Changing your mind is a good thing

The other day, I was working with a client one-on-one. Let’s call him George. George wanted help setting up his task manager and building a workflow around it. He said he first found me on YouTube, watching my video review that compares OmniFocus with Things.

Lots of people first found me on YouTube and that’s fantastic. I like creating free videos to help people out. Of course, I also like it when people then buy my courses to keep learning and to support my work. 😉

Anyway, George had two comments on my OmniFocus vs. Things review video. First, he pointed out that I had a beard at the time I recorded the video, while I no longer do today. That’s true—I didn’t mind how I looked with the beard, but now I prefer the “no beard” look.

(The beard is also pretty inconvenient when scuba diving, because it makes it more difficult to get a proper seal for the mask.)

Second, George said that, in my video, I mentioned that I used OmniFocus myself. Also true. These days, though, I use Things, and that surprised him. We spent some time on the call discussing which task manager might be a better fit for him before we got into the details of how to set the app up to suit his unique situation.

As George pointed out to me, the thing about YouTube videos is that you post them once and then they stay up. When I create a video, and I share my opinion on something, that is my opinion at the time. But what if my opinion changes?

That’s what happened in this case. I used to recommend OmniFocus for most people, because I was most familiar with it and because the setup I teach works well for many people. But after having tested Things 3 in detail, I now recommend Things as the best task manager for most people. By contrast, I recommend OmniFocus for people who want to record their tasks and projects in more detail or who want to customize their task manager a lot.

Perhaps I should record a new video to share my new thinking. In fact, I probably will—although I’m still in the phase “taking a break” after having worked hard for two months to create Big-Picture Productivity.

My point, though, is that I changed my mind on which task manager is the best for most people. And that’s a good thing! Changing your mind isn’t intrinsically good or bad, but being willing to change your mind is.

After I worked with hundreds of people, I realized that I can often help people get better results by teaching them how to use Things rather than OmniFocus. That’s because Things looks friendlier, is easier to use, and because it aligns with how most people think about their tasks and projects. So I changed my mind.

Changing your mind based on new data is healthy. Who knows, maybe there are things I recommend today that I won’t be recommending anymore next year. If that’s the case, I hope you’ll trust me even though I changed my mind—or perhaps exactly because I changed my mind.