OmniOutliner + iCal = the low-tech, free way

One of the limitations of using iCal to organise my work-life is that I cannot organise by project and context concurrently.

Is it a little confusing? Let me explain it a little better. For example I have two projects: to clean my room and a course that I need to pass. If I organise it by project, this is how it looks.

1. Clean room
• Buy mop (Next action)
  
• Research best way to remove coffee stain
  
• Clear out top shelf
  
2. Pass course
• Buy textbook (Next action)
  
• Read online notes for class
• Read textbook

If I were to organise it by context, this is how it would look like.

1. @town
• Buy mop
• Buy textbook
2. @home
• Read textbook
• Clear out top of shelf
3. @computer
• Research best way to remove coffee stain
• Read online notes for class
  

At present, my to-do list in iCal is organised by contexts, but it doesn't give me a good overview nor a platform to plan the details of each individual project.

kGTD (kinkless Getting Things Done) + OmniOutliner Pro solves this problem in a way that is nothing short of beautiful. Check out the video here to see how it works.

In a nutshell, what kGTD + OmniOutliner Pro does is that it allows you to create a list of projects in OmniOutliner, allocate contexts for each task within each project, and even allocate "Next Actions". When you hit "sync", all of that gets synced with iCal, with individual calendars created for each context.

But OmniOutliner Pro costs US$69.95. (Educational price US$49.95)

I may purchase it some time in the future (or wait for OmniFocus); meanwhile, I'm going to steal the idea and implement it with the OmniOutliner that was bundled with my MacBook instead. What I'll do is plan my projects in OmniOutliner, then drag the tasks into iCal under the right context.

OmniOutliner:



For example, I can drag "Get a haircut" under my Make-over Project in to the to-do pane in iCal under the context @town. And viola, there it is. Manual syncing! Haha!