GTD Wannabe

Online GTD Applications: The Rest of the Story

August 15th, 2007 | by GTD Wannabe |

A while ago, I started a series evaluating online GTD applications. It got a little overwhelming, so I decided to cut way back.

What I’m going to talk about today is most of the rest of the online apps that I looked at, but ultimately didn’t choose to use. You can read my reviews of other online GTD-friendly apps that I’ve tried out too:

• never rans
• MyTicklerFile
• Nozbe

I’m going to save the best for last (i.e., another post), but here are some other apps that I spent some time looking at.

Vitalist

I reviewed Vitalist at the beginning of this year. At the time, my impression was that it could be a very good GTD contender. It has a few quirks that made it not the right app for me, but there have been modifications since then. For instance, the issue with tickler/someday has been resolved. It’s very easy to enter tasks. Easy to filter on various dimensions. There is a search functionality, but it works only on completed actions. It’s got a very nice, clean look, and has many bells and whistles. There’s a free version that is ad-supported, but otherwise not too crippled.

There is now only one reason that I myself wouldn’t use this application. First, there is no concept of a start date, which means I would keep seeing the same actions over and over again that I couldn’t yet deal with. It’s just the way I work my system. Other than that, I like this application, and recommend it for you to try out.

iCommit

iCommit is a “php online implementation” of GTD. It’s got a clean look, but I didn’t find the interface extremely intuitive. For instance, I had a really hard time adding a new context. It turns out that one of the headings on a particular page was a hyperlink that lets you add a new context. The only way I figured this out was by just randomly moving my mouse around.

On the other hand, iCommit has lots of bells and whistles, including search! (One of the few apps I found that does search - amazing.) It doesn’t really support dates the way I like (e.g., there’s a reminder date, which I could use as a start date, but no due date), but if dates aren’t your thing, you may find the feature set perfect. But it just wasn’t the one for me. If you want another opinion, check out Merlin Mann’s review over at 43 Folders.

Neptune

Neptune has a very GMail feel to it, as you can see by the screenshot above. Here’s another app that I found difficult to use, as it wasn’t intuitive (and the help was very bare). To make use of it, you basically have to do the following:

1. Add a new next action to your “Inbox”. Add as many as you like; it’s very quick - just one text field.
2. After your NAs have been entered, you process them, one at a time. You can’t skip any. An NA goes into either a project, or Reminders, Waiting For, Someday, or Trash.
3. Then you have to find each NA again (through your projects) in order to assign a context.

It sounds awkward, and it was. I’m interested in a much more streamlined process. For example, I tend to combine the Capture, Process, and Organize steps into one for many of the next actions that come up during my day.

TaskToy

TaskToy is an interesting app. It allows for a great amount of detail, especially with respect to your views - e.g., active dates, colour customizations of projects/NAs. It’s also got excellent options for recurring actions - some of the most wide-ranging options for recurrence that I’ve seen.

I didn’t really like the look, but it is free, and does offer a lot of dimensions for your next actions. I would recommend you give it a spin.

Mojonote

Mojonote is basically a glorified list maker. You can have lots of lists, but there’s no concept of context or project. So, if you want to have a next action associated with a context, you would create a list for that context, and then add the next action to that list. This would be a good way to move online for people that are using something like the HPDA, or other list-based systems. But given that we’re talking software here, I expect a lot more functionality.

SimpleGTD

SimpleGTD is another application that offers a nice clean look. It’s faithful to GTD in that each next action can have a project and a context. The list of next actions (seen above) is organized by context. For each NA, you can see what project it’s associated with. In addition, the context and projects lists are useful. Plus, you can see “staleness”, i.e., how old your next actions are. Unfortunately, there are no dates at all, and no search. However, if you don’t need these things, I would recommend trying out this app.

Todoist

Todoist offers slightly more functionality than MojoNote, in that each next action can have a project. But there are no contexts. Of course, you could use the project field for contexts, but then you’d have to projects. Again, it’s a pretty app, but it’s not quite acceptable for GTD. The key piece of information about a next action (or task, really) is the due date. Although I do use due dates for some of my NAs, that’s not the only criteria for me. I found that there were just too few dimensions available for describing my data.

Toodledo

I came very, very close to using Toodledo as my GTD system. In fact, I actually spent a couple of hours bringing all of my next actions in, and used it for a couple of weeks.

Essentially, it has just about all of the functionality that I was looking for. The look is pretty good. It’s got a good search. Excellent support for deferred start dates, due dates, easy ability to add notes, etc. There’s also a pro version that adds in such features as a scheduler, goals, and statistics. (The scheduler seemed interesting, because it could be used to pick some NAs that you could be working on right now, given your context and how much time you’ve got available.)

Another thing I really liked about it was that there’s a FireFox extension for Toodledo, which lets you see your hotlist (most important/soonest due NAs) in your sidebar. I thought that was the coolest feature. Plus, you can integrate Toodledo with your Google Calendar.

I decided to stop using Toodledo simply because I found the web interface just a bit too busy for me. You can keep a lot of information about each next actions, but I really don’t need to see it all at once. Or maybe I just didn’t like the huge, wide list. I also had some difficulties with hiding deferred items. It’s great that you can put a deferred start date on something, but that means I really don’t want to see it at all until then. At the time, there was no way to tweak the fact that only things further away than six months were hidden. Perhaps that’s been fixed by now.

Anyway, even though this one was just not the one for me, I heartily recommend trying it out. The additional functionality (sidebar, Google Calendar) may be just what you’re looking for.

Scrybe

Scrybe is one of those perpetual beta apps. I got an invite last year, and I remember using Scrybe as my GTD system for a couple of weeks.

It’s more of a calendar than a pure GTD system, but I liked the idea of keeping my hard landscape and my next actions in the same application. Scrybe does the calendar thing pretty well. Almost too well, since most of the screen real estate is given to the calendar. So, you get maybe a quarter of the screen to focus on your lists.

When I was using it, I found that using the “Label” field for contexts worked much better than using the more intuitive “Requires” field. That’s because you can sort your lists easily by Label. It offered due dates and reminders, but no deferred start dates.

The major reason I stopped using Scrybe was that the developers were more “talk” than “walk”, if you know what I mean. After all, it’s 10 months later, and it’s still a beta. Plus, I was never able to get the whole “note” concept to work - I could type in notes associated with a next action item, but they never stuck. And, even though Scrybe was supposed to be able to synchronize so that you could use it offline, more often than not, I just lost data when I tried it out.

Bear in mind that Scrybe is more of a GTD-friendly app, than a pure GTD app. It really is aiming at the calendar side of things. Plus the concept of a ThoughtPad, which is a way of clipping a bunch of notes. You might find it a useful application, that could replace two or three other apps for you. For me though, although Scrybe always seemed promising, I think they might have promised more than they can deliver.

RememberTheMilk

RememberTheMilk is an app that I just never got into, even though it’s got a great look (who can resist a cute cow) and comes highly recommended. It’s got the ability to put due dates on items, as well as tags, which you can use as contexts. Personally, I found the navigation to be a bit awkward, but your mileage may vary. RTM has excellent integration with things like Google Calendar and your cell phone. It’s also got offline access, thanks to Google Gears. In addition, it’s got some interesting features, e.g., tying a task to a map location - could be very useful for people who travel a lot. Plus, you can hook into it with your Twitter account; I know you were all dying to be able to do that!