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!!)