Recommended Electronic Version for GTD?

[Joe Bryant]

Hi Folks,

Sorry if this is a dumb question but after scanning the boards, I'm still not clear.

I'm a casual ACT! user ready to make the PDA jump. I'd prefer to start off in the "right" direction and avoid a mid stream jump down the road if possible.

My question (and yes, I realize it's loaded): Is there a "recommended" electronic method for implementing the GTD system both desktop and PDA?

I see the Outlook Add In product on the site. Does that mean most folks use Outlook on their desktop to implement GTD? I love the customer contact record keeping with ACT and being able to log what I told the customer last time we spoke (taking it off the mental RAM) But I don't know that running both ACT! for customer notes and Outlook for managing tasks is the right answer.

And then when it comes to a PDA, that's another issue. Palm or Pocket PC? If I stay with ACT, that means Palm. But I'm wondering if the Pocket PC / Pocket Outlook isn't a better way to go if Outlook is the way I handle things on the desktop.

Any insights are much appreciated and apologies in advance for the basic question. Thanks.

Joe

[hamlett]

Although I use the Outlook Add-on (mostly for managing email), I handle my To-Dos with Life Balance (from llamagraphics). Life Balance (on both PDA & desktop) is the only To-Do manager that I've seen that is context specific (rather than merely priority-based) and that has a fuzzy-logic capacity to nudge you to keep the various parts of your life (work, home, relationships, intellectual growth, etc.) in balance. I know it wasn't developed with GTD in mind, but it might as well have been, so good is the fit. You can take a look at www.llamagraphics.com

[pd_workman]

I see the Outlook Add In product on the site. Does that mean most folks use Outlook on their desktop to implement GTD? I love the customer contact record keeping with ACT and being able to log what I told the customer last time we spoke (taking it off the mental RAM) But I don't know that running both ACT! for customer notes and Outlook for managing tasks is the right answer.


Act does have a super-charged conduit for the Palm which keeps all of your customer records and contacts intact. It does not, however, use the built-in Palm databases.

Pam

[vegheadjones]

I recommend Datebk5, at www.datebk5.com. It enables you to use saved views, which works wonders for your Action lists. For example, I have an office view which shows all of my @calls, @e-mail etc. Thanks to the wonders of having a cell phone, I also have a Car view, which shows my @phone, @errands etc. You can use icons to spearate the action lists, phone for @phone, etc. This works very well for me.

[Anonymous]

Be warned, it isn't the fastest palm program you'll ever see ; )

The larger your database, the slower it goes. They suggest a 1000 contact limit for reasonable performance.

Not bad for a first attempt but lots of room for improvement.

Paul

[Anonymous]

There's a yahoo group (link below) that's dedicated to GTD with Palm-based PDAs. There's a camp that favors sticking with the Palm desktop applications (the 'plain vanilla' group) while others prefer a variety of third-party applications. You might get some helpful info re programs and approaches.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/GtD_Palm/

[Bryan]

Probably a function of my marginal techno-capability, but I could never get around what appears to be a 200-item to-do limit in Datebook. You can enter more than 200 to-dos, but it'll cause problems viewing your to-do list on "all", which is sometimes useful. I know others have run into the same problem, but again, I didn't get too involved in trying to figure it out...I went back to my old DB3+ :)

And, I know there was a discussion on number of to-do items elsewhere on the board; I'd just note that, especially if you include projects and someday/maybes as to-do categories, hitting 200 wasn't too hard for me at least.

FWIW,
Bryan

PS: So if some kind soul could lead me down the babysteps path to working around this limit, I really would be grateful!

[vauha27]

Joe,

take a look at the T-Mobile MDA. I use it since last october and I will never step back to the two devices solution of pda and mobile phone.

Of course this is a pocket pc 2002.

I do GtD with the outlook addin in the office and use AgendaFusion on the MDA. You may use as much categories as you want. With this software I am able to mirror the GTD task view on my pda (action related!). This is very nice for me, because the tasks are displayed in the same order.

vauha27

[tallmarvin]

I saw a T-Mobile phone on sale today for $325 (after $20 rebate) and am intrigued by having only one device instead of two. However, I feel that what I liked about Palm (currently have Treo 90) was the simplicity of the system itself...no frills, just straight ahead usefulness. Although the Pocket PC has a nicer 'look' to it, Microsoft scares me a bit from the productivity standpoint...I don't want buggy software (my Xp home setup keeps crashing, etc.) to affect my Palm-based productivity system. How long have you had the T-mobile phone? Good reception?

Another thing is...would love to keep my current cell # for a new cell phone...whatever happened to that legislaton? I'm sure that T-Mobile would be cheaper than my current Nextel service, but I'd like to keep the same # since I use one cell phone for business and personal use.

[Peter Bulthuis]

Is this true about the 200-todo-limit in DateBk5? I didn't heard about this, until now?

Greetz,

Peter

[Anonymous]

It can only display 200 items per day on one screen at a time. If you have to-do's integrated with the calendar items then the total of your calendar entries and integrated to-do's can't go over 200.

If you use the split screen mode to view your to-do's you can view as many as you'd like.

hope that helps

Paul

[Cikub]

It can only display 200 items per day on one screen at a time. If you have to-do's integrated with the calendar items then the total of your calendar entries and integrated to-do's can't go over 200.

If you use the split screen mode to view your to-do's you can view as many as you'd like.

hope that helps

Paul

Yikes! Who would want to view over 200 to-dos at a time?!? I use Datebk5 and the stock To-do application together. When I get the "too many to-dos" warning, it's simply a reminder to me to set DateBk5 to *not* show undated to-dos. Unless you are working with dated to-dos, DateBk5 provides no benefit over the regular To-Do application--in fact, it is much more cumbersome. I use DateBk5's to-do functionality for two things 1) I date my to-dos when I complete them so that I can scan through a week with the split-screen to see what happened (for time reports, etc.), and 2) to help me focus on days when there are so many urgent things to do that I just have to have a prioritized list for the day.

Cik

[vincentpaul]

Hi all. I use Agendus for my action lists and Shadow Plan for projects. All items in the project in Shadow Plan have the "project code" at the start. Then I link the next action of a project to Agendus so that I really only have to refer to one software (Agendus) to take a look at the things I need to do. The project code tells me that the action item is part of a project and so when that thing is done, I know I have to go back to Shadow Plan to link the next action.

I'm sure you can do the same with Datebook and Shadow Plan, I just found Agendus a bit easier to use :)

[ext555]

Yikes! Who would want to view over 200 to-dos at a time?!? I use Datebk5 and the stock To-do application together. When I get the "too many to-dos" warning, it's simply a reminder to me to set DateBk5 to *not* show undated to-dos.
Cik

Someone had run into the warning message and was wondering if it could only display 200 to-do's total. This usually happens when someone has their settings to show todo's in integrated mode and category set to all .


Paul

[Anonymous]

Try Act for Palm OS to manage your projects. I do and it works remarkably well. I am in the process of completing a short tutorial on how it works .
George :o

[mpovolo]

genice,

When will you have this doc available?

thanks

[Anonymous]

I plan to have it done in about 2 weeks max :shock:

[mpovolo]

Genice, almost ready yet?

thanks

[mpovolo]

Genice, you still around

[dnimtz]

After playing/experimenting with many different Palm approaches, in my opinion, you can't beat Life Balance. Key features:
- The context sensitive "places" (including open/closed hours),
- the todo list in outline form,
- integration (if needed) with todo db, datebook db
- the ability to adjust importance of certain elements,
- having both a Palm and desktop version synching to each other
- very robust software
... the list goes on and on.

However, a couple cautions:
- like any powerful software, expect a learning curve (believe me its worth it)
- be sure you grab the following articles dealing with how to get going using GtD in Life Balance:
http://www.actionable.org/files/GTD.with.Life.Balance.pdf
http://www.actionable.org/files/StarterFile.lbd.zip (this is a template to get you started)

Others had said this before, Life Balance wasn't created for GtD, but it sure seems like it was!

[Paul@Pittsburgh]

Sorry if this is a dumb question but after scanning the boards, I'm still not If I stay with ACT, that means Palm. But I'm wondering if the Pocket PC / Pocket Outlook isn't a better way to go if Outlook is the way I handle things on the desktop.

Joe

ACT is now available on the Pocket PC - so Palm isn't necessarily the only option - you could use Outlook and Act on the PPC

Paul

[Anonymous]

I'm still around, just completing GTD oriented Project and Task Management tutorials for DB5 and Shadow. I have had some software issues with Act on my system and want to make sure they are ironed out before I release a tutorial. :? :? :?

[Anonymous]

After playing/experimenting with many different Palm approaches, in my opinion, you can't beat Life Balance. Key features:
- The context sensitive "places" (including open/closed hours),
- the todo list in outline form,
- integration (if needed) with todo db, datebook db
- the ability to adjust importance of certain elements,
- having both a Palm and desktop version synching to each other
- very robust software
... the list goes on and on.

However, a couple cautions:
- like any powerful software, expect a learning curve (believe me its worth it)
- be sure you grab the following articles dealing with how to get going using GtD in Life Balance:
http://www.actionable.org/files/GTD.with.Life.Balance.pdf
http://www.actionable.org/files/StarterFile.lbd.zip (this is a template to get you started)

Others had said this before, Life Balance wasn't created for GtD, but it sure seems like it was!

For those that might have tried these files with a demo license and found them to be expired: The have been updated and will remain useable with the demo license until May 12th.