I second the recommendation for Task Paper. Very simple list-keeper on the surface; quite sophisticated with lots of fiddly bits for Those Who Must. I tried iGTD and OmniFocus, having gone looking for something to replace the dead-in-the-water Mori, and found Task Paper to be the best manager for my fairly simple way of listing the things that must get done–book writing, magazine writing, magazine editing, unnecessarily complicated life with tasks from gardening to house-building to wood-harvesting.
Things is, IMO, Tracks’ (http://www.rousette.org.uk/projects/) good looking cousin with two important differences:
runs locally (without having to fiddle around with Locomotive etc.)
Tags, really useful implementation
you can reorder everything manuallly (Tracks only allows sorting of contexts, not tasks)
Ok, that’s three differences but nobody expects the spanish inquisition, right?
Very cleanly laid out, some task are ugly enough by themselves already so there’s no need to make the messenger equally unattractive in my opinion
I find the date handling confusing, checkboxes etc I would like natural language (next wednesday) or a date picker much better.
I would appreciate better support for keyboarders like myself
Recurring tasks, well I used to think I needed that sort of thing in a task manager, but in the meantime I found I actually want to keep that apart from my Tasklist.
The Remind tool does whatever I need and much more. Emphasize much. You can sync that with iCal and make adopting it into Things (or whatever you are using) part of the review routine. There’s a nice Textmate bundle available, too. I always wanted to know how Textmate produces this extra nice looking HTML (at least that’s what I think the remind month representation is) but been to busy doing other stuff. Anybody?
Maybe this little extra work helps postponing digital …eh, what was it called… Amnesia? Must have forgotten the term, so probably doesn’t work. Good night everyone and good morning, Maria
Prion
Thanks for the info on Things’ current inability to handle repeating tasks, everyone. I think I’ll stick with OmniFocus until that feature is implemented, then I’ll look at Things (which does, otherwise, look very attractive). I have no trouble in remembering to do big one-off tasks - it’s all the tedious, dull, recurring ones that I need to be reminded about. 
While I try Things, I continue using iGTD, as I’ve been doing for the latest months. I’m also trying to use OmniFocus, from time to time, but cannot get into it. Despite the very pleasant appearance, it doesn’t seem to understand the way I work.
For example, I’ve several committents. For each of them, I create a folder in the Project inbox. Inside each committent’s folder, I open a sub-folder for each working project. This subfolder contains my tasks:
- Committent1
—Project1
-----Plan
-----Write
-----Edit
-----Translate
—Project2
…
I can’t see a way of doing the same with OmniFocus. Both the Project and Context inbox seem to me flat, not allowing sub-folders. How do you deal with this?
Paolo
You can have subprojects in OF. Simply Indent a task to turn it into a Super task with subtasks.
You can also have grouped contexts. EG I have several under Errand and several grouped under mac.
To do that in OmniFocus, you would create a Folder at the top level for commitment, which does not need actions in it directly. Folder types let you store projects and other folders within them. Projects in OmniFocus are more like the traditional usage of the word, and not GTD projects, which are simply any tasks requiring more than one step to accomplish. So projects cannot be nested. If further levels of nesting in the library are required, than folder sections can be set up. I have a few areas of responsibility that had folders of projects within folders of projects. But in general I try to keep the list as flat as possible. I’d rather have things visible than hidden under layers of separation.
OmniFocus projects populate the auto-completion field when creating new tasks. So, you wouldn’t actually want all of those low level projects you listed to be globally available in auto-complete, especially since there will be many instances of those items in different projects! OF is set up to accommodate that by using standard outlining techniques to further break projects down, allowing more strict GTD usage within them.
Say you fill out your project with 10 tasks on the first pass, and then go back and analyse to make sure you do not have complex tasks with multiple requirements that could become a snag once you start working. Click on the trouble task, press Cmd-Shift-] to create a child, and develop that out as a GTD project. For example, “Plan” in your list is probably composed of many different specific things that need to be done, different for every single writing project. If not, you can just leave it as a complex static thing in your head and go with it, otherwise you can expand it out without fear of cluttering the Library sidebar and auto-completion pop-up.
I prefer this outlining method to iGTD’s project/task dichotomy because it allows for easier flexibility. Making sub-projects is as easy as indenting tasks. If you decide a sub-project is become complex enough to have its own space in the Library, just drag the task over and drop it. It becomes an OF project! Inverse is also true. Drag an OF project into a another project and it will become an outliner based sub-project. I know, you can do this kind of conversion in iGTD, but to me it does not feel as fluid. Plus, I’d rather keep GTD style projects in the main working area, than cluttering up the project sidebar.
This is how I would set it up. Note I’m using mixed project styles to accomplish the way I would approach this project. The top level “Project 1” is set to allow all tasks to be available immediately (no strict next actions). This is indicated by the two parallel arrows on the right. I’ve set up the Plan sub-project likewise, because research points and other planning things needn’t be done sequentially. But Writing I’ve left as a sequential project. Step 1 of Chap. 1 must be completed, and all of Chap. 1 must be completed before Chap 2. Of course, one would probably approach this phase non-sequentially as well–I just wanted to show how you can have mixed types in a single project. Everything that is grey and italic will not show up in working views where “Available” is the filter. So if you just want to concentrate on what you can do at the moment, you can filter this view to only show black and purple items. Or, you can set it up to only show the purple item, the next action, and work in a strict GTD fashion.
The choice to use Outliner style sub-projects or Library projects in the sidebar is up to the user. Do you want these things in auto-complete lists, coming up for weekly reviews, and so on? If so, just drag them over into the Library list and turn them into projects. I prefer to keep the Library as minimal as possible. But that is just my working preference.
Thanks for all the information. Amber your last post was very helpful.
Now, I will be switching jobs in the near future, and will be working in a mostly Windows environment. Is there any type of equivalent of OmniFocus (and OmniPlan) that works cross-platform?
Thinking Rock is platform independent and can apparently work on a USB stick.
And it’s free…
And here yet another one: Midnight Inbox .
I’m not sure Midnight Inbox works in Windows…
Midnight Inbox is another Mac-only, and I wouldn’t recommend it for most users. It’s very strict about doing things its way.
iGTD’s interface is terrible. OmniFocus’s implementation for nested projects/sub-projects is far superior. I have hope for iGTD 2, but at the moment there aren’t many reasons (other than cost) to use iGTD instead of OmniFocus.
Unfortunately, I don’t know of any GTD apps for Windows. I’m sure they’re out there, though.
Err, I mentioned Thinking Rock 3 posts back…
And another one, simple - as its very name already indicates - but cross-platform: SimpleToDo . For some it might suffice.
For Windows? MyLife Organized: http://www.mylifeorganized.net/ Not cross-platform, though.
Thank you for your hints. Amber, you wrote sort of a FAQ for OF beginners!
After I’ve got this, I still wonder if there is a way of marking entries with Priority and Effort attributes. It is in the GTD principles, to be able to first work on low-effort, high-priority tasks.
Also, is there a way of marking a task as “Maybe”? Sad to say, I’ve several of them in my iGTD agenda…
Paolo
You are welcome!
I use the time estimate column for effort. This column is not visible by default, View/Columns/Estimate is how it is turned on. As of the latest version. This takes time values, such as 1h for one hour, or 30m for 30 minutes. I know, that isn’t exactly effort, but that is how I’ve always expressed effort anyway. Rather than trying for precise amounts, I just use an internal convention to express effort. 5m for something that takes little effort, 4h for something that requires research, a lot of work, and will likely take up a good portion of the day.
Estimates can be filtered using the View settings, and since at the moment you cannot supply custom times, I stick to the 5m/15m/30m/1h levels, which is probably enough for showing effort anyway.
Priority is simply a matter of moving projects up and down in a folder, for me. Of course, there is also the “Flag” for individual tasks that are important.
Usage of the Estimate filter in Planning Mode (so you can see task and project priority) is probably the best way to attack high priority low effort tasks.
Sure, just make a context called Maybe, select it, open Inspector (Cmd-Shift-I) and in the Context section, disable “Allows next actions.” Now all tasks assigned to @Maybe will forever be marked as unavailable until you change the context to something else. I have two different contexts for @Someday and @Maybe. I like to distinguish between things that I do need to do, just now now, and things that I’d like to do, but I’m not sure if I’ll ever get around to it.
Hmmm…am I the only one that hasn’t been able to download Things from culturedcode.com? I get an arrow that takes me to a box asking for my email and suggesting that a preview will be forthcoming.
linn, it’s still in super-secret alpha mode right now. I think a public beta is supposed to open before the holidays though.
I had tried Thinking Rock about a year ago, and wasn’t enamored with it.
However, it is now tr 2.0e so I downloaded anew, and am starting to explore. Thanks for the recommendation.
These days, I’ve worked on a double track: iGTD and OmniFocus registering the exact same tasks. (Incidentally, at the same time I’m doing a parallel tracking with Merlin, OmniPlan, and GanttProject - and this should show that I’m working at a slow pace, these days…)
I understand that there are two different philosophies behind them. With iGTD I feel I find what I learned in the book; with OF I feel the ‘imprinting’ of an outliner, with a hint of GTD mixed together. Outliners are something Americans feel as natural, being taught at school to use them, so OF should work in a more natural way for you, not forcing to think in a totally new way.
As a Latin, both outlining and iGTD are new ways of thinking for me, so I probably feel both iGTD and OF alien to my forma mentis. But, despite the bad looking user interface, I feel more comfortable with iGTD. I simply go faster in both entering tasks, taking notes, looking at what is coming next.
I read iGTD 2 is changing this, and will display forthcoming tasks in a more structured, outliner-like way. I must see if I will feel as comfortable with it, as I did with version 1. The filtering idea seems promising, though.
In the meantime, the special offer for OF is going to expire, so I hope iGTD 2 comes soon…
Paolo