
5
Backlog
Projects that you are interested in working on, but have no planned start date. This is the catch-all for new projects you think of.
6
Done
These projects are done. They will not appear in most filters and searchable fields. Only mark as "Done" when you no longer need to interact with the project.
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What do the Pomodoro Themes mean?


The themes represent an orthogonal classification of the work you are doing. They represent some classification that allows you to track what you are doing across all of your Tasks and Projects. A suggested use of such a field is to track "Productive" vs "Non-Productive" time in some form. Then, you can colour these fields how you like to draw attention to time spent on things you don't want, vs things you do want.
Themes are applied to what you are doing, not the work you planned on doing. For this reason, themes are applied to Pomodoros, and not Tasks. Sometimes you think a task is going to be a productive session of "Research", for example, but it turns into a "Meeting" where responsibilities are delegated or simple decisions are made. This is where you mark (or change) the theme to "Management" to note that this was time spent doing a management activity.
For myself, as a Researcher, "Writing" and "Research" activities are the best for my career, so I mark those as a nice blue as to draw attention to it as a desired activity. Next I have "Teaching" and "Service", both things I enjoy doing and would gladly stay after-hours to help others. Then, I have "Work" and "Management" which are tasks I have to do, and of course will do them, but I try to minimise these activities and therefore I caution them with an orange colour. Finally, I have "Obligation", which is tasks I am neither paid to do nor want to do, but I am more or less forced to do. I avoid spending my time on these things at all cost.
Theme
1
Writing
2
Research
3
Teaching
4
Service
5
Work
6
Management
7
Obligation
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