I'll admit to being a productivity geek. For me, getting things done is almost as fun as fiddling with my system. After trying every app I could, I've come to a conclusion: Paper is where it's at.

There's nothing more flexible and full of potential. You can make arrangements to meet a friend or solve a serious network issue with paper and pen. Most of the apps I used tried to mimic the ease of pen and paper, but none match the flexibility.

For me, the iPhone adds another hurdle with the touch keyboard. Here's the bottleneck: I write faster that I type on a full-sized keyboard, and I do both faster than I use the iPhone keyboard. Some iPhone productivity apps require lots of typing, categorizing, tapping and clicking. Tally up the time spent being "productive" with your iPhone and it's not worth it. Just grab a small notebook.

It only makes sense that I'd love the app from a man who shares my love of paper. Put Things Off for iPhone and iPod touch is a mobile productivity app that I'm happy to use. The initial window (see gallery below) is nice and sparse. To add a new task, click the arrow and type something brief like "Email Tom Re: website." Select a due date and hit Save.

A small "card" appears on the To Do List desktop that you can put in one of four boxes: Inbox (the default), Today (determined by your due date), Put Off and Done. In fact, you might not have to do any clicking at all. The Today box is self-populated, the Inbox is the default and the Done box fills itself as you kill off tasks.

Which leaves the Put Off box. In the app's preferences, you have an option to delay tasks for a certain amount of time. I've opted to put things off for 7 days, just in time for my weekly review. Therefore, items without a specific due date show up weekly, just in time for my weekly review. GTD'ers can think of it as a dynamic @readandrevew or @someday/maybe list.

What I love about Put Things Off is that it comes very close to mimicking paper and pen. I open a note, jot a task and add a due date. Exactly what I do in my notebook. The Put Off box works wonderfully with my weekly reviews and there's no ballet of clicking, categorizing, tagging and whatnot to accompany every entry.

Some will call it "under-featured," but I think it's perfect. Try it out and see if I'm wrong. Put Things Off is available in the App Store now for $2.99US.

Leo Babauta at Zen Habits has posted a nice overview of Getting Things Done on the Mac, including many of the applications you'd expect, like

1. iGTD
2. Kinkless GTD
3. OmniFocus
4. Things
5. Midnight Inbox

We've written about all of these applications before. What's interesting is the custom solution that Leo describes. He's created four simple text files -- today, ideas, errands and todo -- which he updates with Quicksilver's "append text" command. Finally, he uses GeekTool to display his files on the desktop.

That's pretty nice; simple and effective (I use Backpack myself). Part of the fun of being a geek is learning how other geeks do things.

Yep, it's that time again boys and girls: Bartlomiej Bargiel has updated iGTD with yet another unassuming point release that heralds some great new features. While you can simply run the Check for Updates command from the application menu to see the big list o' changes, here are some of the highlights for those still on the fence or stuck at work reading this on a machine other than their own. iGTD 1.4.5.5 brings:

• Opening the Quick Add window to easily edit tasks you've added from other apps
• Multiple badges in the Dock icon for Inbox, due today and flagged item statuses
• Flag and task mode (pending/waiting for/maybe) buttons in the Quick Add window, with keyboard shortcuts
• F-key trick adds Vienna RSS support to its growing list of compatible apps for creating tasks
• Ability to completely disable iCal synching so users don't accidentally toggle it

Of course, there are a ton of other new options and tweaks, as well as a healthy dose of bug fixes. This version of iGTD amazingly still remains free, while those details on the iGTD Pro are all we know about the upcoming commercial branches of this arguable king of GTD apps.

Bartlomiej Bargiel has been hard at work on iGTD, his incredibly powerful task task manager based on David Allen's Getting Things Done philosophy, and has recently unleashed news on what he has in store for iGTD Pro. As a matter of fact, iGTD will be split into three versions: iGTD Basic (the one that will continue to be free), iGTD Home&Office and iGTD Pro, each offering increasing abilities to sync and share tasks between Macs on the network and, with the Pro version, around the world. iGTD Pro will also allow to access your data with a web tool, possible a sooped up version of iPhoneiGTD. Licensing and availability details on these new versions, however, are still under wraps.

In other news, Bartlomiej has also released an iGTD Inbox Widget which offers yet another way to quickly enter tasks and even use the Quicksilver syntax assign them to contexts. I personally prefer the f-key Quick Add window, but widget junkies will likely appreciate this streamlined iGTD interface.

As many of you know, iGTD is a killer task management app that can't stop bringing cool features to the table. As fewer of you might know, Brett Terpstra at the Circle Six Design blog also can't seem to stop bringing awesome tools and features to the table; he's responsible for stuff like the FlickrMate bundle that provides some powerful Flickr integration with your TextMate projects, as well as the TextMate AutoTag bundle for WordPress, offering some great tagging features that integrate well with your WordPress blog. Amazingly, Brett's at it again, and this time he's allowing you to add tasks to iGTD using only the power of your voice - with a little help from Jott and Apple Mail, of course.

Jott is a service that allows you to send email and text messages by calling a private phone number. Calling this number allows you to leave a message which then gets dictated and sent to a recipient, including yourself. With the power of Brett's new Jott2iGTD utility and a customized rule you created in Apple Mail, you can leave a message with Jott that is emailed to you, which Mail processes and automatically converts into an iGTD task. Jotting (ha!) down a reminder or idea probably can't get much easier than this, though some setup and file shuffling is involved to get this all running properly.

As with his other goodies, Brett amazingly provides Jott2iGTD as donationware, with a PayPal link hidden at the bottom of the page (I really think you should move it above the fold, Brett!). A changelog is provided, along with instructions to get you all set up.

I have to admit that I've never quite understood the fascination so many people seem to have with the whole Getting Things Done (GTD) meme. Nonetheless, no doubt due in large part to Merlin Mann's advocacy, the GTD thing seems to have become particularly at home on the Mac. And in fact, there are a number of GTD applications already out there or being developed. What ToDo is the latest attempt to cash in on the GTD craze. Frankly not being a devotee of the whole GTD thing I find myself ill positioned to evaluate these different applications, but I assume that everyone in this space must be wary of heavyweight Omni Group's forthcoming entry into the GTD sweepstakes, OmniFocus. So at the risk of starting something, for you GTDers out there, what is your favorite GTD application and why?

What ToDo is $29 and a demo is available.

[Via MacMinute]

As if enough GTD apps aren't already landing (or still in the oven), a new kid has just hit the block in the form of Ghost Action GTD. It takes a more basic GUI approach to getting things done, with the addition of full-featured syncing. Like Actiontastic, Ghost Action GTD syncs with iCal, but it goes one big step further by syncing with anything that plays nicely with iSync, including PDAs and even your iPod.

A 14-day trial can be had from Ghost Park Software, and a license goes for $19.95.

I'm a fan of David Allen's Getting Things Done. As such, I always have my Hipster PDA with me, as well as my iPod. What if I could combine the two..?

Andrew at Restless Dreaming has done it with the Hipster Shuffle. Just replace your hPDA's binder clip with an iPod shuffle (now in color!). Rock out while getting things done. I like it.

You can see the Hipster Shuffle in action here.

[Via 43Folders]

Scott Morrison has released a 6th beta of MailTags 2, his quintessential tagging and organizing plug-in for Mail.app that we're big fans of. This new beta heralds a 'feature complete' status for the plug-in, meaning that Scott has implemented all the new features and tricks that version 2 will have, and now it's simply time to clean up the code and stomp out the bugs. Also new in this version is an updated UI with a slick new pop-up window for entering todo and event information (pictured). This makes recording events and staying on top of things with MailTags much more functional and enjoyable, causing Scott's plug-in to rise even farther towards the top of my list of apps that help me get more done with my email.

MailTags 2 costs $25 and can be had from indev.

The GTD space has been heating up lately, and Actiontastic seems to be the innovative leader, at least since I've been considering giving these apps a whirl. Jon Crosby, the developer, added a Quicksilver action early last month, and now he's gone and raised the bar with iPod syncing. In a long post that refreshingly summarizes what all this GTD (Getting Things Done) business is about, as well as his approach to the process with Actiontastic, Jon also lists a number of major improvements to this latest release, v0.83. The new iPod syncing feature works with any iPods that support notes, but it isn't the only update in this release. Check out the bottom of Jon's post for the full detains on all the changes and tweaks, but read the whole thing if, like me, you've been trying to understand what all this GTD stuff is about. This is the first time I've really felt like someone explained the concepts well, and the fact that he's illustrating them with his app certainly doesn't hurt.

Actiontastic is a Universal Binary, still in beta and at least for the moment: free. I can't tell if Jon plans to charge for it when it goes 1.0 official. Anyone know for sure?


[via Hawk Wings]

We've blogged about Midnight Inbox a few times before and have been tracking its progress through a rather buggy, but promising, beta phase. Well today Midnight Inbox, the first true GTD (Getting Things Done) app finally became a 1.0 app and it deserves a pat on the back for a job well done.

Midnight Inbox helps you: Collect emails, files, calendar and to-do items and notes automatically. Process all of your collected items into to-do items you can actually do when and where you are able. Organize those to-do items into projects you can track easily. Review your lists, projects, and collections to make sure nothing slips through the cracks. Work down your lists with a Zen-like focus.

Heck, I've only been using it for a few hours and already I feel more organized, more productive and less stressed. Also, my teeth are whiter and my jeans feel looser! Are you ready to get serious about getting things done? Well go check it out! You can download a 14-day trial, which is fully unlocked, feature-wise, and if you decide you can't live without it, it'll cost you $35 - a fair price to pay for streamlining your life, don't you think?

It would seem that lots of people out there are getting things done, judging by the number of Getting Things Done applications that are coming out. Actiontastic, now in beta, is another entry into the GTD market on OS X. The power of Actiontastic, according to its developer, is in the simplicity of the app. I come from a long line of unorganized Irish people, so I am not an able judge of this app. I can tell you that it has the best name of any of the GTD apps I have come across.

This is a free beta, but it is a beta so downloader beware.

People are crazy for this whole 'Getting Things Done' organizational method (sometimes it seems a bit cult like to me, and I'm an Apple blogger!). Many people have mashed and tweaked together various applications to get something resembling a true GTD (that's what those in the know call it) client. Midnight Inbox is the first GTD application, that I am aware of, for OS X that was designed to help you fit your life into that organizational framework.

Keep in mind that this app is in Beta, so things will crash, your data might get lost, and your Mac might catch on fire (check those battery serial numbers).

[via Daring Fireball]

Tim Gaden at Hawk Wings has compiled a list of ten Mac OS X tools that can help you implement the Getting Things Done philosophy in the way you work. The tools are broken down into three categories: email clients, dedicated GTD apps and web-based solutions for that ultimate cross-platform effect.

Mail.app, of course, starts off the list. Once combined with a few Smart Folders and the powerful Mail Act-on and MailTags plugins, Mail.app can become a most powerful GTD tool indeed. Other featured tools include kGTD (an OmniOutliner Pro template), a Todo.txt script for the ultimate in plain-text GTD, EasyTask Manaager (a stand-alone app without the GTD learning curve), iCommit (a web-based PHP tool), Backpack, Gmail and even wikis.

Check out Hawk Wings' list for more ideas and tools to help you, well, get things done.