Drumroll Please: Baby’s Got a New GTD Application
August 31st, 2007 | by GTD Wannabe |And now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for – today, I unveil the GTD app that has most recently stolen my heart:
First, let’s review my requirements. I wanted the following things from my GTD system:
- a nice look
- easy (for me) to install
- ability to search
- no limits (or at least, reasonable limits)
- view next actions by context
- ability to use a due date
- ability to use a deferred start date
These were my deal breakers. When I was testing other software, anything that didn’t failed one of these tests went into the recycle bin. Other things that I really really wanted were:
- the price had to be reasonable
- I wanted to be able to capture (very) quickly, with as few mouse moves as possible
- view completed next actions
- view staleness – how old next actions were
- ability to associate next actions with projects
- portability
Other bells and whistles included:
- ability to add (clickable) links
- printing
- synchronization with palm
- reminders/alarms
- recurring next actions
- calendar
- timing tasks
- reports
The Solution
The solution I found natively handles all but one of my deal breakers, and I can fudge the last one. It’s also got many of the “really really wants”, and a couple of bells and whistles.
Drumroll Please….
The online GTD solution that I’ve chosen is…
…GTDTracks. Tracks itself is a “web-based application to help you implement David Allen’s Getting Things Done methodology.” Tracks is a Ruby on Rails application, and if you want, you can download it and run it on your own web server. However, if you’re not interested in that kind of geeky goodness (remember my “easy to install” requirement above), there are a couple of online implementations of Tracks, that are much more suitable for the average non-geek.
To recap: The solution is actually Tracks, built with Ruby on Rails. It’s full of Ajaxy beautiful goodness, and is basically a fancy database back end that is free. However, getting it running on your own web server may not be for everyone, so there are front-ends, which basically do all the implementing and hosting heavy lifting for you, giving you a nice portal into a really nice application.
Tracks Front Ends
The front end I’m using is GTDTracks. It offers me a Tracks installation that I can access online, from any computer. I pay a monthly fee ($1.49/month) for this privilege. In return, I don’t have to worry about figuring anything out – it’s all taken care of for me.
Another front end that I found was tracks.tra.in. It offers a similar service to GTDTracks, but with one key difference – tracks.tra.in doesn’t offer a deferred start date. (Yes, it seems strange, since both of them are using the Tracks implementation; but I can’t argue with reality.) So basically, I’m paying $1.49/month for the ability to use the deferred start date. But, it’s that important to me. I think that GTDTracks has a slightly nicer look too, but that’s just me.
Finally, I did find a third Tracks front end, called Personal Tracks. This one doesn’t have a deferred start date, and to be honest, the look was so bad (although free) that I just couldn’t deal with it.
Comparison
Here’s my comparison between the three Tracks front ends.
As you can see, I didn’t even bother checking out the extra bits for tracks.tra.in or Personal Tracks. That’s because the deferred start date is that important to me.
But What About Search?
True, none of the front ends offer search. I have no idea why search is so hard to find in online applications – we’re talking digital here people! But, I did find a way to fudge the search…
Because I can see all of my current next actions on one page (if I so choose), I can make use of the Find feature in my browser to search for a particular next action. It turns out that I don’t use the search all that often anyway – the layout of the application is so good that it’s just as easy for me to get to the right context or project, and skim the list. But, I can search, in a way, when I need to.
Next?
I don’t want to make this post too too long. Next time, I’ll discuss what I really like about Tracks and GTDTracks, including some screenshots.
14 Responses to “Drumroll Please: Baby’s Got a New GTD Application”
By Lyman Reed on Aug 31, 2007 | Reply
Thanks for the recommendation. I went ahead and signed up for GTDTracks.com – at under 2 bucks a month, with a month free to try it out, why not? It does look like one of the most complete online implementations out there. Thanks!
By bdizzy on Aug 31, 2007 | Reply
Ah hah! Tracks! How did i forget to think of this as a possibility?! Waiting to hear your full review.
By Chris on Aug 31, 2007 | Reply
Tracks rocks, I used it for 4 or 5 months last year and loved it 95% of the time. I self-hosted it on my shared server. I struggled a bit with performance from time to time, but I suspect that was more related to my server than Tracks itself (I hope). Well, that and my RoR ignorance…
Ultimately, my biggest challenge was getting bogged down in my NAs. If I see all the tasks at once (in the Home view) I lose focus — in other words, I only want to “see” one NA per project (recently discussed at the tracks forum). Looks like there are some options for that now, perhaps I’ll give it another go soon.
Looking forward to more articles on it and how you’re using Tracks.
By CWE on Aug 31, 2007 | Reply
How is tracks any better solution than outlook or excel?
I personally, have been using outlook, excel and gCalendar to do “GTD”; I really had to further simplify most of the aspects of GTD and therefore I’m not “GTD’ing”. I’m using what works for me in what DA calls common sense and it is in stark contrast to what DA system looks like. You could say I created a concoction of David Allen and Steven Covey (and countless others) to finally to get on a more productive track.
What I find strange is that Outlook has everthing you need to do “GTD” — it was GTD before there was GTD — but some features on it create an akwardness in your workflow that makes it cumbersome. But if you add a little code here and there, you can really unlock its hidden potential.
By Robert on Sep 1, 2007 | Reply
I’d be interested in hearing more about mobile syncing, this is a pretty big one for me. I stick with Remember the Milk since it even works on my regular “dumb phone”
By Ryan Adler on Sep 5, 2007 | Reply
You’re probably already past the point of no return, but you should take another look at Toodledoo. They’ve revamped the main view a bit (leaving the classic one for a while for those people who still want it), so maybe you would find it better this time around. In any case, I also looked at Tracks, but decided against it, since it hadn’t been updated in a few months (at the time), and my webhost didn’t include Ruby anyway.
What I really like about Toodledo is that they update it with new features literally every day, and post a changelog to let you know what they added in! I think this is really the way to go in the future with apps like these.
By Ryan Adler on Sep 5, 2007 | Reply
Ooh..sorry for that last link. Should have been linked to:
http://www.toodledo.com
By michael h on Sep 5, 2007 | Reply
Perhaps you know the answer to this: is it possible to create NAs *without a context* in Tracks? That was something I could never figure out when I tried it.
By Rue on Sep 5, 2007 | Reply
Did you find any solution that would sync with your palm? I work better when something beeps at me…
By GTD Wannabe on Sep 10, 2007 | Reply
Thanks for all the comments and questions everyone! I’ve put together a mega-response for you here: http://gtdwannabe.com/2007/09/drumroll-your-commentsquestions-answered/
By chris on Apr 26, 2008 | Reply
hi! i run tracks.tra.in, and just wanted to let you know that we now support all the features you mentioned; we upgraded to the new Tracks 1.5 stable release.