GTD Help!

[sundevil67]

I am at the end of my rope here, and I am looking for a little guidance. Ever since I got rid of my Palm/Entourage setup, I've been lost. My whole PIM system has been out of whack, and I feel like I've tried everything. Missing Sync, EasyTask, Midnight Inbox, etc. etc. My requirements don't seem like they should be all that impossible to meet. I tried the new Mail application, but it didn't do much for me with its new, buggy features.

I'd like to:

* Have a desktop application compatible with Leopard that can manage my task list
* This application should somehow be able to make my tasks visible on my iPhone, including the notes associated with each task item...I'd prefer not to have to use the Internet to access them, but since the iPhone doesn't offer much else, I guess that will have to do. An site designed specifically for iPhone would be preferred I suppose.
* It would be great if I could also manage these tasks through a regular web browser from a remote computer as well

Any recommendations!?

Thanks.

sundevil67

[Euan]

The guys doing Omnifocus mostly use iPhones and are working on a solution.

http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/omnifocus/

[TesTeq]

Try paper. It is compatible with everything - even with Leopard, and iPhone and Windows Vista.

[mcogilvie]

I am at the end of my rope here, and I am looking for a little guidance. Ever since I got rid of my Palm/Entourage setup, I've been lost. My whole PIM system has been out of whack, and I feel like I've tried everything. Missing Sync, EasyTask, Midnight Inbox, etc. etc. My requirements don't seem like they should be all that impossible to meet. I tried the new Mail application, but it didn't do much for me with its new, buggy features.

I had a similar problem. My Palm TX went completely buggy on me about two months ago, and my 2-year cell phone contract was not close to being over. I tried all the usual suspects. Paper helped, but I needed the electronic access. Then my daughter's cell phone was stolen, and I got an iPhone, and gave her my old phone.

I'd like to:

* Have a desktop application compatible with Leopard that can manage my task list
* This application should somehow be able to make my tasks visible on my iPhone, including the notes associated with each task item...I'd prefer not to have to use the Internet to access them, but since the iPhone doesn't offer much else, I guess that will have to do. An site designed specifically for iPhone would be preferred I suppose.
* It would be great if I could also manage these tasks through a regular web browser from a remote computer as well

Any recommendations!?

Thanks.

sundevil67

Like you, I found that the new task and note features in Leopard mail are not half-baked. After playing with Remember the Milk, Vitalist, and ToodleDo, I realized that I could get the basic GTD functionality by dedicating an iMap email account to GTD. I was in the process of moving completely into this, when I found this article on the DA website:

http://www.davidco.com/coaches_corne...article78.html

which sets things up in a very slick way with gmail. The most difficult part is setting up imap gmail on the iPhone (pop won't work), but there are detailed instructions on gmail.com explaining how to do it.

Everything works pretty well. I have access to my lists everywhere in the world I can get to the internet. Email enters my world through my main account. I process it by forwarding it to the other account, addressing it to the appropriate folder. When next actions are completed, I can forward the email with a changed subject representing the new next action to the appropriate folder. The loops in the GTD algorithm are much more manifest now, and require less thinking about the system.

Technical aside: there is an interesting side effect of the way gmail implements imap: deleting an email from an imap folder removes the tag in gmail, but the email remains, leaving a permanent record unless it is explicitly deleted.

Of course, email is a familiar tool. On the desktop, you can sort by subject and date sent. You can have attachments. I think the future may be to live in our email the way we used to live in our file system.

[sundevil67]

The guys doing Omnifocus mostly use iPhones and are working on a solution.

http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/omnifocus/

For a while I was anxiously awaiting and testing OmniFocus for just this reason. I was however disappointed when they decided to discontinue their originally planned support for the iPhone and just focus on the desktop application. They might return to the iPhone plan sometime in the future, but they've stopped working on it for now.

[sundevil67]

Thanks mcogilvie, I will give that a try if iGTD doesn't work out. That's the one I am testing now. What's confounding about all of these apps that sync with iCal however is that they don't ever give you the ability to view the task's notes when looking at the online version (iGTD's online iPhone interface has this same limitation). I don't know if the email system you described will take, since I really can't get into the OSX system. I have my todo's set up on IMAP email accounts, and I just don't like it. I really would like a stand-alone task management application integrated into iCal much in the way that it is done with Outlook...but Entourage was just too lousy on performance, and now the iPhone has scrapped that option altogether. What worries me is that all of this time I've spent testing these GTD applications has prevented me from getting anything done! What's worse is that I just know all of this is temporary; I refuse to believe that Apple is not going to eventually provide some type of desktop/iPhone/.Mac task management solution that works.

[sundevil67]

All is not lost however; at least I now have a way to store all of those Entourage Notes I thought I would forever have to keep in a spreadsheet. Using Mail's notes stored on my .Mac email account, I can access them anywhere. Now if only they would just mirror the notes feature on my iPhone (I feel like choking the Mac engineers for this one), but it's something!

sundevil67