Nextaction! for Blackberry

[noteus]

http://www.blackberryinsight.com/200...n-suggestions/

Please tell us your opinion on NextAction! - The GTD Implementation for BlackBerry.

[pixlz]

Hi all

I have just bought NextAction for $39.95 from http://www.mobilesoftmarket.com. I use Mindmanager which integrates with Outlook so I can use Next Action for portable tasks with contexts. I like it so far.

Pixlz

[Jorge Ledesma DDS]

After having tried almost all Palm Pilots, from the Palm III to Tungsten T,C,TE2,X and the Treo 650, Dell Axim X30 and a few other pocket pc I have to say that for pure Gtdying my blackberry 7290 has been the best, its sync flawlessly with outlook 2003 and coupled with Next Action ! its awesome, although some have complained about NA for BB I think its a bit unfair, that it doesn't integrate the addin functionality, its not suppose to, its just what it is, the fast way to input next actions bar none, I'm 100% delighted and would only ask the developer that completed task be automatically sorted to the end of the list, if I want to put in the calendar I just use the standard bb task which integrates perfect with all views of the calendar, a lot nice interface than dbk5,6 or agendus, no icons to worry about, no color background to think about just text, alarms, in short this has been the best implementation of gtd in 5yrs and I consider myself a black belt, I'm truly delighted with the Blackberrie's ability to integrate so much functionality into a simple unit, its light, its got a great querty input, its awesome, I hope some of you give it a try and you'll see how much more gtding you'll be able to do once you get rid of the distracting icons and colors and this and that. Btw I paid 39.95 when you think about its a paltry some of money considering all the functionality it brings the BB user, money well spent in my opinion, think about its a movie and some food.

I recommend Next Action! 100% any question feel free to email me: jorgeledesmadds@fastmail.us

[JasonRussell]

I am implementing GTD on my Blackberry 8700 using To-Do Matrix and Idea Matrix from Rex Wireless. I use to-do matrix for my actions and idea matrix for ideas, reference, evergreen lists etc.

One of the neatest features is that it allows me to delegate tasks by emailing the task to anyone in my address book. I can then change the status to "waiting" and it will file it away for me with or without a due date. There is also a wish list/someday priority selection. As I am using the program, I can't help but think that it was designed with GTD in mind. Has anyone else out there tried it? I have not seen any other reference to it on this forum.

Thanks,

Jason

[Fireproof]

I am implementing GTD on my Blackberry 8700 using To-Do Matrix and Idea Matrix from Rex Wireless. I use to-do matrix for my actions and idea matrix for ideas, reference, evergreen lists etc.

One of the neatest features is that it allows me to delegate tasks by emailing the task to anyone in my address book. I can then change the status to "waiting" and it will file it away for me with or without a due date. There is also a wish list/someday priority selection. As I am using the program, I can't help but think that it was designed with GTD in mind. Has anyone else out there tried it? I have not seen any other reference to it on this forum.

Thanks,

Jason

Sounds great, but unless I am incorrect, the Matrix apps use a proprietary database and do not sync with Oulook. I'm interested in an app that syncs with Outlook, as I do 80% of my inputs/processing in Outlook and then view them (with some input/tweaking) on the Blackberry.

Next Action seems to be just what I need, but the price is too steep for just some Task list enhancements. If it were $20, I'd buy it in a second. But at $40, I'm finding myself "living with" the built in tasks. I know that doesn't seem like much money, but I just don't know if I'd use it enough for the money at that price point.

[nineq]

I bought Next Action! and was disapointed in the lack of integration to my outlook GTD add-in setup.

[...]

The problem that I still have with NextAction and the BB app, is that I cannot assign a project when creating the task. So I find myself having to come back on my outlook to assign the project. So each task requires two steps in two different platforms (highly unproductive).

Maybe for all of us BB users with GTD Addin, the best solution in BB to create a task on the road that would in turn create as a task in outlook, would be to send ourselves an email from the BB with the tast content in a specific format, and then have a macro in OL that processes it and creates an outlook task with all the data. Not sure if anyone has tried this?

xoff

I havent used Next Action because of the drawbacks that you mention. Instead I've been using the GTD Outlook add-in on and wondering how to use my Blackberry in the most GTD-compatible and efficient way.

The idea of sending yourself an email and then letting Outlook process it on the desktop computer and create the relevant task is a simple one, although it does have the minor drawback of having to have the desktop computer and Outlook constantly running if you want your Tasks to be updated in real-time.

Anyway, I thought I would give it a try by using an Outlook rule to filter any emails that I send to myself with a specific in the subject line.

This rule invokes a VB Macro that I am pasting below... It basically creates a new Task everytime such an email arrives, and then DELETES THE EMAIL (remove the last line of code if you dont want to do this).

The code is also very klutzy... the macro will look for any strings in the email which match the hard-coded list of Actions and Projects in the code (search for **** to find this). It will then try to assign Categories, Actions and a Project to the Task that it creates.

HOWEVER, it doesnt really work, because I have not found out who to assign Actions and Projects to this task: if I try the obvious:

objTask.Action = ...

I get an error. I think the problem is that a regular Outlook Task doesnt have the Action property. So one has to create the same type of GTDTask that the GTD Outlook add-in uses.

Maybe someone with more programming skills knows how to do this?

Outlook VB Macro below


Option Explicit

Sub SetCategories(MyMail As MailItem)
' This creates a new Task every time it processes an email whose Subject line starts with the string "stask ".
' The Categories of the Task are set by searching for any strings such as @Calls in the body of the task
' The subject, body, etc of the task are just copied from the email
'
' Things to do:
' Set the .Action of the Task
' allow the creation of Calendar events as well as tasks...

Dim sAction, sProject, sCategories As String
Dim sActions, sProjects As Variant

Dim i As Integer
Dim sBody, sSubject As String

Dim strID As String
Dim objNS As Outlook.NameSpace
Dim objMail As Outlook.MailItem
Dim objTasks As Outlook.MAPIFolder
Dim objTask As Outlook.TaskItem

strID = MyMail.EntryID
Set objNS = Application.GetNamespace("MAPI")
Set objTasks = objNS.GetDefaultFolder(olFolderTasks)

Set objMail = objNS.GetItemFromID(strID)

sBody = LCase(objMail.body)
sSubject = objMail.Subject

If Left(LCase(sSubject), 6) = "stask " Then
Set objTask = CreateItem(olTaskItem)

' Include all your actions here ****
sActions = Array("@Agendas", "@Anywhere", "@Calls", "@Computer", _
"@Errands", "@Waiting For", "@Read", "@Internet", _
"@Home", _
"@Office", "@Deferred", "Projects", "Someday")
' Include all your Projects here
sProjects = Array("@GTD Setup", "@Boat", "@CompMaint")

i = 0
Do
If sActions(i) <> "" Then If InStr(sBody, LCase(sActions(i))) > 0 Then sAction = sActions(i)
If sProjects(i) <> "" Then If InStr(sBody, LCase(sProjects(i))) > 0 Then sProject = Right(sProjects(i), Len(sProjects(i)) - 1)
i = i + 1
Loop Until i > UBound(sActions) Or i > UBound(sProjects)

If sProject <> "" Then
sCategories = sAction & ", " & sProject
Else
sCategories = sAction
End If

'objMail.categories = sCategories
With objTask
' the below line doenst work for some reason...
'.Actions = sAction
.categories = sCategories
.Subject = Right(sSubject, Len(sSubject) - 6)
.StartDate = Now
.Status = olTaskInProgress
.Importance = objMail.Importance
.body = objMail.body
.Save
End With
objMail.Delete
End If
End Sub