There are times you may want to check on something with some interval, let’s say every 15 minutes or so. This can happen when exporting or rendering files, uploading something, or checking to see whether your family member is awake yet so you can watch that next episode of whatever together.
While we could set an alert to go “ding” every 15 minutes, doing so would be irritating at first, then later likely ignored, and eventually deleted. In the meantime, you’ll likely want to do other things. Every 15 minutes is long enough that you can’t just wait. It’s also short enough that you may not want to go on with your day and forget about it.
We can, however, use OmniFocus to remind us when we’re next ready. Let’s look at an example where I am waiting to see if some files are uploaded before I do something else. To set this up:
- Create a task:
- Set its defer date to “Now”:
- Set a repeat interval of 15 minutes:
- Add a flag so that it will show up with priority:
- Make sure your “Today”-like perspective sorts by “Flagged” or “Due Date & Flagged”. For example:
At this point, the task will appear at the top of your list:
When you mark the task complete, it will disappear for 15 minutes. When you return, likely more than 15 minutes later, the task will appear, once again, at the top of the list.
Of course, the utility of this depends on not overwhelming your list and a judicious use of flags.
