OSX Task Manager Showdown – iGTD2 vs Inbox vs OmniFocus vs Things

Excellent review and equally excellent website. Glad I came across this (thanks to webworker!)

Nice to see Things getting a good review. Been using it myself since mid November, and it’s become an essential part of my workflow. Shortly before I tried OmniFocus, which is nice as well but unlike Things it has a learning curve. Also, OF’s interface get in the way, again, unlike Things. Things really helps getting things done, at least, for me.

I’ve been using iGTD for awhile, but I don’t really use it efficiently. I used to just use a to-do list, but I’m working on beefing up my productivity. Thanks for this review, it’s very informative and detailed. I’m going to upgrade to iGTD2 and try out Things.

Thank you for the great reviews! I’m going to test out Things. It has to be better then the todo list in my head theory of keeping track of stuff. :)

Thank you very much for this review! I’ve been using iGTD for quite a while now, but I will switch to Things. I’ve been testing Things since an early alpha-release and it’s just great!

Aaaaand: The developers of Things come from Germany, just like me! Cool! :-)

Thanks for the kind words, folks – you’re all welcome.

@Rudy – I agree. Things has hardly any learning curve at all!

@Sydney – I think you’ll like Things. Use whatever works for you – if that’s as simple as a piece of paper, go for it! (The PTO kitten in particular favours low-tech options.:) )

@Rose – You’ll definitely notice an improvement if you use any to-do list or task manager instead of keeping stuff in your head! I write about this in my Productivity for Beginners series in the second post about keeping a list.

@Ole – The developer of Things is a great bloke, and very productive too. I emailed him with some questions when writing this review and he replied within minutes!

No Actiontastic?

Hi John. Don’t worry — I’ve not forgotten Actiontastic altogether. (I actually sent an email to the developer long ago saying how promising I thought it was in early beta!)

I intend to put it in a group review with TaskPaper at a future date. Both are great apps in their own right, and it pains me to leave them out here, but I have plans to give them their own limelight in a future group test — thanks for your comment and stay tuned!

Excellent reviews of the latest GTD apps. I used Backpack for 8 months but decided it was better for groups of people working on projects together, rather than self-employed individuals like myself.

I tried an early beta of Things but didn’t have the patience to learn another GTD app in the middle of another deadline so I went back to my simple To-do list in Entourage.

Based on your review of Things I will give it another look and see if it is a good fit for my daily workflow. It’s a beautiful looking app and your enthusiasm for the product tells me that it is worth a second look.

Thanks for the review and great site. Bookmarked

Thanks for the review. I’ve been struggling to find the right GTD app for a while. Nothing could quite get me to abandon scraps of paper tucked under the iMac stand. I really liked iGTD, because it was free. But I never used it. I really liked Taskpaper because it was simple. But it seemed expensive for what amounted to a glorified strike-through function. At first investigation Things looks like the one to try.
I keep meaning to read the book on GTD but never seem to get around to it. I’m sure I’m not alone in this.

Great review. Are any of these syncable with other users? We’re implementing a GTD system here at my firm and need to be able to share events from one user to another.

If these can’t, do you know any that can?

Thanks for a great article; I, too, recently discovered Things and I have high hopes for the final release.

One other comment; all of the app’s that I’ve tried (including the four you review here) fail at one pretty important thing: repeating tasks. Yes, they all allow you to create tasks that repeat ‘daily’, ‘weekly’, ‘monthly’, etc. – but the problem is that when you complete the current instance of the task it disappears… and is immediately replaced with the NEXT instance of the task. This is highly annoying…

The advantage of using any GTD type of application is to think only about the things that you have to think about now, and be reminded of stuff in a timely manner. As an example, let’s say I clean my bedroom once a week. The day that I clean my bedroom, I want to check off that task (feel the sense of accomplishment), and then I don’t want to be reminded about cleaning my room until five or six days from now (ie: the day before the task should be done again).

It makes me want to go get a programming degree. An app that could do THAT would be the “killer” organizational app in my book.

Jay: Backpack’s a great online app. I’ll be doing a separate showdown of online task/project managers. Stay tuned!

Simon: No real need to read GTD. I always champion simplicity over complexity. Just start putting into practice simple habits that work for you – don’t feel that you have to read a book or bend your life to fit someone elses rules to start living more productively!

Charlie: I believe that the final release of Things will feature sharing/asignment of tasks via email. If you can’t wait until then, there are several online apps that are well suited to teams. I’ll be reviewing these soon.

Monty: Good news! I have it on good authority from the developers of Things that recurring tasks will be in release 1.0 in Spring ‘08. Yes – it is a killer feature and one that I use all the time in my calendar apps.

Thanks for the warm feedback and comments all – do keep them coming! :)

Thanks for the review as well. Though I haven’t tested Things thoroughly, it looks lie you can’t have sub/sub tasks…which I use a ton with iGTD (which, so far, I like better than iGTD2 BTW).

Also, you wanted something that reminded you to focus, take breaks…
Try Time-Out and set it any way you wish (for micro or macro breaks)
http://www.dejal.com/timeout/

This review was most useful. One thing that bothers me is the idea, inherited via David Allen’s GTD from the more traditional productivity gurus, is that the only way to organize things is in lists. There’s all kinds of interesting work going on in other fields on alternative ways of displaying information, and it seems to me that some of that should be applicable to managing tasks. I think LifeShaker, while incomplete in all kinds of ways, has a refreshing new perspective:
http://www.funkycloud.com/lifeshaker/index.php

Well-written review but I think you missed a big one by not including Life Balance. It is a great piece of software that lets you assign values of importance (and not just urgency) to your responsibilities, and forces you to keep coming back to what’s truly important in your life.

Life Balance has a the seed of a great ideas, surprisingly neglected by most similar apps (visual snapshot of life, focus on balance, system’s theory, etc) –but unfortunately (unless its been recently updated) its ugly as hell.

I want (and am actually working with others on) a GTD app that, besides the normal features above, has:

1)A dashboard that shows you a snapshot of your life/system/balance

2)Something more rewarding for actually *doing* the work than just crossing it off!
(I can’t believe someone hasn’t picked up on this idea year…What if as you achieved certain goals and accomplished projects, a visual landscape, a soulscape, were viewable…this coincides with game-theory as well…the pleasure of actually knowing/seeing ‘the score’, the terrain, etc…anyone get it? I think I need to do a blog entry on this one)

3)Something that helps you remember your current focus, like a transparent layer that occsionally pops up, or that is at the top of every window, reminding us multi-taskers, partial-taskers, ADD freaks what are current focus is.

THAT, would kick ass.

-LEif

“a visual landscape, a soulscape, … the terrain”

Oh, yeah! I certainly hope you will do a blog entry on this!

Nice review. I’ve used Thinking Rock for some time. I really liked that it was cross platform as I had to use a PC at work. Now that I can use a Mac full time, I’m trying to decide if there is something better than Thinking Rock out there. Thinking Rock is also free and has a lot of flexibility. I’m still not sure about where I’ll end up. iGTD2 hasn’t been as drop dead obvious for me.

Thanks for this simple and straight forward review. I had been using iGTD but your review convinced me to try Things. I am happy I did.

@Leif: Thanks for the link to Time Out. I’ll give it a spin this week.

@Rick & Rich: Thanks for sharing your links to Lifeshaker and Life Balance. Both look very promising and I’ll be keeping an eye on them.

@Leif(2) and Rick(2): I’m not sure how this would work, but it sounds like a neat idea. If you get something up and running, Leif, do drop me an email.

@Troy: Thinking Rock is another new one to me! Thanks for sharing – I’ll give it a whirl.

@Khurt: Well done on trying Things – it really is a smashing app.

Thanks for the great comparison. I’m planning on getting a GTD app when I (finally) switch back to a Mac in the next few months (waiting and saving for a new MBP). Your review will definitely give me more to go on in making that decision.

One question: will you be updating this review to compare final versions of the various apps (including Inbox 2)?

Thanks again!

Thanks, Jason. I’ll update it as and when new versions are released, or slightly afterwards as time allows. Glad you found it useful.

Nice writeup. I used the Kinkless/OmniOutliner combo, then went with iGTD, and recently switched to OmniFocus because of a cleaner, more stable interface and data capture. The fact that I’m used to OO may have made it easier to transition.

IMO, the killer OF feature is perspectives. You can define a particular project focus, mode, and filter (remaining, completed, time duration, flag, sorting, etc.) and then pop it open in a separate window from the menu or toolbar. Brilliant!

Things is definitely a winner, even though it hasn’t been released. When they sync with an iPhone (or have an interface for it, whatever) so that you can take it on the road it will be hard to beat.

“One other comment; all of the app’s that I’ve tried (including the four you review here) fail at one pretty important thing: repeating tasks. Yes, they all allow you to create tasks that repeat ‘daily’, ‘weekly’, ‘monthly’, etc. – but the problem is that when you complete the current instance of the task it disappears… and is immediately replaced with the NEXT instance of the task. This is highly annoying…”

Nonsense. By using the view bar you can control what you see and what you don’t. It would be very simple to NOT see a repeating action until you wish to. This is one of the problems with a program like omnifocus. Users simply don’t understand the program and complain about problems that aren’t really there. This happens constantly.

As for your review, nice, if short. But one thing bothers me. Omnifocus obviously leads Things in syncing and repeating task. But the way your review is set up you don’t give omni any points for those features. You just assume that they’ll get them and do it right. I’m not saying you weren’t fair, but your review seems biased towards things.

@Ken: Thanks. OmniFocus is a great app, and having experience with OmniOutliner makes it so much easier to pick up. Perspectives are neat, though by no means unique — iGTD has a feature called “workspaces” that provide similar functionality, even if it’s not quite as customisable as OmniFocus.

@Ross: I’ve yet to buy an iPhone, but if anyone would like to buy me one, I’ll happily review every iPhone app I can find. :) Things on the iPhone would be a winner for me.

@james: Thanks very much for your thoughts. It’s interested to hear you felt it was short. I tried to balance a general overview with a brief discussion on specific features, and so edited it down to just under 2000 words and linked to the app downloads for people to decide for themselves.

Yes, OmniFocus currently handles syncing and repeating tasks very well (look at Round 3 – I did give it credit and ‘points’ – that’s why it’s the runner-up). Remember, at the time of this review, Things isn’t finished yet. I’ve spoken to the developer (who’s currently implementing repeating tasks) and couldn’t penalise Things just because it’s a pre-release.

If the review was biased towards Things, it’s only because it’s the stand-out no-brainer winner to me. It’s easier to pick up, doesn’t require a degree in GTD, prettier to look at and live with, and the tagging and filing functionality is excellent. It will also implement task sharing with others, which is the killer feature for me. (Yes, you can save an OmniFocus project and send it to a friend, but it’s not the same). Plus, it’s a considerable $30 cheaper than OmniFocus (or $40 with their early bird discount).

I encourage everyone to download the apps and make their own minds up but, for me, there’s no contest.

“Yes, OmniFocus currently handles syncing and repeating tasks very well (look at Round 3 – I did give it credit and ‘points’ – that’s why it’s the runner-up”

Well, in the first two rounds you labeled a ‘winner’. In the third round you kind of just glossed over the topic. Regardless, I have no problem with your picking things as the no brain winner. I’m sure a lot of people will agree with you. Similarly, many will opt for omnifocus. There is enough difference between omnifocus and things that people will gravitate to one or the other. For me, repeating tasks and syncing are absolutely deal breakers if not included. It makes no difference if things looks better.

My gripe, and I may have been unclear, is that you’re comparing what omnifocus does to what Things will do one day. That seems unfair to me, and also unusual in reviews. Since omnifocus already does the things that the developers of Things have promised, it makes sense that they will continue to add features and polish their product. For instance, incorporating omniplan so that you can use omnifocus when working with a team. So by the time Things has the features omnifocus does (and looking at the Things wiki, they have quite a ways to go) omnifocus might be a much different app.

Anyway, it’s your review, and what is fair and sensible in your eyes might be different than mine. Thanks.

PS. as an owner of omnioutliner and an early buyer omnifocus was 29 dollars. Not bad at all.

Thank you for the informative reviews. I downloaded Things, poked around, and watched the screencast.

I’ve been using Vitalist since July, but they haven’t been releasing the updates they’ve been promising. The task sharing/delegation feature in Things could make it worth switching.

One advantage of a web-based task/GTD app (like Vitalist, Remember The Milk, etc.) is that I don’t have to worry about syncing w/ mobile as I just use the mobile browser. Another advantage is with web-based apps you can delegate tasks to virtual assistants without worrying what OS they have.

Can’t wait to see the production version of Things. It’s so good looking already…

@James: Thanks for the feedback. I glossed-over syncing because 2 out of the 4 apps are betas and haven’t implemented the functionality.

You’re right — it’s hard to compare beta software with final-release stuff. I genuinely think Things is better in beta exactly as tested than the final release of OmniFocus, hence the outcome of the review. But I don’t use syncing and, as I’ve said, everyone is free to decide for themselves.

“as an owner of omnioutliner and an early buyer OmniFocus was 29 dollars. Not bad at all.” That’s good value. I personally think OmniFocus’ price point is now slightly high, but I’m sure OmniGroup have tested the market and know what they can get for it. Out of interest, would you have still bought it at $79? (ignoring the OmniOutliner Pro discount).

For the record, I own OmniOutliner Pro and OmniWeb and love them. I used Kinkless GTD for almost 2 years, so even I was shocked to find functionality in Things that I now consider better. I’ll update this review after future releases — should my already good opinion of OmniFocus change, I’ll let you all know.

@Sterling: You’re welcome! I have a review of web-based todo lists coming later in the month. Keep on reading… :)

“Out of interest, would you have still bought it at $79? (ignoring the OmniOutliner Pro discount).”

It’s hard to say. I do agree with you that it’s overpriced at $79.

I think Things does some things remarkably well, and competition is good. Having used both omnifocus seems a better solution for hardcore gtd, while Things, with the tagging, seems more flexible. I’ll definitely keep my eyes on it. Right now it’s simply missing features I need (which varies from person to person of course). I also chose to go with omnifocus for now simply because of the long history of the company. I know they’ll be around for a while.

Lastly, when I called your review ’short’ it was actually a compliment. I enjoy your style of writing and was hoping to read more. I’m adding you to my RSS feed. Keep up the good work.

I am a Inbox user and follow GTD methodology and am pretty happy. The app did take a while to understand but I like it. Once I turned off automatic collecting, it became a whole lot easier to use. I could see it having a bunch of unnecessary functionality if you don’t do GTD. I am also involved in the alpha testing of Inbox 2. It is in very early stages but it shows a lot of promise. It will give the user a number of different ways to track and interact their tasks I’m excited to see the progress.

Good article. I think it could be a bit more comprehensive.

You missed thinking rock (which is cross platform – mac, xp and linux.)

One question (for me) is which strongly adhere to David Allen’s GTD (for example, I know that tags was purposely not included in OF, as it has nothing to do with GTD.) I know that OF and Inbox are designed to be compliant (and not clutter your eyes with other things.)

Last, you don’t talk about support. I could not imagine feeling comfortable with a system that I have to trust, if there isn’t a robust, quick support system out there. I would have liked you to email a ‘problem’ to all four and see who replied (with or without the correct answer) and how quickly.

@James – thanks for the clarification and kinds words. I agree about sticking with a company you know and trust sometimes too.

@Clayton – good to hear from an Inbox user. Can’t wait to try Inbox 2 myself.

@Jeff – thanks for your comment and advice. Thanks for pointing out Thinking Rock; I’ll try to include it in a future round-up.

All apps support GTD, but Inbox supports it most ‘aggressively’ (it even has a “review” stage built in!). OmniFocus is next down the list of GTD apps, with iGTD2 and Things coming in at the bottom in terms of adherence to strict GTD principles.

Yes – support is very important. I’ve contacted all developers during my reviews except for iGTD2. All got back to me after about the same time within 24 hours. I’ll try to include this in future reviews — thanks for the tip.

Hey Nick … just stumbled upon this link on 43 folders where some helpful soul wrote a simple Applescript for checking if you’re shaving a yak …

Check it out here: http://www.43folders.com/2004/09/29/mental-dialogues-yak-shaving-the-triumph-of-the-mini-review#comment-313985

And better yet, it’s free! (Although I’m sure the clever soul would appreciate some kind words of thanks)

Thanks, Jason — I’m trying it out now!

Why is it that so few people mention mail.app in Leopard for task management/GTD?

Almost all of the mac GTD applications stray from David Allen’s simple ideas. I believe he suggested most of your project ideas are stored in long flexible lists and only next actions become tasks. Mail.app does this brilliantly – each ‘note’ stores a project and all it’s details such as links to files, people, tasks, random ideas and then you highlight next actions and turn them into ‘todos’. Most other GTD apps have you listing everything as a task and then running in circle then restructuring the task list just to display only your next action lists. And most of them don’t allow you to have long unstructured project notes (eg Things). No wonder people go back to paper!

My only gripe is with mail.app notes is that it is HOPELESSLY flaky if stored on an non dotmac IMAP server.

Thanks for a nice review.

I have one problem with it. It is small – but to me it was really important.
I disagree with the note that Things is good for advanced GTD-users.
I am one of those, and stumbled upon Things when a friend said he finally found a task manager he liked. I used iGTD for only a few weeks – things and OmniFocus I have tried a little bit more.

I find one of the core points to David Allens GTD-ideas to be NOT project planning day by day, but using CONTEXT-task-managing instead. For hardcore use of GTD-contexts I find Things to be kind of limited and actually really bad. Thats how I feel.

Yeah its cute – yeah its kind of simple. But it feels kind of anti-GTD to me.

@David — expect a review of more ‘bite-sized’ list management apps on PTO in the future. I was saving Mail.app for then.

@oliver — I think that’s why Omnifocus is a good match for many. The context support is right there built in. Personally, this is overkill for me — the tagging functionality, Projects, and Areas categories in Things is enough. Thanks for offering your thoughts.

“I find one of the core points to David Allens GTD-ideas to be NOT project planning day by day, but using CONTEXT-task-managing instead. For hardcore use of GTD-contexts I find Things to be kind of limited and actually really bad. Thats how I feel.”

Question for David: what do you find are the limits in terms of GTD-contexts in Things? Please explain, I’m curious.

Sorry, I mean Oliver, not David

Hi Nick,

Thanks for your great content. I’m not sure exactly how the yak timer works, but time tracking app of choice is “On The Job.” It’s winning feature is the idle time tracker which takes note if you stop working on your computer and forget to turn off the clock. When you get back it lets you know how long you’ve been gone and gives you the option of subtracting that time from your record. It also does invoicing, and lets you track multiple jobs. Totally worth the $25 for anyone working online, especially if you’re working for multiple clients throughout the day.

Check it out here: http://stuntsoftware.com/OnTheJob/

@Leif “I want (and am actually working with others on) a GTD app that, besides the normal features above, has:”

I want that. Do update Nick on your progress so we all can drool over this.

Hey, it would be really great if any of these integrated with a web based app like Copper Project or Basecamp.

I’ve been using Things for about a week now and I’m hooked. I just wish it was more mature. I can’t delete an empty project, for example. The pop-up is great. I didn’t know about the keyboard shortcut until I read your blog. Thanks.

I am trying out these apps right now. This review is very helpful.

Inbox – It is the most GTD centric as you note, which is a good thing. however, its learning curve is higher and it crashes on me a lot. And the forum is not very active, which points to not much happening there. That is too bad. However, if the app is not stable, I really do not want to put much time into it now.

OnmiFocus – I think this is the app for me. My main issue is the price. I do not mind paying for quality stuff, but in general if the price is twice what the other options are I struggle to justify that.

Things – based on this review I want to like it. It may be too flexible for me. The tags seem like a great way to do things and I can see the power . . . but in using this it seems like all I am doing it adding tags. I am starting to believe it is too much work in the front end (when capturing information) to justify the payoff in the backend (being able to filter, etc)

IGTD – I still need to give it a real try.

Thank you for the review. I currently have Things on my iMac, but I only gave it some serious thought after another huge influx of projects and clients last week.

I’m looking at Things or OmniFocus, and although the Omni product does cost more, in the overall scheme of things it’s about 15min charge out time difference, so not really a major consideration.

Great and very useful review! Thanks a lot. I was using iGTD for a while, but felt it was a bit awkward, and didn’t like the GUI of it (sorry Bartek).
After reading your article I switched to Things and after using it for only one day I think it’s just great. Clean, simple, no leraning curve.
I’m gonna use it and will pay for the final release.

Thanks again.

There is also the Ready-Set-Do! program for the mac I designed. It’s not as GUI rich as some of these other programs for the mac, but nothing to-date matches it’s ability to help people process their stuff one item at a time. It’s also the only one that actually coaches users through the process of learning the GTD habits. Version 1.3 should be out sometime next week.

Thanks for the round-up. I’m new to the Mac, and pleased there are so many tools for personal productivity. I’ve looked at OmniFocus and found it waaaaaay too complex (this from a programmer!), and I think Things has a ton of promise. Looking forward to trying Midnight and iGTD2.

Thanks for the review. Is there a good task manager that does not relate to GTD at all? I am looking for something that will allow me to enter many tasks and organize them in various ways (analogously to iPhoto and iTunes) without binding myself to the GTD concepts.

@Shaul: Things is only very loosely based on GTD — you don’t need to know GTD to use it; I’d recommend you give it a shot.

Great article!
I’m looking for a replacement for Entourage’s Project Center — a place where related emails and other files can be clumped together. I’ve tried OmniFocus but I don’t think it could include emails. Soho Notes seemed the same. Midnight Inbox apparently can include emails, but the reviews on that software suggest it’s buggy — something I’d be scared of with a task manager. Can you advise? Thanks!

@seahorse

If you are using Leopard, you can use mail.app to store each project in a separate note. You can then store Todos, files and emails within that project note. Emails can either be stored by dragging and dropping (but they loose formating and display formatting code instead which is annoying) or you can turn an email into a Todo and then cut and paste it into the project note.

I think mail.app is still the best GTD program out there, but there is still room for improvement and simplifying the process. One day I’ll write some scripts to make it easier.

Thanks David!!!
I had no idea Mail could do that. It seems a bit unstable and Storing Notes In Inbox makes a huge difference to what is going on — which I don’t really understand yet. If I can get this working, it could save me a lot of grief. Many thanks!!!

Seahorse

Joyent connector is probably also worth a look if you’re trying to integrate email with project management.

I just use labels in Gmail — sometimes the simplest solution is best!

@seahorse

I have found that in Mail.app under preferences>accounts>mailbox behaviors, turning off “Store draft messages on the server” resolves almost all flakiness and duplicate note problems I had in the past. If you leave that checked, anytime you make a change to a note and Mail.app cannot connect to the server (eg you are offline or you have a really large attached file that’s taking ages to sync) you’ll get a duplicate note (or tens of copies!!)

Thanks David. It’s weird the way it does that. I got a dozen duplications and each time I thought I’d removed the last one, a new duplicate, or many, appeared.

* What is the “Store Notes in Inbox” about? When I have it off, the Notes I had with Entourage appear. When it is on, the Notes disappear.

* Also, do you know if it is possible to make Smart Folders withing Smart Folders? I’ve been using your suggestion of having Mail as my GTD application and using MailTags for labeling emails that need to be associated with projects. And to find those emails that were tagged, I use Smart Folders. But I’m getting a lot of Smart folders!

Thanks again for your help. If emailing directly seems appropriate, feel free to use bogus_useless_email@yahoo.com. I rarely use it. If you respond to this post to that email, do let me know and I’ll get your email and give you my proper one.

Cheers,

Seahorse

Going way back to the comments about Lifebalance….

I loved the basic idea of it, but I found that after you got a LOT of stuff it in it became increasingly hard to navigate, especially if you nested very deep. My impression may be colored by the fact that I was primarily trying to make use of it with a Palm device, but that was why I stopped using it, despite the fact that it was nice to have the same app on the palm and my desktop….

I’m trying (for the what-th time?) to make another run at finding a system that I can actually maintain, and I found this review very helpful. I’ve been interested in Omni for a while and now that I have a lurvely mac from work I look forward to giving it a shot….

totally agreed with the review. i have also tried them all (and more that are not listed), and ultimately, if it is too complex – it fails, and i revert back to paper notes everywhere!

things is my latest and most successful attempt. i also have used and love ‘ghost action’ which is even one level or so more simple to use, plus it syncs with ical.

@seahorse, you can nest smartmailboxes. I’ve forgotten offhand how I did it, but I saw the tip somewhere. I do recall there were some nuiances. I think it only works for certain content type and I think you can only nest if all smartmailbox content if stored on the same IMAP server or local drive.

Excellent and pithy review – thanks!

Question to this wide variety of GTD-ers: what do you do to keep track of delegation? I’ve got a team of 12 programmers working for me and I want to tie tasks to individuals and groups of individuals in the team. Some actions are project-based (in an old-school project management sense), but others are things like “Talk to Roger and Kevin about exim configuration”. So the project would be “Improve Exim Configuration” and the context would be “Work:GM” (signifying which office they work at and therefore where I can “do” the action), but then I’m kind of stuck how to represent and track the mini-team “Roger and Kevin”.

I’m toying with a quick Applescript lash-up driving text files of people and dynamic teams with a noddy GUI. I use OmniFocus. I’ve tried Things but I can’t help thinking there’s a bit of “grass is greener” psychology at work amongst its fans – I’m sure when it’s finished it will be great, but the gaps in the GUI are pretty wide right now! Also it only seems to let me assign a task to one person and it doesn’t let me create groups of people.

Thanks,

Rob.

@Rob
I’m not sure I have this correct, but are you asking how should you track many next action tasks that you delegate to others?

If so I have found that after doing this for a while in a slightly smaller team that I was going mad tracking minutia. I realised it was far too much micro managing. Instead I empowered the group members to work on larger subprojects themselves and let them handle how they achieve the next actions. This was a massive stress reliever. That said, I should really get each member to read GTD too!

@David Sly

Thanks for the rapid reply. I guess micro-management is a risk. In some ways I’m more interested in a more controlled “Waiting For” mechanism: “I’m waiting for the results of three actions from Roger, two from Roger and Kevin, nine from Neil”. This is partly so when I’m putting the mini-teams together then I get a simple workload metric from within my GTD program, rather than needing to go elsewhere. (Even with only 12 people it’s sometimes easy to forget just how many projects people are working on!) In this way it sort of fits into the whole GTD ethos of getting things into a trusted system – I want one integrated system for this sort of thing.

I think the lightest touch way to do this would be to have a tagging mechanism in OmniFocus like the other programs in this review. Then I wouldn’t need to obsess on micro-management, but the information would be available when needed – this was going to be the focus of my AppleScript efforts.

Thanks for your time,

Rob.

The way I do this is to send the task to others via an email. I then go to my sent smartfolder find that last message and flag it. I have smart mailbox that includes my inbox and flagged emails.

So basically these tasks I have delegated show up as flagged emails in my inbox. During my weekly review I convert the flagged messages to a ToDo in mail.app and add it to a “waiting for” calendar and add a due date with one or more alarms.

My only wish is that you could flag an email in mail.app BEFORE you send it. The other option is to add unique characters g [w] into these emails rather than flag it.

@Rob:

This is one of the reasons I added an agenda creator for my own GTD-implementation on the mac (all done with applescripts, by the way), called Ready-Set-Do!. You can create a list of all of your waiting fors sorted by the first four words —

Waiting for John Doe
Waiting for Amazon.com
Waiting for …

etc.

But the agenda maker will go through the entire inventory and find all agenda items for each person as well as waiting fors so I can print out a list of only those things in my system related to that person for when I meet with them. So far it is working very well.

I use a product called MProLite just released http://www.managepro.com/products.htm. I was using the desktop version of ManagePro, and recently began using a MAC. MProlite is compatible with MACs and appears to foucs directly on three key questions from a business perspective:
Where are we going (with scorecards)
What are we doing to get there (outline of tasks, progress updates and attached document)
What needs to happen today

More personally it’s about having a tool that:
keeps you organized and focused on what’s priority…
the peace of mind I get from having everyone in one place, at your finger tips,
the extra kick in productivity, the reduced frustration that comes from having to search for stuff.

Something that’s pretty simple to use, but has a lot of flexibility to wrap around your business process so that its simplicity doesn’t get in your way after a few days or weeks and start to feel like more and more of a limitation.

Task management, varies in value creation based upon whether it is personal (personal organization, peace of mind) or business (coordination of work effort, team members, delivery of projects, meeting of defined goals and outcomes) oriented.

Each day, I ask myself this question “What’s important to keep the business moving forward”. MProLite helps me prioritize my activities for the day, week, or month. It has fairly robust reporting capability, and reminder notifications. I like the idea that I can also manage projects, resources allocation and email messages directly from the web ap.

Has anyone tried MacJournal ? I use Omni Focus, with MacJournal to store data from projects that my be used over. This is key to me as a Electrical engineer.

I can’t BELIEVE that a feature so fundamental to how I do work seems to be missing from most GTD apps, and I can’t find a single online to-do list that has this functionality: manual ordering of tasks within a project.

Am I unique in finding for myself that the most productive/logical way to complete a project is to manually order the tasks in some logical/sequential order (If I do A first, then I can do B, then C will be possible)? It also seems very GTDish –break down a project/task into do-able parts.

In addition, my tasks rarely have actual due dates to them (and when I do give them, I end up wasting tons of time and stress managing these incorrect dates); and priorities never really end up helping me on a task level unless they are single task lists or for the projects themselves (which leads to another frustration: many to-do managers don’t allow priorities for projects themselves. iGTD, which I currently use, is one of the guilty parties).

I want to:
1. Create projects that I can assign priorities and sometimes due dates to.
2. Brainstorm the tasks I’ll need to do to complete that project.
3. Manually order those tasks in a logical/sequential fashion.

Sure, show me other views (context, top task from each project, upcoming due dates, single tasks lists sorted by priority and date, tags, etc) but the above is the default, simple, most effective and I can’t seem to find any desktop or web based app that does it. Weird.

I will be happy to be corrected if you know of one that fits the 1-3 of above.

Of course the perfect app would also allow me to sync this data with my iphone, but we know thats not coming for at least a month or two. For now, I think an iphone webapp portal would do.

Lelf Hansen,
I looking for the same thing HI & low, I can believe that no one has anything like that. I did come across something for PC yuck.. Its franklin covey but they will not do a Mac version

other version Jumsoft – Process ( but it fakly)

Ready-Set-Do! provides the ability to do all of the things you request:

1. Create projects that I can assign priorities and sometimes due dates to.
You just add a new folder with the name “> DUE” followed by the due date and all tasks for that project automatically get assigned due dates to make sure you get it done on time.

2. Brainstorm the tasks I’ll need to do to complete that project.
You have a dialog box that comes up and it just keeps asking you for more ideas until you can’t think of any more to add. Then you assign next actions by reviewing the moving parts of the project.

3. Manually order those tasks in a logical/sequential fashion.
You manually order those tasks by using letter or number prefixes.

Ready-Set-Do! also allows you to email yourself all of your tasks so you can always have a current list on your iPhone or PDA. Any new item you want to add to the system you can also email to yourself from your iPhone by adding “> Inbox” to the subject line.

It only works on the mac and it is not an online program. But I consider these assets and not liabilities. Why make your stuff hostage to an online system you may not be able to count on for the next year and have to pay a subscription for when you could give yourself the same ubiquity by simply emailing your tasks to yourself? That’s what’s working for me.

Todd V
Ready-Set-Do! Creator

Thanks for the sympathy Darrel and the suggestion Todd.

Unfortunately, you missed the whole point –MANUAL ordering is the key. I don’t want to have to add prefixes and then sort by subject title. THAT is the nightmare I(we) are trying to avoid. What happens when you add a new task, complete one out of order, etc. –your whole order is out of whack. You’d have to go and change EVERY one of your tasks’ prefixes.

Any other ideas folks?

@Leif

Check my previous comments in this post.

You should try what came with Leopard, i.e. Mail.app. You can store each of your projects in a note in Mail.app. The notes are completely free form so you just use the GTD natural planning method to plan out each project with outcomes, tasks and milestones and any other info you need. Then you select the items in the note you want to be next actions and press the “ToDo” button to turn them into ToDo’s that can be viewed in either Mail or iCal. As per the GTD book you really only need to setup enough next actions (ToDos) for the coming week and you review the projects during the weekly review.

I have one difference from the GTD book, which is that I don’t always plan right down to the explicit next actions, sometimes they are a little higher order. During the weekly review in ical I drag my ToDo’s onto my calendar and schedule my ToDo’s. I never wuite understood the GTD idea of ‘discretionary time” for next actions. If it’s important, I’ll schedule it and be in control of my contexts rather than stumbling into them!

Hi David, thanks for the tip. I like the simplicity of your suggestions and its integration with Mail. And I suppose what you mean is that I can easily copy and paste to re-order, etc. Downfalls for me:
1. I tried experimenting with re-ordering through copy/paste -it was a pain, even more so once they are turned into tasks.
2. Occasionally I like to be able to nest a project within a project and this is not possible with your system.

I re-tried things today and have to repent –looks like you can manually change the order (or perhaps thats an update since I last tried it)

I also tried a simple app called “check-off” and it seems to offer almost everything I’ve suggested –I can nest projects, I can manually drag to re-order. The only thing it lacks is setting/sorting by priorities and a prettier interface. Well, back to the drawing board of procrastination. ;)

-Leif

@Leif
If you are regularly restructuring the order of your tasks inside your projects during the week, then perhaps you need to do a more comprehensive weekly review.

I do all the heavy task ordering during the weekly review inside my notes. Once I have all the next actions (ToDos), I switch to iCal proritise my ToDos. Note that I don’t convert every task into a next action as that doesn’t follow GTD. Once I’ve done that I drag the high priority ToDo’s to my calendar. I rarely restructure my ToDo list during the week, but I do a minimal amount of calendar restructuring, nothing that takes away from my “mind like water”.

I don’t nest projects, but I think if you follow GTD each project should be separate with clear goals and milestones. The need for subprojects might be avided by having GTD notes for “areas of responsibility” and the “10,000 feet” etc views. You might want to have separate notes inside your weekly review appointment (attach a note or automator script) for tracking these.

I actually think David Allen missed something when he discussed the distinction between hard landscape (calander) vs next actions (ToDo) and the need to keep them seperate. Next actions will have to be done at some stage, so why not schedule them and your context? The only caveat is that if your context and energy change unexpectedly, you may have to reschedule next actions. However if you plan well in the weekly review this should happen less often.

Alternatively you could just manually reorder your tasks in iCal.

The weekly review is critical and truly needs 1-2 hours minimum.

@Leif
If you are regularly restructuring the order of your tasks inside your projects during the week, then perhaps you need to do a more comprehensive weekly review.

I do all the heavy task ordering during the weekly review inside my notes. Once I have all the next actions (ToDos), I switch to iCal proritise my ToDos. Note that I don’t convert every task into a next action as that doesn’t follow GTD. Once I’ve done that I drag the high priority ToDo’s to my calendar. I rarely restructure my ToDo list during the week, but I do a minimal amount of calendar restructuring, nothing that takes away from my “mind like water”.

I don’t nest projects, but I think if you follow GTD each project should b

Ok, after using Things and Omni Focus. To me Focus is a advance GTD program. things is a simple GTD a wall mart of GTD you mite say. I sticking to Focus,..spend sometime using it and go to the forms,..much stronger program.

Nick,

Thanks for an outstanding review. I’ve used all of the products except Omnifocus, though I used the Kinkless GTD scripts extensively. Then I went to iGTD 1 and 2, then Things, then Inbox. I’m a pretty serious GTD person and follow the method fairly rigorously. I have the interesting situation of living on a Mac for my personal life and a Windows machine for work, so I’m using the NetCentric GTD add-in for Outlook.

I really wanted to love Inbox and my initial reaction to Things was (as someone mentioned earlier) that it didn’t really support GTD as well as some of the others. The developer of Inbox has been extremely supportive in answering my questions and even engaging in some interesting and useful dialog about the philosophical approach and design choices in Inbox, so I certainly endorse the product from a support perspective. Ironically, given familiarity with GTD, Inbox’s insistence on following all the steps to put things in place finally made me crazy. It was just too hard to stick things into Inbox from other apps and get the task attributes set from just seeing something and wanting to set next action with a attached or linked object.

After getting a note from Cultured Code this week announcing Things for iPhone 3G (getting one soon), I decided to take another look at Things. I think I’m going to end up with Things. Things iCal sync uses only one calendar and since I sync between iCal and Outlook using Plaxo, this will finally get all my tasks on one calendar (instead of separate calendars for each context as many of the Mac GTD apps do when syncing with iCal).

Because I know the GTD processes well, the flexibility of tags in Things allows me to manage the context space easily and I have the discipline to play by those rules. The search box allows quick display by context (type in the context in the search box and all the tasks in the focus area with that tag/context will be displayed). Between tags and team mates, delegation and waiting for someone else can be easily done. So for advanced GTD users, there is a little planning and thinking to do to get to every detailed bit of GTD process, but the tools are there to make it work. At the same time, when you need to be quick about inserting things (Things) into the middle of the process where they need to go, Things provides the flexibility to do so.

All of the reviewed programs are excellent – they have different strengths and weaknesses and the approach to implementing one’s own personal GTD processes is so tied to how each person thinks and does things that the only way to find the right one is to try them.

If you have looked at Things and decided it doesn’t give a rigorous enough implementation of GTD but you aren’t really happy with the others, I recommend you give Things another look and see if you can’t implement GTD the exact way you want using the flexibility and power provided by Things.

BTW, off topic for all us Mac folk, but if you use Outlook on Windows, I really think the NetCentric add-in is the best game going on that platform and it is a VERY good GTD implementation with the right amount of flexibility and outstanding integration with the power of Outlook tasks. Works with Outlook 2003 and 2007.

Absolutely agree. Things is the clear winner for me as well. I tried all of these. OmniFocus is too powerful (steep learning curve), iGTD too simple and Inbox – there was a time when I really really wanted to like it, but it was too buggy then and later it got too feature-bloated IMO.

Things is the only GTD/Tasklist app I’ve sticked with. Because it’s truly simple to use (I want to get things done, not fiddle around with the app hoping to get things done), I would buy it even now in the pre-release stage.

I have been looking all these programs over and testing them. Everybody is praising “Things” mostly, but I have to tell you that I don’t get it with Things. It does have a slightly better appearance than Focus, especially in the left hand column. But it is just a little bit more than a normal to do list, as far as I can see. I don’t see the philosophy of GTD being worked out in it nearly like it is with Focus. Focus is genius the way it starts to develop as you fill in contexts. I think that if one will watch the 10 minute video that demos the philosophy behind it, you will see what an incredible concept it really is. I have monkeyed with several of the others too, but some are too complicated and not intuitive at all. I am telling you that 10 minutes is almost all you will need with that Focus video, and you will have it. I have not read GTD, but I know that there are some things that purists do that are far and away too constrictive and will not work for most of us. If I have to read a book with that kind of detail, I suspect that that GTD in all its glory will be constrictive. But Focus has apparently simplified a great concept that everyone can use. I think they have the best application of a todo philosophy I have seen.

One of David’s principles is make it as complicated as necessary, but no more so. Personally I like the simplicity of Things for managing my lists over OmniFocus. I didn’t have to watch ANY video to intuitively grasp Things entirely. I’ve tried more powerful tools in the past, some of which got rave reviews, but Things is the one I’ve stuck with the longest so far. And it’s better than “simple” Todo lists in the tagging and organizing pieces, which work exactly the way I would have made them if I had written it myself.

@elmegil –

I too found things to be too flexible and open to really work for me. I do not think it is a bad product or even bad for GTD. I think it is just bad for some types of people. To me it seemed like more work on the front end when entering stuff since you needed to really use tags and some forethought to make it shine. I like a more rigid system. Omnifocus has worked great for me. I tried all of these after reading this months ago and OF won out for me.
I thought several of the other programs really had promise, but where not there yet.

Great review. Obviously numerous updates has happened since its writing yet still helpful. I agree with everything about Things; however, I’ve settled on Omnifocus – mainly because of its ability to sync with iCal so well and now with my iPhone via MobileMe.

Omnifocus does have more of a learning curve so Things probably still best for many users. For me, though, Omnifocus meets my requirements hands down and just keeps getting better.

I just got from the AppleStore the new THINGS for Iphone and discovered that now you can sync the desktop version with the iPhone version using WiFi. Great

Thanks for the excellent review! This plus Ian Beck’s video are very convincing. I’ve been looking for a package that can give me both hierarchical todos and what I call “pop-up” or “future” todos (something I created years ago in a very powerful Windoze app I used back then). I’m going to download Things and give it a try.

Any thoughts about software called EasyTask or EasyProject? They weren’t reveiwed, but you seem so well-versed in similar software I thought I would ask your opinion.

@Kirby – These are both new to me, Kirby. Initial thoughts are that they look pretty similar to iGTD, but the online syncing looks to be a great benefit. Give them a shot!

In my post above, I said I was going to give Things a try, based on this and Ian Beck’s great tutorial. That was on Aug 20. I’ve been using it since and I love it. I have to caveat myself that I am not a GTD person, just someone with lots to do and wanting quite a bit more than an iCal Todo list.

For the most part, I’ve found Things pretty intuitive and user friendly. As I’ve started getting more sophisticated in my use of it, I’ve relied heavily on the users in the forums for help, and that’s been excellent. I have my life broken down into 6 categories (Things will do more, but will only sync 6 with iCal) and that’s working out well. At first, I had more “Areas” in Things, and didn’t want to have to narrow it down to 6, but after I did it, I realized I don’t want that much granularization – more areas take up more screen space and more separate lists to maintain. 6 is a good number, one of them being “Other” for everything outside the 5.

Things still needs a few basic improvements to be a complete todo manager. It needs an “All” list and the capability to search the entire database. Right now, you have to search several different places if you’ve “lost” a task, which happens less and less as I get used to it. Still, any database needs a universal search.

The other thing I’d most like to see is sequential (or linked) todos. When I finish the first, the second one automatically appears in my list. One of the developers said that feature is coming.

Eventually, I’d like to see them tackle a more robust, fully featured calendar than iCal. iCal is pretty, but isn’t much better than a wall calendar. Cultured Code could do much better if they decided to do so.

All in all, I’m more than satisfied with Things as it is. I highly recommend it to anyone who’s serious about todo management, except those GTD purists. They’d probably be happier with a product that more rigidly adheres to Allen’s concept. There is an ongoing argument in the Things forums about how GTD Things is, and how GTD the people arguing about it are! Kind of fun to watch from the sidelines. :)

Give Things a try, if you haven’t already.

@Nick Cernis –

Have you done the online task manager review yet?

@Michael – Not yet, but it’s on the to-do list!

I have been using things for 3 days and I just completely love the software. The syncing with the iPhone App (v1.1) working fast and seamlessly…. incredible!!

The greatest feature for me is the “Areas of Responsibility” section which is for me the best was to view my whole life.

Personal Categories: 1-Emotional 2-Physical 3-Financial 4-Relationships 5-Fun 6-Student

Professional Categories: 1- Entrepreneur 2-Coach 3- (…) etc….

Can’t wait for the v1.0

Saying Things is better than Omnifocus because you learn to use it in 10 min, it looks nicer and it uses Tags. It Is like saying than iPhoto is better than Aperture because you learn it in 10 min, it looks nicer and you don’t have to create projects.

Sorry Nick, but I have to tell you that you shoud first learn GTD properly, use this apps for a couple of days (or weeks), put a few hundred tasks and couple of dozen projects on them and use them in real life. Then with that knowledge and experience you’ll be ready to write a proper GTD best App review.

I see it the other way around. If you know what GTD is, you don’t need time to learn Omnifocus, because Omnifocus applies GTD, instead you’ll need time to apply GTD using Things!

I’ve tried Things and Omnifocus, intensively. Things gives you the “false” sensation of being easier and more flexible than Omnifocus, because it uses “Tags” instead of fixed contexts like in Omnifocus.

But with flexibility comes the need of responsability and after some time and a few hundred tasks, you’ll notice with Things complexity comes fast in place. The main difference for me is that after a time you’ll notice with Things, you have to rely on yourself instead of on the system like in Omnifocus. Because you have to tag everything! having on the other side a lack of flexibility to organize your projects in folders and subfolders.

Things, lack basic things of the GTD metodology: Next actions, contexts, repetition, paused actions and so on. For me the “Areas of responsability” bring more confusion as solution.

I was a fun of Things and it’s tagging system but after a couple of weeks I wanted to run away from them. I learned to love Omnifocus, better said, using Things, helped me to appreciate more Omnifocus and value what a right structured GTD metodology applicatioin realy means.

Do you want a pseudo-GTD-Tags-toy to make you extra work? use Things, do you want a really well thought useful GTD application? use Omnifocus and make your life easier and more productive!

Making a test review of GTD applications without really knowing what GTD is (as I can notice from the author) is like writing a review of All-rad cars, driving them on the highway and not having ever driven them on the field.

In my opinion this review from a GTD perspective is useless!!

my 2 cents.

Thanks for your opinion, Mario.

I practised GTD for 5 years before returning to simpler ideas and abandoning micro-level software as a means to organise my life. When I wrote this review, I’d been using GTD software (including OmniFocus and its previous incarnations) for about the same time, as well as hacking the Kinkless Applescripts to my own needs; suffice to say that I’m thoroughly comfortable with both GTD as a concept and the various applications which are derived from it; I’m not sure where you got the opinion otherwise.

I stand by the decision that Things is a better piece of software because it’s easy to learn, simple to use, and free from any dependence on having read Getting Things Done. These things all lower the barriers to entry, which is great news for all.

For me, Things is all the more valuable precisely because it doesn’t adhere to GTD, but I can appreciate that Productivians and other GTD groupies may favour different options including the rigid structure that OmniFocus brings, hence its position as runner-up.

Mario,
GTD is a wonderful book and methodology. I dare say it made a significant change in my professional life. My personal life too.

But like any productivity method or business book, most people would be best to try all things and keep what works. What is perfect for one is not or another.

I have met GTD folks over the years that are crippled by GTD. I am not saying this is you, but it might be. What I mean is that the majority of their work is actually polishing their GTD system. Always working on it, making it look better, feel better, etc . . .but not with the end goal of making them more productive. GTD becomes its own goal if that makes sense.

To me, an effective GTD system is one that allows me to keep track of all that I am doing, capture all new thoughts quickly and easily, have some views or tags that allow me to focus on specific contexts and or allow me to focus on one project or task at a time when I desire. All of this in the least amount of effort.

I tried things at first and did not like it. I tried and bought OF for a while and thought it was a very good product. It is more rigid and by nature I am not against that. I found myself wanting to tweak it or play with it or try to figure out how I could do more things in it . . . in other words it became my focus and not the stuff I was supposed to be doing.

I came back to things after maybe 4 months in OF. Things was and is perfect for me. It becomes transparent and that is what I need. It captures all that I want. It allows me to organize as I want with a great tagging system. It allows me to move stuff around. It allows me to change focuses quickly.
The bottom line is that it allows me to practice GTD it works best for ME. Everyone is different.
My work life complexity bread and depth is as much as anyone’s and things keeps me ticking at a very high level. It works for me. In other words, I think it is scalable to any situation.

I am not sure what line of work you are in, but I would guess it is an ‘aspiring simile writer’. Sorry, I had to take one jab at your flame post.

I think Inbox is the best POTENTIAL hard core rigid GTD app out there – well more so that OF. I just is not stable as it stands now. I would think that it would be even more up your ally.

Thank you for your thorough and enjoyable review. One really has the feeling that you gave all of the contestants a fair chance. I have tried all of the four apps and agree exactly to your opinion on design issues and usability.

The application that just works best for me and is not “in the way” during everyday task fulfillment is Things for me as well. And although syncing still has some issues the iPhone app makes a great companion that looks and feels as tidy as the desktop app.

Hi Nick and Indygreg,

yes, of course, everybody should just test the apps use them for themselves and choose the one that is right for them.

I didn’t mean to infravalorate the work from Nick, because, writting a review usually means a lot of work.

I just think, the arguments and points Nick uses to rate these GTD apps are not from a GTD perspective but more from a usability or taste perspective. Nothing wrong with it, but as I said, not useful (at least for me) in a real world.

What I say, is something you can read in other reviews about Things as well.

Software changes fast and competition is good. I’ll keep an eye on Things development. I’m sure they’ll add more features and bring more ideas. But in it’s actual concept and feature state, is not for me.

BTW, I bought a licence OF yesterday :-)

cheers

@Ken Dow –
I’ve been looking at Things and OF for the past few days. While there is slickness in the Things GUI, I find the relationships in Projects & Contexts in OF incredibly usable. The ability to look at contexts that share similarities over multiple and different projects makes grouping like tasks easy and therefore contributing to greater productivity.

I’m not sure how the syncing compares between the two and while they seem to both promise iPhone components, I wonder why we can’t publish the data to a web page(s)… and working with small groups (even 1 or 2 add’l “resources”) is left out.

For now, OF looks more usable from a productivity and ‘project” point of view…

Originally Posted By Indygreg
[...] It allows me to organize as I want with a great tagging system. It allows me to move stuff around. It allows me to change focuses quickly.
The bottom line is that it allows me to practice GTD it works best for ME. Everyone is different.
My work life complexity bread and depth is as much as anyone’s and things keeps me ticking at a very high level. It works for me. In other words, I think it is scalable to any situation.[...].

While I appreciate you find that OF forced you to make the app the focus rather than GTD, or your productivity, the focus. But the problem with tagging is that you can get lost in tags and creating tags for the sake of tagging and soon you’ve got orphaned tags or simply too many tags that the whole thing has changed your focus with finding the right tag, making up a new tag or just saying ‘ tag, you’re it’ and you’ve soon become a slave to tagging. And this means once again you’ve found yourself letting the tags run your life rather than increasing your productivity.

Do any of these sync with BOTH the iPhone calendar, MobileMe calendar and iCal?

All I want is to be able to see what I can see on the other two calendars (events and to-dos in various formats and with flexible to move and re-code onto different “calendars” etc.). I was surprised, disappointed to see that the iPhone calendar didn’t do that.

Suggestions? Thanks.

Omni Focus: Iphone version

Is very good with inputing tasks and task information , Few key thinks it does over Things.

1) You can attach a photo or a audio recording to each task if needed and both sync back to your desk top !!

2) You can sync. to more than one computer.
I have a laptop and a desktop ( home and work )

Thank you for this excellent review.
But why can Things sync only over WLAN between Mac and iPhone?!?!?!

Has anyone tried DeJumble? It’s the special on MacZot to day.

Originally Posted By Leif Hansen

I want to:
1. Create projects that I can assign priorities and sometimes due dates to.
2. Brainstorm the tasks I’ll need to do to complete that project.
3. Manually order those tasks in a logical/sequential fashion.

Have you tried Thinking Rock?

1) It allows you to assign both priority and due dates to projects (as well as individual tasks if you should so wish).

2) Although it has an inbox for “dumps”, you can also create projects and actions on the fly. This is a good way to brainstorm the “moving parts” of a project before ordering them into a workable list.

3) You can manually order and re-order tasks as and when you want. Although it’s got automatic sequencing as an option it’s not forced on you so you can use it as and when you find use for it.

The negatives are it’s a bit ugly and due to being cross-platform it’s not particularly “mac”-ey. It’s not the most integrated app on the market but it has developers who are listening to their users so I’d expect to see greater integration over time.

It’s free to use (there’s a membership scheme you can join if you want but it’s not needed to use the app) so definitely worth a look. Incidentally I’m not using it myself anymore (didn’t suit me) so this isn’t a case of a user touting his own app.

I hope you find what you’re looking for :)

I have been reading about these two apps and experimenting with them for several months off and on. I have also read a fair amount of blogs, comparisons, and comments about these apps relative to one another. The comments in general go something like this:

1. These two apps are very similar, but each lacks/or has something that an individual prefers.
2. THINGS is less expensive. But everyone is waiting till the full version comes out so they can do things that they cannot do now. They are hopeful and confident that will be the case. OmniFocus, on the other hand, is more expensive, but it is fully ready to go and seems to do most things very well. It is also coming out very shortly with new improvements.

But I think there is something more basic here that is mentioned by a lot of people in passing but is actually the major difference between these two apps. This is the key to deciding which of these to buy.

Years ago the contact management program ACT! came out. You may have thought that if you used ACT! and wanted to schedule something on its calendar, you would just write it on there. You can do that, of course, with most calendars, like iCal, for example. But ACT! changed the way you had to think about using its calendar. According to their way of thinking, everything that went on a calendar had to be either a meeting, a phone call, or a to-do with someone who was in your contact database. If you wanted to go see a movie, say, and you put that on your ACT! calendar, a movie theater or a movie would have to be one of your contacts, or you could not schedule it. Nothing went on that calendar unless you scheduled it with one of your contacts. I never did get used to thinking like that because that is not normally how we think. Now this is the way you have to look at THINGS and OmniFocus from what I can see. Each of these two apps is looking at getting things done from two different perspectives, or two different ways of thinking. THINGS looks at it in the normal way of thinking, the way we have normally thought about getting things done for most of our lives. We put them in a list, we prioritize them, we put due dates on them, and we know what has to be done today. The people who prefer THINGS will say in their comments that it works in a way that makes sense to them and is easier to understand. Now THINGS will do MORE than work in just that normal way, but what makes THINGS so popular is that we almost automatically know how it works. We don’t have to read a book or watch a video to understand and use it. It is intuitive and easy. On the other hand, OmniFocus is a little bit like ACT! It changes the way you have to think about getting things done. Primarily, OmniFocus gets you to think about getting things done by CONTEXTS, not primarily by making lists, labeling priorities, or setting deadlines. Both of these apps will, more or less, do what the other does (get things done normally or contextually), but what each does best and primarily is ONE of those and not the other. THINGS will allow you to think contextually, and OmniFocus will also allow you think normally. But they do not do those things as well as the other one does. The strength of Things is that one can think normally; the strength of OmniFocus is that one can think contextually. This is why you will hear so many complain about how they cannot see the due dates in OmniFocus and how easy it is to know what they are going to do Today in THINGS. But you will rarely read from an OmniFocus fan that he cannot see the dates. If you think contextually, you don’t care about the dates. It is almost as if they don’t matter. I don’t know why that is. But it seems to work when you would think it wouldn’t.

So when people say one is better than the other, I would say that they are missing the point. There are people who have a lot of deadlines and need to think normally about doing things. They should buy THINGS. But there are a lot of people to whom thinking contextually makes more sense and do not need deadlines so much. They should buy OmniFocus. I think that thinking contextually about getting things done makes perfect sense and is the better way to go about it for many reasons unless you have a situation that requires due dates, what to do Today, and normal things like that.

@Dale -

Dale,

Thanks a lot for your thoughtful comparison!

I knew ACT! a bit and liked their overall approach to contact management.

What you say about the difference between THINGS and OmniFocus (”If you think contextually, you don’t care about the dates.”) makes perfect sense to me.

THINGS may be more intuitive and easier to start with, but OmniFocus will most likely have it’s benefit for the time invested – ’cause in the end, contextual thinking IS more work.

Thanks again, great comment!

Dale,

Thanks a lot for your thoughtful comparison!

I knew ACT! a bit and liked their overall approach to contact management.

What you say about the difference between THINGS and OmniFocus (”If you think contextually, you don’t care about the dates.”) makes perfect sense to me.

THINGS may be more intuitive and easier to start with, but OmniFocus will most likely have it’s benefit for the time invested – ’cause in the end, contextual thinking IS more work.

Thanks again, great comment!

I tried OmniFocus as my first entrance to Task Managers and out of ToDo lists. It worked well to collect project-like things. However, getting down to actual “actions” took a bit of time. Also, the price was a bit high compred to other Task managers. However, the greatest drawback, for me, was the inability to move — or synch — a home laptop with a work desktop; things would always got messed up and took too much time to put things in order. Synching or getting both Mac’s to hold the same information was never achieved and I gave up after several weeks.

I would like to try Things but don’t want to get caught up on the same issue as with OmniFocus. Can anyone tell me how to synch Tasks in two Mac’s with the same oinformation using Things before I spend several weeks and then give up.

Any help will be very much appreciated. Keeping Tasks in slips of papaer or in a brain and getting things done is getting a bit hard. Sometimes, it feels like the Calendar is taking its toll (on my brain) and the world feels more complicated than the previous day.

There’s a discussion on the Things forum about syncing between multiple Macs here: http://culturedcode.com/things/forums/read.php?3,11572,12396#msg-12396

Nick:

Thanks. I’ll try the site and will download Things to try.

Best regards,

Arthur

Nick:

The recomended site has several methods that use, I belive, external storage like iDisk, etc. However, is there a way to use a Memory Stick to keep both Mac’s synched???

Not sure, to be honest, Arthur — you might be better off asking on the Things forum. Syncing between multiple machines isn’t something I’ve had to do with the app.

I use a simple program called Deep Notes: http://amarsagoo.info/deepnotes/

It is surprisingly powerful for managing todo lists and information.

@Dale:

In ACT!, if you wanted to schedule a movie or some such, you could use yourself as the contact and the movie would show up on your calendar as just a movie.

I really wish there were a version of ACT! for Mac. Daylite is the closest I’ve found. (I don’t need task management as much as I need contact management.) Entourage just doesn’t cut it.

Nick:
I ended up using a Memory Stick to hold the Things data file and use it in any Mac (at home, office, etc.). Simply holding the Option key when launching Things brings up a window to select the location of the data file. Selecting the location in the Memory Stick will allow the same data file to be used in any computer.
Thanks.

@Arthur: Great stuff! Thanks for the tip, Arthur, and for taking the time to jot it here for others.

Dale points out that “THINGS looks at it in the normal way of thinking, the way we have normally thought about getting things done for most of our lives.” However, the point of David Allen’s GTD methodology is that it exists because that way of thinking doesn’t work for us usefully anymore, which is obviously why people want to implement something new! I would suggest that anyone who is interested in any of these applications reads his book first as it’s not expensive and will really let you make an informed evaluations of the strengths and drawbacks of each. We Mac users can rest assured that there’s a bunch of intelligent apps to choose between.

Omni say on their website: “OmniFocus works great as a Getting Things Done® trusted system but can also be used to fit other task management styles.” Whether that works for you depends on how well the way you currently work fits in with the way that they designed it but it’s quite flexible.

I tried Things ages back and the beta of OF for sometime before settling for OF as it was more useful to me at the time. I think Things certainly scores higher on the ‘Eye Candy’ factor but OF has a high standard of interface polish too, but looks quite different. I’ve bought OF and have used it for over a year now and having re-read DA’s book for the 3rd time as I try to get closer to a better implementation of his system I find that the maturity and depth of OF’s design really supports me well.

The syncing with my iPod touch is the icing on the cake and works brilliantly.

I’m fairly new to the Mac environment (and to GTD) but I could not understand why none of the GTD-type programs out there makes use of the slickness of the Mac environment. I’m not sure if you have seen or tried the Outlook AddIn by Netcentrics but this is quite slick in the way that it makes use of information already on your system from which you create an Action. Inbox is the only Mac-type program that approaches this kind of functionality and, if it were improved, would surpass it by far. Inbox achieves what Ready-Set-Go was supposed to do: automate the gathering and processing of the jumble of information that one gathers through the day so that you can spend your time placing this information into a readily accessable environment so that it can be thought about.

Why do you have to re-enter or manipulate information that is already on your system? No other program that I’ve seen for the Mac makes use of the information already residing on your system whether it be OF, Things, or others. Although there is a bit of rigidity with Inbox, it does not require you to re-enter or manipulate information.

For example, with Things, if you have an email from which you want to create an Action, you have to drag the email TWICE to Things (the first time it does not work but the second time it does, which has been a known issue in all of the beta versions and continues to be the case with the current “release candidate”) and then you have to enter the subject, the category/area, etc. Instead, Inbox does a scan of Mail and then you decide whether you want to deal with it right away, to associate it with a task, or to do nothing!

I admit that Inbox is still a bit quirky and I would say clunky and rigid with some things. However, it’s the only one that does the “looking for” and capturing of information into an interface from which you can formulate an Action rather than having you formulate an Action and then have to go looking for the information/file/email to associate with the Action (e.g. with Things). In essence, Inbox brings the information to you for your consideration.

I do know that there is supposed to be a new version 2 coming out, which I hope will deal with some of the “clunkiness,” but there is no release date and no beta version available yet.

Let’s hope that it’s sooner rather than later . . . .

Ready-Set-Do! starts with the file system of your mac—where your documents and files already are—and just simply lets you define and process them right there on your desktop. You don’t have to link your documents to some outline or program because RSD works with what you already have.

I’ve loved Things since the iPhone version was released. The multiple tags is my favorite feature. It allows for limitless filtering and viewing.

However, there are two missing features that have made me switch to Omnifocus.

Things does not allow sub-tasks, nor does it currently support repeating projects (feature to be added, they say). I’m an accountant and most of my work is repeating, be it monthly, quarterly or annually. It is too time consuming to re-enter each client’s “project” once it’s completed for the period.
Each project usually has multiple steps or actions. I found Things to be unusable as I really needed to do these steps, in sequence and know what my next action was for each client/project.

I’m still in love with Things and hope the two missing and much requested features are added. In the meantime I’ll use both programs but am finding more and more in Omnifocus that is stealing my heart.

Thanks for the great review Nick.

@beate: Things 1.0 is now out, which supports repeating to-dos: http://culturedcode.com/things/

You could use tags to implement sub-tasks (for example, by tagging the parent task “Group” and the subtask “to-do”). You could then drag them in order to put to-dos below groups.

beate:

Nick is quite right. I downloaded Things 1.0 and used the repeating to-dos. It works like a charm.

Thanks for the great comparison! Also appreciate the great comments. I’m not sure if this is a GTD style program, but have you considered trying Pagico? I’ve been using it for a while and while the interface can sometimes be a little buggy, I really like the visual aspect that tells you what it due and upcoming.

Interesting. I will probably also give Things a try. The problem I have with GTD is that I cannot come up with different contexts in the way it is supposed to work. On the other hand I hate tagging. I use Curio, which could be used in a much more GTD way than the developers themselves realise, but the main problem with Curio is that it is difficult to easily enter news “things” and keep tracks of very many (without tagging) and it is also a bit slow. As I do not like tagging, OmniFocus would have been a good choice, but is out of the question due to all its limitations and rigid structure.

I used iGTD for about a year. It was a bit of a love hate relationship. It was difficult to find a balance between how my work actually flows and how the software wanted my work to flow.

I recently switched to Things. I downloaded it just to check it out and after about two minutes of playing with it I moved all of my current projects into it and haven’t touched iGTD since.

I liked the reporting better in iGTD though. Being able to export the active data as an HTML file made sharing project status with co-workers simple.

A little bit of AppleScript and an Automater workflow let me publish status via an internal web server from Things almost as easily.

@Mario: “I see it the other way around. If you know what GTD is, you don’t need time to learn Omnifocus, because Omnifocus applies GTD, instead you’ll need time to apply GTD using Things!”

@beate: “Things does not allow sub-tasks…”

I have been using Things beta and Things Touch for months, and now that I have to buy 1.0 for $50 even though it still feels like beta to me, I decided to take a closer look at Omnifocus. After watching the videos and playing it with a few days, I’ve come to realize what others like Mario and beate are saying. Things tags are great but pretty much require you to work constantly at devising your own system of using them. Since Things Touch finally got tags (but not Areas yet) I found myself completely redoing the system I was using. Very painful. Mostly tags for me have just become contexts. There are lots of little annoyances with Things (difficulty of keeping tasks I don’t wish to focus on Today out of Today and clutter of Next to name a couple). Omnifocus is a pleasure to use and I feel still plenty flexible while being far easier to follow GTD than Things. OF feature set a year after this review still kills hands down what is available in Things (1.0 being about 8 months late). The suggested work around using tags for sub-tasks (sub-projects?) just proves the point. Tags is an open-ended mess.

It sounds like Things may be good for those that are not that familiar with GTD (if they don’t want to be because Things certainly won’t help them or guide them in learning GTD) and those that have a strong need to have a common task manager for team collaboration. For lone wolf’s like me that have already read David Allen’s book, used various GTD systems, etc. Omnifocus is intuitive and obvious and has no “steep learning curve” whatsoever. I am playing with OF 1.5 of course. I can’t believe I wasted so much time on Things. I bought into the hype and how pretty Things was way too much.

This site got me started on my GTD for Mac quest. I was a long time GTD user, but was new to the mac. I actually bought OF and used it for a while, but was drawn back to Things for its flexibility. I have used Things for quite some time.

With it now costing (and I agree, it still feels a bit beta) and with other factors in my work life taking me more and more to open source software (I am a technology manager for a hospital) I have found tracks – and open source GTD application. It runs on Macs or windows or linux or there is even a free host for it (http://www.morphexchange.com.). It needs ruby, mysql and apache. I have it running on my mac right now.

I like it a lot so far. Just another option.

There is a new software out that is a cross between
Things and Omin it call “The hit list”

I pre-ordered Getting Things Done from Amazon back in 2000 and haven’t stopped using it. I first created a FileMaker database, with one project to a screen and a subform for contexts. I subsequently tried Thinking Rock, Kinkless GTD, iGTD, and Tracks (Online), but finally settled on Tinderbox, which I could customize to my rather eccentric set of responsibilities (small law practice, symphony violinist, oil landman, choir soloist, blogger, and law school adjunct professor).

Tinderbox, by Eastgate Systems, is not for the faint-of-heart, however, but I was just noticing that it would be very little trouble to add the features people felt were missing from the existing applications to what I had cobbled together with Tinderbox.

The problem with putting repeating tasks in the to-do lists is that they really belong on the calendar as reminders, rather than as next actions.

As a concession to the time-sensitive nature of many next actions, I created a dueDate attribute for each next action and an agent that turned the action red when the date entered was less than 5 days in the future. The agent ignores blank dates.

I was a beta tester for Things. They screwed me out of the $10 discount promised. They never answer emails. I liked the package on the desktop but thought it was a bit weak on capabilities.

I switched to Omni Focus–more money of course, but it synced up with MobileMe right out of the gate. If you have ever had problems syncing, you know how good it is to have a program that will sync painlessly.

If you rate these programs for dual use, desktop and iTouch/iPhone use, OmniFocus is the only choice.

If you are a lightweight and not willing to take the time to learn OmniFocus–simply watching two short video’s is probably all you need for training, then you would be better off with Things.

Conversely, if you take the time to study OmniFocus, you will find it is worth the extra cost. What is your time worth? What is it worth to you to be extremely organized? What is it worth to have your information in the palm of your hand in your iTouch? Priceless.

OmniFocus is the one. It make Things look like a cheap Chinese imitation.

To conrad . . . they made the discount and deadline very clear both in emails and on the website. And I know I used the discount a full week after the deadline and it still worked, so I do not think they can be faulted or that.

Secondly, I respectfully disagree with your lightweight comment. I have paid for and used both OF and Things and I think things can be very bit as robust a GTD app as OF. It just has the flexibility to be more lightweight if that is what the user wants. Or it can be very in depth. You can make tag schemes that are contexts, delegates, time required, effort or focus needed, etc. I do all these things and I found the guideline somewhere on line. So i can say I want to see next actions that are to be done at my computer, that are easy (my mind may be beat that moment) and that take less than 30 minutes. Bam.
Or short answer, things is as much as you want to put in.

THAT ALL SAID – Things is making a lot of people mad right now. V1.0 is MUCH more beta like than the beta was. It is sluggish as heck, does things that make no sense and honestly it is not a $50 app right now. I think they have spent too much effort on the iphone/itouch side and let the app get dusty. And the things they have done to the desktop app have made it worse.

I do think that it is a great product and I will stick with it and hope things will get better soon. I think they made a mistake in bringing iphone into the mix to make it v1.0. I think they should have brought the app to first production version with many less bugs and THEN start working on iphone side.

I used Things in beta mode for so long I didn’t even remember it was a beta version when I was notified that I need to spend $49.95 to continue using it. I really had thought I purchased the darn “Thing.”

I have a pretty elaborate Things database that I can open in “Read Only” mode for now. But with money on the line, I guess I should experiment with OmniFocus and decide between it and Things.

Hi,

I am a home user of the trial of Things and have the iPod/iPhone version. My desktop version expired tonight. Things is nice, but for just keep track for home use, I can get by just fine with the iPod version and can’t justify spending $50 (how about $19.95) for something I used to do with a pen and a notepad.

Then again to do lists aren’t top priority for me.

Steve

PS – I am also using Notes+ on my iPod which cost me $1.99 and it does just fine for what I need.

Leif Hansen: Sorry I didn’t see your comment last May! OmniFocus has always supported manual ordering of projects and tasks, and you can specify whether any group of tasks can be performed in parallel or must be performed in sequence. You can also break down any task into discrete subtasks: in OmniFocus, you’re actually working with an outline of tasks, not a flat list.

On a more general note: obviously most of these apps have moved forward since January of 2008 when this review was written. In particular, OmniFocus now has an iPhone companion app, syncs between multiple Macs and iPhones (either through the cloud or over a local network), greatly reduces its learning curve by including a number of commonly-used built-in perspectives (so people don’t have to learn how to build their own before they can use them), has the option to automatically mark a project complete when all its tasks are complete, no longer requires the use of contexts (making it easier for those who aren’t using GTD), lets you view all your due and flagged items in a single list, makes project reviews easier, and much more.

Also, in December of 2008, Don McAllister of ScreenCastsOnline posted some very approachable screencasts covering basic and advanced OmniFocus usage. You’ll find links to these under the resources section of the OmniFocus web page (http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/omnifocus).

I’m certainly not trying to claim that OmniFocus is the best choice for everyone: I’m glad there are so many more choices in this space than there were a few years ago!

Excellent review, yes, agreed! I would have liked to see the prices included. Things is $50. Kinda steep for a todo list manager.

A 4th tool is in a very solid Beta,
is the “Hit list”
http://www.potionfactory.com/
very nice ( I do not work for them)

This was no help at all!! Too many people contributed solid comments to the thread! ;)

Seriously, though? While the Omni stuff seems high-priced, I already have Outliner Pro, Plan, and Graffle… so OF is sort of a natural choice. I’m interested, of course, Things because it’s 1/3 the price on the desktop and half the price in the iPhone, but if OG’s stuff is that much better (which it almost always is), I’m gonna end up going with OmniFocus.

It’s just really too bad they don’t have an eval version for the iPhone… that _sucks_.

I’ve recently choose to go with Things and Things for my iPhone and really did pay the 50$ that they asked when it was time after the demo.
They did a really impressive job on the design but also on the usability of the app.
Features and polish will cam, it just a 1.0 version afterall, same thing with the iPhone version wich lack a lot of the desktop features for now but still really usefull on the go. The OS 3.0 should dramatically improve it with the always sync feature, not just over wifi.