Weekly Recap: Learn OmniFocus, Teaching for MSDE, and New Online Store

The past eight or so days have been very exciting and busy for me. I have been engaged with a number of online learning opportunities and resources. Here is a recap:

Scale Exercise Play-Along Tracks

Last week, I launched my store on this website. I am selling my first ever resource for teachers: Scale Exercise Play-Along Tracks with Trap Beats underneath them. You can buy just the audio play-alongs, or the Logic and GarageBand projects I produced them in to edit them in any way you like.

You can find my store here, a blog post about them here, and watch the promo below.

Learn OmniFocus Workflow Guest

On Saturday, I was a Workflow Guest for LearnOmniFocus, a fantastic website and community where you can learn not only about the task manager application OmniFocus, but about other great productivity apps and the very nature of being a mindful and productive worker.

You can read about the appearance here and join the community here. There are educator discounts. The video of my session will be made available publicly and for free very soon. 

Links to two of my more recent blog posts about OmniFocus can be found below:

- Never Miss a Task, with OmniFocus Project Templates

- Staying on Top of Teaching Responsibilities With Omnifocus Perspectives

Creating and Using Virtual Performances in Your Music Instruction

I am teaching this online class for the Maryland State Department of Education with my awesome friend and colleague, Peter Perry. Peter's book, Technology Tips for Ensemble Teachers is third in the same series as my own, and is worth checking out.

You can learn more about the class here.

It has been a busy week or two but I am excited at these opportunities to share my love of technology with these different communities.

Learn OmniFocus Workflow Guest: October 3, 2020

I am thrilled to announce that I will be joining Learn OmniFocus as a Workflow Guest on October 3rd, 2020.

Learn OmniFocus is a website dedicated to helping others live a fulfilling and productive life with OmniFocus, complementary productivity apps, and services.

You can learn a ton from their free resources, including basics like organizing tasks into projects and assigning tags to them. They also have information on advanced features like project templating and automation.

My session will be all about how I use OmniFocus and complementary productivity apps to keep my life as a teacher and musician together. Here is the session description:

Teacher, musician, and technologist, Robby Burns will be joining us from Ellicott City, Maryland to share how he uses OmniFocus and complementary productivity apps to keep his active life on track.

Robby has been using OmniFocus since 2010. He has a long history with Apple technologies and was originally drawn to OmniFocus’ deep integration with Apple’s operating systems. He especially appreciates that the Omni Group is quick to add support for new Apple technologies.

During the LIVE session, Robby will share details of his OmniFocus setup and workflows, including:

• How and when he uses OmniFocus on his iPhone, iPad, and Mac.

• Adjustments that he’s made to his use of OmniFocus and complementary productivity apps since switching from in-person to virtual teaching.

• His strategy for using tags.

• How he uses the Forecast perspective to keep his calendar lined up with his commitments.

• How he uses defer dates to relieve the stress of seeing too many things at once.

• Custom perspectives that help him hone in on his most important tasks, including his “Top 3” perspective that narrows his focus to only three items.

• How he creates OmniFocus projects based on templates stored in Drafts.

Read more and register here. The session will have a live Q/A and members can interact and share ideas. I hope to see you there!

You can become a member of Learn OmniFocus here. They have educator and student discounts. It is worth checking out if you wish to be more productive!

A free recording of the video will be made available to everyone by October 10.