Thursday, February 22nd, 2007...8:00 am
A Brand New Day is on the Horizon
After reading Brett’s GREAT article this morning, seeing how Jay’s wife loves iCommit, and in talking with my illustrious cohort, Jason, I think that there is going to be some serious systems rethinking in my future.
Like Brett, I just found Stikkit and signed up for it, as I do for almost every new web app. I agree with him that it is not ready for (GTD) prime time yet…but the magical Merlin may have something up his sleeve to push them in that direction. Though the writeup he did on 43Folders was very impressive. It looks to be a powerful app, and may very well be GTD worthy soon.
I have looked at iCommit before, but like Jay, did not like the interface. Watching the trailer for the V3 first gave me the impression that they were going for a Academy Awards Sunday night. Then when you really “watch” the trailer, you see that they have migrated the app to Ruby on Rail so that it now has a revamped AJAX interface. From what I have seen, it looks to be a fresh look for the app, and also may be worthy for me. Jay seems to think that the new version may be a subscription service, which is not out of the realm of possibility for me.
I sent Jason a link on day via IM about the newest web app that is making the circuit in the GTD community lately. I know that you know the one that I am talking about…Nozbe. It has been everywhere!! So again, I signed up for it and have not been able to put it through the courses that I would like to. Anyway, the next day, I get an IM back from Jason:
[13:04] Jason Echols: I am really liking Nozbe.
Unfortunately, that was the last thing that I heard from him that day as I have been swamped with bad software at work. The next day we talked a little more about it and Jason seems to like the interface. One con is that there does not seem to be a way to add/modify the contexts. Now that may be coming in future releases. It is another app that I feel need to be put through the paces.
Jason is also working in a beta for a web-based project that is currently called “GTDWeb”. This beta, at the moment, is by invitation only. It shows some real potential. You CAN modify and add contexts to suit your needs in this app. GTDWeb will hopefully be released soon to the public. As I understand it, It will be a free app…or as the developer puts it, “this is going to be free, as in beer“.
Even more props go to Andrew at Did I Get Things Done?. He has created a custom GTD search engine that scours blogs, websites and other GTD resources for easy retrieval. Pair this with The Ultimate GTD Index and you have a powerful set of tools for your GTD pron.
So, what does this mean for my current setup? Well, I love my Moleskine Planner+Notebook so that will stay at least through 2007. That will still my hard landscape and capture tool since I almost always have it with me. I have bought a number of Moleskine Cahiers and I really like those a lot. They are small and of the same quality as the bigger Moleskine. I use those as mainly reference support materials. I have single books for single subjects (e.g. Church, IT, GTD).
On the Horizon
One thing that I think that Jason and I are going to start doing is trying to review some of these new apps that are coming out of the woodwork. Right now, it will be limited to Windows and web apps. I plan on getting a MacBook Pro as soon as Leopard ships so then I will be able to start reviewing Mac apps.
I am going to setup a ‘Test System’ with dummy NAs and Projects so that I can accurately test all of these apps that are coming out and give them their due course with duplicate data. Couple this with a comparison chart that Jason already uses for himself, and we should be able to start giving out regular reviews of software as it related to GTD.
Hopefully we will be able to give out advice and reviews that will allow people to figure out what they want out of a software package and be able to find the right package in a timely manner.
Also, check out the right hand site links to websites. There are number of new entries that I added today for blogs that I have really been enjoying lately.
Hope that everyone has a great day,
Michael
8 Comments
February 22nd, 2007 at 12:29 pm
Michael:
Another web app you might want to look into is VitaList. In addition to a nice, clean layout and adherence to the core GTD ideas of capture, organize, act, and review, it provides mobile access via a .mobi site and integration with iCal, Netvibes, and the Google Personalized Home Page.
I’m finding it to be quite useful.
http://www.vitalist.com
Regards,
Marc
February 22nd, 2007 at 12:55 pm
Well, Marc beat me here, but since I clicked through I might as well leave a similar comment:
Have a look at Vitalist. I’ve been a Tracks user for the last 5 or 6 months but after a few days of playing around with Vitalist I’m in the process of converting over.
I look forward to the future reviews and comparisons you mentioned.
February 22nd, 2007 at 2:56 pm
It’s going to be a great year. A lot of GTD players have and will enter the field. A lot of good software enhancements with Leopard are coming. The interconnectedness of it and you are definitely in store.
I am psyched to be working in it all.
-a
February 22nd, 2007 at 3:05 pm
Do you guys also feel that there is *something* happening the first couple of months of 2007? It seems as if GTD is ready to hit the mainstream or something. I am not just talking “system re-thinking” but the actual notion that GTD or personal productivity might be on the edge of getting a hype, a hit for 2007, whatever. Just a thought…
February 22nd, 2007 at 3:40 pm
@Marc/Chris
I have looked, oh so briefly, at Vitalist. I will be taking a much more thorough look at it after I make up some test data and Jason works out the comparison/score card.
@Andy
I am looking forward to your entry as well. I have read your site and am excited for you endeavor.
@Frank
I do feel that way. I was amazed when Macworld did a spread on making your mac more productive and they used GTD to do it!!! See http://www.macworld.com/2007/02/features/clutter_main/index.php for more details.
February 23rd, 2007 at 1:35 am
Hello. I’m the original developer of Nozbe and would like to thank you for this artcile and comment on it if I may.
I expected that custom contexts would be a nice feature and it’s actually in the works like now.
What I didn’t expect is that people would just say - “It doesn’t have custom contexts - I’ll just skip it” - without actually taking Nozbe for a quick spin.
Custom contexts are imporatant, that’s for sure, but you get productive in Nozbe because of the highly customizable and fast interface and because of “next action” and “contexts” lists…
…but seems to me that the for some people only the fact of “not having custom contexts” is a definite no-no. It’s a shame… because I believe you CAN live without custom contexts for a while… and we are improving Nozbe on the daily basis.
Just my comment. I started reading this blog some time ago and I like it a lot, keep up the good work!
February 26th, 2007 at 9:29 am
@Michael
I am starting to try our Nozbe this morning. I think that custom contexts is a no-brainer! I work in IT as a Network Administrator…@Computer is no good for me. Normally, I have an @Thinkpad (my work computer), @Desktop (my home computer) and @MacBook (my soon to be purchased MBP). Further work contexts have been @Servers, @Network, @Support.
The beauty of GTD is not running with a standard implementation, it is that you can customize your system to your needs. To that end, I can see people not seeing custom contexts and moving on from Nozbe. I really think that needs to be your current focus.
I have enjoyed inputting my data into Nozbe. It is very fast. Another ‘bad practice’ is that every NA HAS TO have a Project. There are tons of NAs that are not associated with a project. I have calls that I need to make that are not associated with a project. I stick my monthly bills into my system and are not a project.
I am sure that we (both Jason and I are looking at Nozbe) will put up a more extensive review of Nozbe at a later date.
February 27th, 2007 at 1:18 pm
[...] Following up on my previous post, A Brand New Day is on the Horizon, I wanted to let you, readers, in on some good news. [...]
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