I've been an OmniFocus user for years but always felt something was missing – I could capture everything but couldn't see the bigger picture of my work. Traditional task managers are great at collection and to do lists but I think they don't solve the problem of visualising and managing work.

*What It Does*

Flowcus is a macOS app that visualises your OmniFocus, Apple Reminders & plain text tasks as a customisable Kanban board. It's not intended to replace your task managers, rather it enhances them by providing:

- Visual workflow with customisable columns and swimlanes - Drag-and-drop task management that syncs back to your original task managers - Work-in-progress limits to prevent overcommitment - Eisenhower matrix view for prioritising important vs. urgent work - Ability to mark tasks as blocked and visualise dependencies - A unified view of tasks from multiple platforms - Throughput & ageing work metrics

For example, you might have research tasks in OmniFocus, meeting reminders in Apple Reminders and basic tasks in plain text. Flowcus shows them all on one board, letting you drag tasks from "In Progress" to "Done" and having that status change sync back to the original app.

## Why It's Useful

Traditional task managers aren't great at showing you a holistic view of your work. Flowcus bridges this gap by applying lean thinking principles to personal productivity:

1. *Makes work visible* - See all your tasks in one place across different stages 2. *Limits work in progress* - Stop starting, start finishing with WIP limits 3. *Manages flow* - Identify and eliminate bottlenecks in your workflow 4. *Provides feedback* - See how work moves through your system over time

For OmniFocus power users, Flowcus adds the visualisation layer that's always been missing. For people juggling multiple task systems, it unifies your tasks without forcing you to use multiple apps. That's the idea anyway...

## How I Built It

I started with Python scripts to extract OmniFocus data, but realised I needed proper two-way sync and a native Mac experience. I used Claude Code to help me build the first version to integrate with OmniFocus's AppleScript interface and Apple Reminders' EventKit framework. The app monitors changes in real-time and propagates updates back to the source systems. The first prototype was rough but I could see the benefits straight away: I could visualise my work, arrange it into swimlanes, identify when I was overcommitting and track the flow of work across different stages.

## Current Status

The app is currently in beta (v0.2.5). I use it every day to help me manage my work. I can't do without it now. I'm considering adding more task manager integrations at some point. I'd love feedback from any fellow productivity geeks and OmniFocus users – thanks!