J. Eddie Smith, IV on why you should and shouldn’t buy OmniFocus:
Like any power tool, OmniFocus’s features are best appreciated if you come to OmniFocus with a real need for those features. It will probably fail in utility if you try to fit your workflow to the features. Don’t buy bandaids so you can cut your arm.
I think he is dead wrong here. One of the greatest assets of OmniFocus is the fact that it is an incredibly flexible piece of software that can — and will — adapt to most user’s workflows. You don’t need to understand action versus project, or even know what a context is, you just need to understand how those parts of the app work together with each other.
I can guarantee you that I don’t use OmniFocus in the same way that someone like Merlin Mann uses it and that he uses it differently than the next guy — that is precisely why I an unequivocally recommend the app to anyone. I know that OmniFocus will transform into what any user needs it to be in order to get work done.
Beyond price, the real barrier to entry for OmniFocus is not a lack of GTD understanding — it is a lack of OmniFocus understanding. You absolutely must take time and use the app, once you do that you will begin to see just how you can slot it right into your workflow.
(I buy bandaids in case of a cut on my arm, because I know that I will need them at some point.)