Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Software
GTD: Real-life experience with Things
I'll admit it -- I'm a notorious procrastinator.Give me something to do and no deadline, and I'll put it off until everyone forgets about it. Give me a deadline and I'll wait until the deadline is looming before I'll get things going. This not only happens in my professional life, but my personal life as well. For example, my wife is still patiently waiting for me to complete some painting in our newly renovated laundry room. Hey, it's only been a month since I started the work!
If there's anyone who needs to follow the Getting Things Done (GTD) methodology, it's me. In the past, my To-Do list consisted of Post-It Notes scattered on my desk with lists of things to complete. A couple of months ago I thought it would work better if I organized my notes into one place, so I bought a hard-cover Moleskine and started writing listing things to do in that book. Nice, but I was out of luck when I didn't have the Moleskine with me.
I always have my iPhone with me, so it made sense for me to start using it to help add some semblance of order to my life. That's where Things, the task manager from Cultured Code, helped me out.
The various Mac preview versions of Things have been out for quite a while, and I even tried them out earlier this year. I dutifully fired up Things every morning, entered tasks for the day, dropped in future to-do items as I thought of them, etc... Unfortunately, I couldn't take that information with me on the road, so it was essentially useless. I was back to square one with the Post-It Notes and Moleskine.
That all changed when Things for iPhone 1.1 (click opens iTunes App Store) appeared last month and syncing with the Mac version became a reality. Now I had a way to keep my über-To-Do-list updated on my Mac, where it would be backed up by Time Machine constantly, and take it with me in the iPhone as well.
Since I still do a lot of my work on my 20" iMac, I downloaded the latest version of Things from the Cultured Code website and installed it. At this time, Things for Mac is still in public beta. When it officially ships later this year, the cost will be $49 but you can guarantee a $10 discount by signing up for their newsletter now.
What I love about having Things on my iMac is that I'm not constrained to entering all of my many to-dos on the iPhone with the virtual keyboard. Instead, I can use my big, comfy Mac keyboard to type all my ideas into Things quickly.
My preferred way of entering new tasks into Things is to just click the Quick Entry button in the lower right hand portion of the screen. That brings up a Quick Entry dialog (see below) that grabs all of the pertinent info like the name of the task, the due date (if any), tags to aid in searching for tasks, and notes to describe what the task entails.
That all changed when Things for iPhone 1.1 (click opens iTunes App Store) appeared last month and syncing with the Mac version became a reality. Now I had a way to keep my über-To-Do-list updated on my Mac, where it would be backed up by Time Machine constantly, and take it with me in the iPhone as well.
Since I still do a lot of my work on my 20" iMac, I downloaded the latest version of Things from the Cultured Code website and installed it. At this time, Things for Mac is still in public beta. When it officially ships later this year, the cost will be $49 but you can guarantee a $10 discount by signing up for their newsletter now.
What I love about having Things on my iMac is that I'm not constrained to entering all of my many to-dos on the iPhone with the virtual keyboard. Instead, I can use my big, comfy Mac keyboard to type all my ideas into Things quickly.
My preferred way of entering new tasks into Things is to just click the Quick Entry button in the lower right hand portion of the screen. That brings up a Quick Entry dialog (see below) that grabs all of the pertinent info like the name of the task, the due date (if any), tags to aid in searching for tasks, and notes to describe what the task entails.
What's great about this tool now is that I can use the Things iPhone client to enter, edit, or categorize tasks when I'm away from my desktop machine. For example, while I was out of town this week, I decided that I needed to recycle a bunch of old, unused electronics equipment. I created a number of tasks (first screenshot below) to sell the items on eBay -- my preferred method of recycling -- and then moved the tasks to a new project category called "Recycle old equipment" (second screenshot below).
When I got back into town from Raleigh, NC, the first thing I did after powering up my iMac was to launch Things. I had already set it up to sync with my iPhone (screenshot at right) so it was ready and waiting for the iPhone to contact it. To sync, Things and the iPhone just need to be on the same Wi-Fi network and Things needed to be running on both the Mac and iPhone. Sure enough, all of the work I had done on the air
plane on the way home was synced to the Mac. Items I had completed were moved to the Logbook (an archive of work that is done), new items had been added and moved to their respective projects. Cool!
I've gotten into the habit of checking the iPhone at least twice a day to see what things I need to get done, and which items I've completed. Am I getting more done? Yes, and I think most of this is due to Things being on my iMac and iPhone.
If you have a favorite GTD app for Mac and/or iPhone, please feel free to discuss it in the comments section below. And if you prefer doing your GTD tracking manually, let's hear about that as well.
plane on the way home was synced to the Mac. Items I had completed were moved to the Logbook (an archive of work that is done), new items had been added and moved to their respective projects. Cool!I've gotten into the habit of checking the iPhone at least twice a day to see what things I need to get done, and which items I've completed. Am I getting more done? Yes, and I think most of this is due to Things being on my iMac and iPhone.
If you have a favorite GTD app for Mac and/or iPhone, please feel free to discuss it in the comments section below. And if you prefer doing your GTD tracking manually, let's hear about that as well.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
Niels K. said 8:14AM on 9-07-2008
Things it is - imho the best GTD-app out there, especially since the iPhone added sync. I am a fan of GTD but never got a system really to work - Things changed that ^^
And it is the only 3rd-party app that I have that do not has to do fresh start after my iPod Touch died because of the common "stuck at apple-logo"-problem.
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quandmeme said 10:45PM on 9-08-2008
Who's got a comparison? I really like whattasks contexts and unified entry screen but won't pull the trigger until it syncs. I love zenbe because I can sync lists with my wife (but no contexts or time and there are a few too many taps to entry)
Who's got a comparison grid?
nicolas said 8:30AM on 9-07-2008
I have Omnifocus, and I'm pretty happy of this application for many reasons, first its a true GTD operative software. And also like things he can do mobile GTD on the Iphone.
Its a fantastic software, you can change direct between project and purpose and person pane, the sync button is really helpful and we are a great community....
The best one really !
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freediverx said 4:20PM on 9-07-2008
I sense that Omnifocus is a more robust product than Things. But I also feel that OmniFocus has a steeper learning curve, requiring a greater commitment and providing less flexibility for the user. For this reason I think a lot of people will be drawn to Thing's simplicity in spite of any potential limitations compared to Omnifocus.
Yazdgerd said 3:51PM on 9-07-2008
OmniFocus is far from being usable. Confusing interface decorated with nice colors. Conclusion: unfriendly.
mentalsticks said 5:22PM on 9-07-2008
omnifocus as it is is buggy and very very overpriced: $20 for the iphone app plus a whopping $80 for the desktop app. It crashes at least once a day and syncing is a joke.
Jens said 8:12PM on 9-07-2008
You call your iPhone ratatouille?
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Rockstar said 8:38AM on 9-07-2008
As a complete newb to the GTD idea - I see a lot of these things reviewed and unfortunately the reviews sort of miss me. Does anyone have a link to basic primer fr GTD that they would consider really good?
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eric f. said 9:37AM on 9-07-2008
I would start by reading the wikipedia page linked in the article.
chris said 9:47AM on 9-07-2008
here is a link to my GTD intro series, which includes a good intro to Things as well:
http://theweeklyreview.ca/features
RRea said 1:50PM on 9-07-2008
then when you are done with all the reading go for omnifocus, I have Things, Todo and omnifocus on my iphone (I got them in that order)
Loved things way of adding today stars, and todo's way of syncing, BUT, none of them had context and my long todo list (I work from home) was getting a bit out of control.
If things on the iphone adds tagging I will quit omnifocus!. I dont use the nearby feature nor the voice recording/picture taking (that's what evernote/ecconote is for)
LuminousNerd said 5:50PM on 9-07-2008
Tags will almost certainly come down the road. I wouldn't hold your breath though, first they're working on Areas and repeating tasks, and probably notifications when that comes out.
Yakov said 3:29PM on 9-08-2008
GTD is basically like Scientology: the more you read about it, the less sense it makes, and the less necessary it seems.
In the time it would take you to understand Getting Things Done, think of all the actual things you could get done.
mare said 8:40AM on 9-07-2008
I use Things as well, but think the price is (well, will be) way to high for a simple To-Do list app.
They pretend the programming of Things is rocket science and that's why it takes so long to add new functionality. This app has been in beta for more than a year. The developers must have a day job.
And now you have to pay another $10 for the iPhone app? Most developers that have a Mac and iPhone version make at least one of the versions free...
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The Finite said 10:04AM on 9-07-2008
The price should be set by what people are willing to pay, not by the amount of work they have to put into the application.
Besides, if it's so easy how come no one else has done anything nearly as well for a lower price?
Also, they charge for the iPhone app because they realize that many people are happy using the iPhone version alone and never use the desktop version.
mr. Obsession said 11:06AM on 9-07-2008
"The price should be set by what people are willing to pay"
Let's wait and see if people will actually kick down $50/$60 for this combo before acting like it's already got an established market presence at that price point.
ben said 1:16PM on 9-08-2008
You guys are obviously not developers. I'd love for your boss to come to you and say, "mmm yeah, the 40 hours you put in last week... forget about it. I'm only willing to pay you for the 30 as the other 10 aren't worth your hardwork".
If you don't like my analogy, bite me.
Josh said 9:08AM on 9-08-2008
@mare
The comparison to the other apps (ones that provide the iphone version free...etc) is that most of those iphone apps don't stand on their own. Things for the iPhone stands on it's own as a very good app.
As far as cost, things is pretty cheap. Having used the desktop version I grabbed the iPhone version day one and didn't even think about the price of it.
ZX said 8:42AM on 9-07-2008
Things Desktop is simply the best one...Things for iPhone can/will be better.
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Ross said 10:48AM on 9-07-2008
I've been looking for a good GTD app for some time, and Things is the best I've found (though, as yourself, I've really only been satisfied now that it has iPhone sync).
I know it's still in beta, but this is my wish list of improvements to Things:
1. Toolbar - why is it along the bottom? Put it along the top and make it customisable like all other Mac apps!
2. I like how the "Next" view shows both Today and Next items. But really, I'd like some sort of view which views all "Today", "Next" and "Someday" items at once - perhaps even in a three column view (with dragging and dropping in between, it would be awesome). But I know it's hard to suit everybody - I guess just a custom view based on simple search parameters would suffice.
3. Right click support for useful actions like "New Task" when right clicking on a Focus area, or "Delete" (and other actions in Items menu) when clicking on a Task, or "Empty Trash" on Trash. Etc etc...
4. I tend never to use the "Inbox" at all, so perhaps a preference to disable/enable it?
5. Dashboard widget for quick view when Things is not running.
Keep up the good work!
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