All of That for a To-Do List?

"Getting Things Done" (GTD) with 8 to-do list applications

Patrick Smith

patricksmith.org

Just a Couple of Moving Parts

• Ubiquitous Capture
• Work by Context
• Weekly Review
• Intake Process

Just a Couple of Moving Parts

• Ubiquitous Capture
• Work by Context
• Weekly Review
• Intake Process

The Perfect App in Five Steps

1. view by context and sort by project
2. view all todos by project, include context
3. one or two keystrokes to entry of new to-do's (quicksilver, cmd-line, bookmarklet, gm script)
4. seamless creation of new projects and contexts (preferably during to-do entry)
5. hosted web application with mobile view
   (no PDA sync; just 'view' is fine)

Note I Didn't Mention...

• to-do notes
• calendar
• recurring to-dos
• task due-dates
• deferred actions
• inactive projects
• file attachments
• sharing

Major bummers

• hacking a system to do GTD that's not built for it
• server install
• strange command-line-foo
• automatic determination of 'pending' or 'important' items

GTD Outlook add-in (by Netcentrics)

• Great view options - by context/project and by project
• Extremely easy to add an email as a to-do or delegated item
• Enter projects and contexts separately
• No web view; mobile views through high-PITA PDA sync
• V. Easy "Just Get Started"
• Blew up on me

Backpack

• great features - voice notes, email input, shared pages
• UI is seductive
• fundamental model is pages, not to-do lists or to-do items
• hack it to work with GTD
  (e.g. tinyurl.com/ycqx36 or tinyurl.com/39ngh2)
• Other options from 37signals:
  • TadaList: simple to-do lists
  • Basecamp: project collaboration

Tracks

• Built for GTD
• Needlessly complicated UI
• No way to view by context with project sort
• Traditionally, install-on-your-own; now hosting provided by GTDTracks.com

todo.txt

• quick entry is fantastic
• view by context/project and by project is v. simple
• can arbitrarily create projects and contexts
• quirks - have to avoid unix special characters (quote marks, forward slashes, etc.)
• mobile view = print out :-)

Actiontastic

• Mac app w/ quicksilver integration
• Seamless use w/ on-the-fly context & project creation.
• View by context with project sort - non-existent
• Supposed to get some sort of online sync-ing feature
• Makes me want to reconsider my "hosted web application" requirement

Tasktoy

• minimalist interface
• in the context view, todo's don't even indicate their associated project
• nice feature: submit to-do's via email
• have to separately create and manage contexts and projects

Remember The Milk

• some very handy features
  (tabs, tags, smartlists, GCal integration, SMS & IM notification, Google Gears?)
• not built for GTD, so have to cobble together your own solution
  (e.g. http://tinyurl.com/y72ajd or http://tinyurl.com/22hv7b)

TagATodo

• Scratching my own itch
• Meant to be very lightweight
• Simply to-dos organized by tags applied to them

Other Applications

• excel
• GTDInbox (used to be GTDGmail) gtdgmail.com
• Tasks / TasksPro - taskspro.com/
• GTDTiddlyWiki - shared.snapgrid.com/index.html
• gootodo.com (couples to-dos with dates, very anti-GTD :-)
• List of GTD App Comparisons del.icio.us/joehumanist/gtd+software

Summary

• Personal, idiosyncratic and quixotic
• Developers tweaking systems
• Plethora of options available b/c of the combination of these two