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madjr
July 3rd, 2010, 12:27 AM
am looking for some good organizational and "get things done" (gtd) software, web app, tools, blog post, guide, etc.

any tips, tricks and recommendations that you've used and work are welcome. 1 vs the others, what failed for you and what really made your productivity soar ;)

discuss away, thanks ! :popcorn:

donniezazen
July 3rd, 2010, 02:55 AM
am looking for some good organizational and "get things done" (gtd) software, web app, tools, blog post, guide, etc.

any tips, tricks and recommendations that you've used and work are welcome. ;)

thanks ! :popcorn:

I have tried all and none of those work. Pen and paper is the best because you don't waste time modifying it for your specific needs. And pick the most important thing you want to do in your life and do it daily for an hour or two with your full concentration.

Zen habits is a good blog to follow.

tgalati4
July 3rd, 2010, 04:08 AM
http://43folders.com
http://getontracks.org
http://my.gtdify.com (free account for Tracks)

madjr
July 3rd, 2010, 11:39 AM
Zen habits is a good blog to follow.

cool i'll check zen habits, i was about to learn more about zen


@tgalati4
was about to check 43folders and tracks looks good :)

moell
July 3rd, 2010, 01:50 PM
am looking for some good organizational and "get things done" (gtd) software, web app, tools, blog post, guide, etc.

any tips, tricks and recommendations that you've used and work are welcome. 1 vs the others, what failed for you and what really made your productivity soar ;)


If you haven't before, give the David Allen's original GTD book a read.
There was a also an article by Matthew Cornell titled "10 GTD "holes" (and how to plug them)" that is worth a read:
http://www.matthewcornell.org/2008/04/10-gtd-holes-and-how-plug-them.html

One of the simplest ways to do GTD or manage tasks and projects on a *nix system would be just to use a text editor. At the time I was a plain text fan, so my productivity career started wholly text based with Vim. It did feel awesome to be bare bones.. until organizing got harder than the benefits. :-)
Serge Rey wrote two posts that describe how he set up GTD text based:
http://homepage.mac.com/sjrey/iblog/C1700319483/E748466129/
http://homepage.mac.com/sjrey/iblog/C1700319483/E1834264641/

Should you grow out of or don't prefer text based systems, there are some truly Linux based options. The few that I can recall:
Tasque (http://live.gnome.org/Tasque)
Getting Things Gnome (http://gtg.fritalk.com/)

There's also a GTD/to-do list app that I'm creating for Linux that you might be interested in. I'd love to get your feedback on it when it goes to more-or-less-public beta soon:
Edge (http://qlass.org/edge)

madjr
July 3rd, 2010, 03:54 PM
Should you grow out of or don't prefer text based systems, there are some truly Linux based options. The few that I can recall:
Tasque (http://live.gnome.org/Tasque)
Getting Things Gnome (http://gtg.fritalk.com/)

There's also a GTD/to-do list app that I'm creating for Linux that you might be interested in. I'd love to get your feedback on it when it goes to more-or-less-public beta soon:
Edge (http://qlass.org/edge)

oh Edge looks really nice and simple to use

i tried tasque and getting things gnome, but they dont offer repetitive concurrent schedules like "alarm clock", schedule tasks to the minute (not just days/hours) or integration with ubuntu's notification system (alarms) :)

http://www.alarm-clock.pl/screenshots

so basically i would end up using 2 programs and probably another one for notes.

i would no doubt test edge when it's beta, just let me know :)

alexfish
July 3rd, 2010, 03:54 PM
http://www.signsbyyou.com/images/decals/400c/SDEPSL1/PEOPLE/HOUSEWIF.gif

moell
July 3rd, 2010, 04:07 PM
so basically i would end up using 2 programs and probably another one for notes.

I do like the philosophy of using the best tool for any job (which in theory doesn't mean worse integration; in practice often does :-), but if you're evaluating and also looking for whole integrated systems, you might want to try Pagico (http://www.pagico.com/). I can't recommend it atm though, because the last time (roughly half a year ago) I tried it, it felt really flaky---technically it's a site specific browser running a local webserver---was slowish and not snappy as I'd expect from software trying to be a native Linux app. Maybe the newer versions have improved.

donniezazen
July 3rd, 2010, 09:22 PM
If you haven't before, give the David Allen's original GTD book a read.
There was a also an article by Matthew Cornell titled "10 GTD "holes" (and how to plug them)" that is worth a read:
http://www.matthewcornell.org/2008/04/10-gtd-holes-and-how-plug-them.html

One of the simplest ways to do GTD or manage tasks and projects on a *nix system would be just to use a text editor. At the time I was a plain text fan, so my productivity career started wholly text based with Vim. It did feel awesome to be bare bones.. until organizing got harder than the benefits. :-)
Serge Rey wrote two posts that describe how he set up GTD text based:
http://homepage.mac.com/sjrey/iblog/C1700319483/E748466129/
http://homepage.mac.com/sjrey/iblog/C1700319483/E1834264641/

Should you grow out of or don't prefer text based systems, there are some truly Linux based options. The few that I can recall:
Tasque (http://live.gnome.org/Tasque)
Getting Things Gnome (http://gtg.fritalk.com/)

There's also a GTD/to-do list app that I'm creating for Linux that you might be interested in. I'd love to get your feedback on it when it goes to more-or-less-public beta soon:
Edge (http://qlass.org/edge)

Unless you are working on some professional project, anything simple is the best.

kokoshmusun
August 4th, 2010, 12:26 AM
Edge looks great, I've signed up.

If I knew how to program, I would write my own GTD tool and it would be quite simple. But until then, I've briefly tried a lot of things and nothing caught on. The one I used/liked the most was GTG and I still use it here and there.

Others that looked decent were tracks (but I didn't want to serve it on the web) and monkeyGTD.

I'm now thinking about using a bunch of tomboy/gnote notes one a workspace (one note for each context). Or maybe another text-based solution.

For organizing longer-term notes (PIM), I use KeepNote, WikidPad. For overviewing bigger projects, I lay them out on a mindmap (Freemind).

donniezazen
August 4th, 2010, 12:50 AM
Edge looks great, I've signed up.

If I knew how to program, I would write my own GTD tool and it would be quite simple. But until then, I've briefly tried a lot of things and nothing caught on. The one I used/liked the most was GTG and I still use it here and there.

Others that looked decent were tracks (but I didn't want to serve it on the web) and monkeyGTD.

I'm now thinking about using a bunch of tomboy/gnote notes one a workspace (one note for each context). Or maybe another text-based solution.

For organizing longer-term notes (PIM), I use KeepNote, WikidPad. For overviewing bigger projects, I lay them out on a mindmap (Freemind).

I have finally made Evernote useful for myself. It is versatility in simplicity.

juancarlospaco
August 4th, 2010, 01:43 AM
Google Calendar

:)

handy
August 4th, 2010, 02:00 AM
I have tried all and none of those work. Pen and paper is the best because you don't waste time modifying it for your specific needs. And pick the most important thing you want to do in your life and do it daily for an hour or two with your full concentration.

Zen habits is a good blog to follow.

I agree completely re. the pen & paper. So much time can be wasted because someone likes to mess with setting things up in software.

Software is a tool. It must be looked at objectively when in business, is the time spent with it actually productive or is it just something that you like doing? Most start-up businesses can't afford to waste their energy on anything, as the first year is usually the hardest.

When I ran a service business I used a day book in which everything was written down. It is fast to refer to it & use it whilst on the phone, you don't have to mess with software, it can't become corrupt unless your building burns down.

If need be you could put the info into a PDA of some sort & refer to it when out & about. I had a palm in those days that I kept all contact data & some technical info' in for reference. I didn't use a calendar on the Palm, as it was a waste of time for me, I went out did what I had to do on that day & came home to do what I had to do at home. Each day was booked out in advance. An answering machine was waiting for me with messages when I returned home to my office. I wouldn't & still won't use a mobile phone, as I really don't like to have my thought processes interrupted, most especially when I was working.

These days just for my personal life (retired now so I no longer require a day book) I do the same thing with an iPod Touch, apart from Contacts, I keep other important data (important terminal commands that I rarely need in Arch; my security data in a form that no one else could use; IPCop/ISP setup info', for example).

donniezazen
August 4th, 2010, 02:29 AM
Google Calendar

:)

The only thing i miss in Google Calender is that one cannot mark an event completed which defies the purpose of GTD.

Mr. Picklesworth
August 4th, 2010, 03:16 AM
The only thing i miss in Google Calender is that one cannot mark an event completed which defies the purpose of GTD.

Yeah, that's what I need: a calendar & task list hybrid.
Nobody has made one for me :(

tgalati4
August 4th, 2010, 03:17 AM
I use zim for notes.

sudo apt-get install zim

If you don't want to host a Tracks instance (I have been running it for a few years on a Dapper Drake desktop machine)--just sign up for a free account at my.gtdify.com.

kokoshmusun
August 4th, 2010, 01:45 PM
I did discover that there are some free tracks hosts like the one you gave, and also tracks.tra.in. But I also feel uneasy about these services. How reliable are they? What happens if/when they're down (temporarily or for good)? I was actually trying tracks off of the harddrive but it stopped working, and all this turned me off to it. I feel better having a desktop/offline system that I can synch with USB/web storage if I need to. I think I'll just have my makeshift way of GTD that involves GTG, Freemind, and paper, and the lline up will keep on shifting according to project and it will change over time (I'm really keen on trying that Edge thing).

Today, I used Freemind for a new project and it really helped me organize a LOT!!!

tgalati4
August 4th, 2010, 07:40 PM
You can export your Tracks files to xml and reimport them to a new Tracks instance. You can also use export to make a backup. I agree with you, web-based services can disappear at any time, but making a backup of your web-based data (via export) to your local machine can give you a piece of mind. You can also export text-based and RSS-based feeds which is handy for mobile devices and for printing out task lists.

I've never had a problem running Tracks locally. Perhaps you had an update or you needed to restart Tracks to get it working again. Version 1.7 is pretty solid.

For new projects, I've been using Dan Roam's technique Unfolding the Napkin--it's a graphical way of laying out problems and tasks:

http://www.jawbone.tv/featured/2-featured/237-drawing-conclusions-dan-roam-presents-qthe-back-of-the-napkinq.html

There's a 55 minute video in that link where Dan Roam gives a lecture to Google employees on how to use the technique.

It's like freemind on steroids.

ticopelp
August 4th, 2010, 07:43 PM
Tomboy Notes or the hipster PDA (http://www.43folders.com/2004/09/03/introducing-the-hipster-pda) (unfortunate name, but useful and cheap).

In my opinion complicated processes and apps just suck down time and energy and distract you from the stuff you're supposedly trying to do more efficiently. Keep your process simple and straightforward, so it can get out of your way as quickly as possible.

kokoshmusun
August 5th, 2010, 09:45 AM
I agree that the simpler the better. That's why I like GTG and Freemind. I also carry around a small notebook that I just dump (collect in GTD terms I guess) all my thoughts to later process; So I also agree there's much merit in paper-pencil either as standalone or complementary to digital. As for Calendar, I like google calendar a lot but I'm suspicious of the cloud and google so I think I'm going to use Lightning more. But since I don't really own a handheld device, probably I should just use a traditional pocket calendar.

I have to admit, I have lost a lot of time looking around GTD software. It was somewhat of an obsession and an escape from the tasks that really need to get done, a kind of procrastination. The most important thing is, just trust your mind and intuition and dive into what's waiting to get done.

Henry78
August 31st, 2010, 07:52 AM
a calendar & task list hybrid.
Nobody has made one for me :(

Chandler (http://chandlerproject.org/) has it. And more nice features. But development has slowed down, so I'm looking forward to switch away from this really nice GTD application (And I tried lots).

cornopean
October 6th, 2010, 12:56 AM
Yeah, that's what I need: a calendar & task list hybrid.
Nobody has made one for me :(
zoho business does this. when you get an email, you can send it to your task list. then that task shows up in your task list as linked to that email. very handy. plus, the calendar is also integrated. very nice.