I’d like to take some time today and introduce you to a “new” task/next action management system that I quite like.  Caveat: I should be receiving a free license to the application by writing a review, but that’s at my request, not the developer’s.

By the way, don’t be thrown off by the whole Getting Things Done (GTD) label.  This application can also be used for just good old-fashioned todo list/brainstorming/project planning.

Background

I was busy surfing the other day, and came upon the Interactive GTD Software Comparison Table (102 Researched GTD Software Titles and Counting).  Longtime readers will know how promiscuous I am with software, so it should be no surprise that I was intrigued by this list.

One of the applications that caught my eye was TodoPaper.  I was initially caught by its description, “light-weight GTD to-do manager”.  I like light-weight.  When I went to the homepage, I was intrigued by the look - I do love a nice clean look.  So, I downloaded it and have been using it for a few days.

Now, I’ll be honest here, I’m not going to replace Outlook as my main GTD application.  But sometimes, I need a place to keep track of a bunch of open loops in a very quick and dirty fashion.  I’m talking here about the stuff that needs to be done to research and write a particular paper.  These are things that I need to capture, but don’t necessarily have to make it all the way into my most trusted system, i.e., Outlook.  I’ve been using TodoPaper for about a week now, while writing a couple of papers, and I like what I see.

Good Things

I’ve created a small test database, and here’s a screenshot of it in action.  I want to point out the following good things about TodoPaper:

• Basically everything is customizable.  I happen to like the Sketchy font and a yellow background for my project headings.  Your tastes may vary.
• You can also change the font of tasks, the colour/font of contexts (or tags).

• One of *the* coolest things about TodoPaper is that it’s based on a plain text file.  If you wanted to, you could create a text file (with a few rules, discussed below) and have TodoPaper read it.  In fact, TodoPaper is related to the Mac’s TaskPaper, using the same underlying format.  So, if you need data portability between Mac and Windows, here’s one way of achieving it.  (In this vein, check out the related works at the bottom of this page.  They include applications/discussion re TaskPaper on the web, in vim, textmate, etc.)

• When adding projects, tasks, to TodoPaper, you can use the following conventions (either in TodoPaper, or in the text file):
• A project name ends in a colon (:).
• A task starts with a hyphen (-).
• You can have subprojects - simply tab once under a project and type the subproject name, with a colon.  (See “Related Work:” in the first screenshot above.)
• You can have subtasks - just tab under a task and add another task. 
• Notes are possible as well; they’re just lines that don’t start with a hyphen, or end with a colon.
• I find the interface quite simple and elegant.  As you can see, you can customize the look pretty much the way you like.  In addition, there are features such as folding, and cute little checkboxes for marking a task as done.
• It’s possible to archive done tasks; they get pushed to the bottom of the pane/file.
• You can have multiple contexts on any task - just add as many tags as you like.  Tags are identified by the @ at the beginning.  One of the things that I really like about TodoPaper is that the tags are recognized automatically; I don’t have to do anything extra, like adding them in a separate field.  And, you can ctrl+click on a tag to get taken to a view of just that tag.  (Double-clicking and a right-click option are supposedly coming soon to make pure mousing a possibility.)
• Another awesome feature is a “quicklog” function.  You set a hotkey combination that you like, and you can use that to quickly enter a new task.  (Or a project name, or a note, or a combination of all these.)  The latest version of the quicklog requires some mousing action, so pure keyboarding is not quite possible, but again, that’s going to be fixed in the next version.
• Finally, the last good thing I want to point out is the customer service.  This is another application being developed by one guy (I think), but there is a forum, and the author, Jordan, is good about responding.  Already, I’ve had some points for him, and he’s responded positively.  I’m truly a big fan of good customer service.

Final Word

I’m a firm believer that there is no one perfect GTD application; however, it is possible to find the perfect application for you.  One of the reasons that I wouldn’t switch to this application as my primary GTD tool is because my needs include support for dates and recurring tasks.  However, I’m finding that TodoPaper is an excellent tool for brainstorming and building quick (hierarchical) lists of actions that need to be done for detail-rich projects.  The fact that there is an underlying text file that I can access without proprietary software, combined with the ability to quickly enter new actions from the keyboard, make this application a winner for me.  It has replaced the numerous stickies and disposable text files for my brainstorming.

If you’re in the market for a lightweight, clean-looking, GTD app (and let’s be honest, a true GTD implementation doesn’t use due dates or recurring actions ;)), check out TodoPaper.

A few months ago, I posted about resisting your trusted system, and admitted that I had come full circle back to using Outlook for all of my GTD needs.

You may be surprised, but I’m still using it.  It’s most definitely my trusted system.  All of my important next actions go there; my hard landscape, repeating tasks that I need to accomplish, etc. 

In this post, I just want to highlight a few things that I like, nay love, about using Outlook 2007 for my main GTD stuff.

Quick Entry

Unlike my first go-round with Outlook, this time, I’m not using any macros.  In fact, I don’t even tend to create many appointments or tasks in Outlook itself.  Instead, I use Outlook to browse, navigate, manipulate my appointments and tasks.  To enter the information in the first place, I take advantage of the fact that there are command line flags that can be used to create Outlook elements. 

Now, it *used to be* that you could use a command like

“c:Program FilesMicrosoft OfficeOffice12″outlook.exe /c ipm.task

To create a new, blank, task.  Alas, when I tested this tonight, it was broken.  It seems that a recent SP update for 2007 might have broken this.  I’m not going to try and track down a fix, since I don’t use this approach anyway.

Instead of pure command line, I started off with a VBS script I found online.  The beauty of this approach is that you can either double-click on the vbs file to open a new appointment, or use a keyboard shortcut, or my personal favourite, call it from SlickRun and pass it some arguments.

I’ve since modified the script slightly to allow for passing in the category that I want assigned to the new task.

Similarly, you can create tasks using a VBS script.  I have a pair of scripts, one Perl and one VBS that I call from SlickRun.  It allows me to type in:

@@ Call Travel agent re Vegas @calls d:25 Apr 08

and get a new task, categorized with @calls, and with a due date of this coming Friday.  The point of the Perl script is to allow me to use whatever date format I feel like at the time, instead of forcing me to always use the 2008-04-25 format.

Formatting

One of the major things I love about Outlook is that you can format to your heart’s content.  There is even automatic formatting.  We’re probably all used to the concept that in Outlook, bold means you haven’t read it yet, and red means it’s important or overdue.  But you can do so much more with the automatic formatting.  For example, when I create a new all-day appointment that starts with “( )”, as in “( ) Pick up dry cleaning”, Outlook can colour that appointment red.  Then, when I complete that tasks and put an “x” in the brackets, Outlook removes the colouring.

Similarly, I can customize my view(s) so that different contexts are shown in different colours.  I have other rules based on dates: if the due date is within 7 days, the task is shown in blue.  If it’s due today, it’s bold and blue.  If the task cannot be started yet, I tend to hide it in most views, but if it’s a view that shows non-startable tasks, they’re shown in grey italics.  Etc. etc.

Another formatting trick that I’ve recently discovered (thanks to Productivity Cafe), is to take advantage of the free/tentative/busy attribute of an appointment.  To do this, right-click on an appointment, go to the “show time as…” item in the context menu.  I use this with all-day tasks in the month view, but other combinations are possible.  If an appointment is “free”, any colouring you have assigned to its category is confined to the task itself.  If an appointment is “tentative”, the day it’s on is shown in striped colour.  If it’s “busy”, the whole day gets blocked with colour.  See the example below - is that not the coolest thing?

Week View

The thing that sold me on Outlook 2007 was the week view; this allows you to see a week in your calendar, plus, any tasks that are due on a particular day are shown under that day - talk about making your  hard landscape easier!  And, you can see another list of all (or some) of your tasks in a side panel.

Here is a view of my current week:

Some points about the view:

• green in the calendar is a birthday or anniversary
• blue is for hard appointments
• purple is for the gym
• I also colour code my contexts: blue for @home/@housework, green for @errands, yellow for @online+/@laptop+, grey for @online-/@laptop-, etc.
• as you can see, I haven’t done my weekly review yet - it was due last Friday; heh.

Other

Basically, Outlook gives me the opportunity to use quick entry (the quickest I’ve ever had, regardless of the system I’ve tried.)  The advantage here is that since the VBS script accesses Outlook programmatically, you can create a new task and set various fields, such as “category”, “start date”, “priority”, etc.  I’ve not tried another tool that gives me that much control.

In addition, Outlook is just plain pretty to look at.  It pleases me to see my calendar laid out in it.  It pleases me to see my next actions, organized by context, or by due date.  It most definitely pleases me to be able to recognize instantly those next actions that I should be focusing on.

Outlook is a great way of coordinating my appointments and next actions with my Palm.  It’s not perfect, e.g., the automatic formatting doesn’t translate to the Palm.  Plus, I can’t avoid seeing non-startable tasks on the palm.  However, it still gives me the opportunity to see what’s coming up, without having to do major contortions to get the data into the Palm in the first place.

Finally, Outlook offers a good API for developers to get their hooks into, so to speak.  I’ve found a set of command-line tools that can allow you to query, and even modify your Outlook tasks.  They were created by Dale Lane, and I use a couple of them to show my overdue and high-priority tasks on my desktop with Samurize:

As you can see, I’m awful at housework.  But that’s not because I don’t know about the chores! ;)

Can’t find the template editor over at the main EverNote site? That’s because it’s been removed. Why? Probably because they’re focusing so hard on the new Evernote 3 beta, which doesn’t support templates. Please, don’t ask - it’s just too painful to talk about.

Anyway, some of us are still using 2.2, and some of us still want to modify templates. Not me, I’m using the ones that I’ve already got and that’s it. But there are some brave souls out there that want to play with templates.

So, I’m uploading the template editor for EverNote 2.2. This is the copy that I downloaded way long ago. Use at your own risk. No support is provided for it, or for templates created by it, either here or over at EverNote. You’ve been warned.

EverNote Template Editor - 2.2 Version

(Note: this is only for Windows - the older 2.2 version of EN only works on Windows.  Hence the template editor also only works on Windows.)

Quel surprise!  I’ve just found out that GTD Wannabe made a top 100 blog list.  I’m thrilled, especially considering how poor I’ve been at blogging lately.  (Those of you who are interested should be happy to know that my implementation is basically “done”, and I’m just sitting down tonight to brainstorm a couple of conference papers.  Woot!)

Anyway, if you’re looking for something new to read, check out the full list.  I’ve skimmed it and some of my favourites are there, but there’s some new stuff to peruse too.

The Top 100 Productivity and Lifehack Blogs - College Degree.com

A few days ago, I resurfaced after a long absence.  I mentioned in that post that I have actually changed my GTD system (not once, but twice) since I decided that I liked GTD Tracks for my online GTD application.

I can hear you all from here….”What?!?  You spent so much time evaluating applications before finally settling on one and then you quit it already?!?”.  Yup, I can hear you.

Well, I hate to break it to you, but I just can’t seem to settle down.  I’m not convinced that this is actually a procrastination habit for me.  Granted, I’ve spent much time dicking around with this system or that system, or even figuring how to make an oldy-but-goody like Lotus Agenda work as a GTD system.  So, yes, maybe procrastination figures into it.  But I don’t think it’s the major reason.

Friction

I tend to switch GTD applications when they start irritating me.  I originally moved away from Outlook because I found it bloated and it didn’t do projects very well.  Since then I’ve forgotten how many systems I’ve tried.  Some I do remember.  I loved my text based system, but moved away from that when I got tired of the ugly text-only interface.  I really enjoyed Lotus Agenda, but found the keyboard-only interface restricting after a while (although they really knew how to do pattern recognition from what you typed in).  I tried Vitalist, but got tired of too much information in the main screen.  I gave FusionDesk a good workout, but found that doing a review was just too hard, and there was little activity from the developer.  Finally, I gave GTD Tracks a good go, but finally got annoyed at having my data online.  I was about to head off on a bunch of trips, where Internet access was not going to be guaranteed, so I wanted to keep my next actions with me.  Plus, I have to admit, the latency of a web-based application just about killed me.  I hate waiting; drives me crazy.

I understand intuitively that when I get bored/irritated/annoyed, I start looking elsewhere.  But I never really thought about it.  Until I was listening to a podcast interview with Kelly Forrister (Yes the Kelly Forrister from the David Allen Company).  It’s a podcast interview done by The Sassy Ladies.  It was a good interview, but something Kelly said made a lightbulb go in my head.

She was talking about her own system, and how she occasionally experiences resistance, or friction, with her system.  This is when your trusted system causes you some anxiety, and you start avoiding it.  Obviously, this is the kiss of death when it comes to actually Getting Things Done.  In Kelly’s case, when she starts feeling this resistance, she goes through her system and tightens things up, maybe rewords some next actions, etc.

When I heard this, I thought two things:

1. Wow.  Resistance!  That’s what I’ve got.  I resist using my GTD system because there’s something about it that’s not satisfying me.  That’s why I keep changing it.
2. Darn.  I wish Kelly talked more about her own personal system; I’d like to know if she made major modifications to the process itself, or if it was just a case of “cleaning” the data, so to speak.

Reducing Friction

There have been several topical posts crossing my feed reader lately that can help you tighten up your trusted system and hopefully reduce the resistance you’re feeling:

• Eight Do’s and Don’ts of Effective Goal Setting.  After reading this post, re-examine each and every one of your next actions.  Are they specific enough?  Are you using your Someday/Maybe list appropriately? Are you trying to accomplish too much?
• A Roadmap to Spectacular GTD Failure.  A rather tongue-in-cheek post, suggesting the very best ways of screwing up with GTD.  Some unhealthy behaviours you might be currently exhibiting: pushing the weekly review to a more convenient time, defining open-ended projects, turning your email inbox into your “trusted system”.
• 10 Ways to a Slim and Trim To-Do List: Part 1 and Part 2.  This pair of posts has great ideas for making your to-do list lean and mean, regardless of whether you GTD or not.  Great tips include: do quick and easy tasks *now* instead of writing them down, examine stale tasks, put reminders into your hard landscape instead of your to-do list, and make sure your next actions are *really* next actions.

My Plan

A couple of years ago, I moved away from Outlook for several reasons.  I was kind of bored, even the macros weren’t enough to stimulate me.  I didn’t like having my calendar and my next action list on two separate pages, I was eventually going to have to leave Outlook one day when I got a job, and it didn’t handle projects.  Mostly, it was just me getting itchy feet, so I started on a multi-year odyssey to find the perfect tool.

And where am I now?  Well, back at Outlook actually.  After trying other things and still not being 100% satisfied, and after seeing the new Outlook 2007 interface (oooh, pretty), I decided to just bite the bullet and come back.  First of all, I get uber-easy synchronization with my Palm, which was always a sticking point with other systems.  Printing is nice, dragging things around with the mouse is nice, the new calendar view that shows your hard landscape, and a chosen selection of next actions, is nice. 

I’d like to report that Outlook and I are doing fine right now.  It’s only be a few weeks, but we’re getting along quite nicely.  I forgot how much I liked having everything synced to my Palm!  Wow.  I’ve also been doing a little bit of scripting (no macros this time around - I don’t think I really need them), but a nicer script for entering new next actions (and appointments) from SlickRun.  I’ve even learned a couple of things that make my calendar into a truly wonderful hard landscape.  Of course, more on these topics at a later date.

So, I’ve gone back to an older, but well-trusted, system for my next actions.  I’m currently feeling no resistance.  The next time I start to feel friction with my system, I’m going to explore that feeling - am I itching because I’m bored?  because I’m procrastinating?  because there’s something about the system that doesn’t satisfy me?  or because I need to tighten things up?