A Review of Stylish GTD Apps

tommysqueak

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I´m puzzled...

How long have you been doing GTD ??

You joined in the DA-forum world Sep 2011, been posting 15 posts...

How are you doing your NA:s, handling your projects, Area of Focus, etc. etc...

You are testing out what app would best for doing GTD... of course you could been GTD:ing without beeing a forum member, but - and please don´t missunderstand me - but I would listen to a more experienced forum member advice of what app he/she prefers... because this person had been doing GTD for a couple of years, and this person would have been on the bumpy road of productivity... trying out different systems...

but that´s my few cents...

p.s. as you can see in the foot of this post, I´m analog.. Filofax is a remarkable tool, looks very cool in black leather... ;)

Your puzzlement is probably brought on my associating time on these forums with years of GTD experience. I'm a late comer to this forum.

I've been practising GTD for 4 years. The criteria for reviews are clearly set out, so if you're way of working with GTD is aligned with them, then you might find them useful. Rather than just advice based.
 

mcogilvie

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tommysqueak;93648 said:
GTD App Review of Producteev for Mac is finally in! Simply lovely UX http://tomphilip.me/index.php/gtd-app-review-producteev/

This app puts a smile on my face when I use it :)

I read your review, and frankly I'm puzzled why you like producteev. It looks like it's intended as groupware ($20 a month for a workspace with unlimited users), and probably not very well-adapted for GTD (for example, you probably end up using labels for contexts and projects.) It's got a 3.5 average score reflecting a 7-4-3-3-3 distribution of 5-4-3-2-1 ratings in the Mac App Store; I usually won't consider something with that kind of profile. Perhaps you could say why you like it better than other alternatives?
 

tommysqueak

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In one word - UX. It's very good, better than the rest. Do I like it overall better than the others? I'm not sure yet. The downside is sharing contexts and projects as labels, not a big one. They all have pros and cons, I've yet to find the perfect one (for me). As for is it GTD compatable? Yes. You can use it for teams but in my tests I was using it just for myself and the team features did not intrude.
 

mcogilvie

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tommysqueak;93655 said:
In one word - UX. It's very good, better than the rest.

Tried it on a whim, deleted it. You can't delete your own account, which is a pain. I don't think it's as good as Things or Omnifocus in ease of use, and not better than Toodledo. But whatever gets things done for you.
 

dalewking

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I see what you mean with Producteev

I agree the UX on Producteev is superb, but unfortunately the lack of projects as a first-class concept kind of makes it a non-starter. It also does not have a someday/maybe list although you could certainly build it yourself using a label and a smartlist. At this point I am tired of having to make the system work.

It is so frustrating that every feature that is needed for a GTD app is implemented wonderfully in at least one app, but no one combines all the best features into one.
 

tommysqueak

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mcogilvie;93667 said:
Tried it on a whim, deleted it. You can't delete your own account, which is a pain. I don't think it's as good as Things or Omnifocus in ease of use, and not better than Toodledo. But whatever gets things done for you.

I really like the look of Things and Omnifocus. If I was just in an Apple ecosystem, Things looks like the app I'd use. Unfortunately I have an Android phone, so it's trying to find GTD apps that have Android apps.
 

PeterW

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You might want to check out Todo Online given that you've reviewed Todo for Mac.

Also just noticed that WebIS (Pocket Informant people) are beta testing an online system.
 

tommysqueak

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The Pocket Informant Web app looks decent and well priced too. I also see there's a Mac desktop app in the pipeline, which means it would fit my offline requirements.
 

mcogilvie

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PeterW;97951 said:
You might want to check out Todo Online given that you've reviewed Todo for Mac.

Also just noticed that WebIS (Pocket Informant people) are beta testing an online system.

I think Pocket Informant for iPad may be the ugliest app I own. By all means, look at them all. Why should I be the only one to have all the ugly, poorly designed software? Sigh.
 

PeterW

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mcogilvie;97972 said:
I think Pocket Informant for iPad may be the ugliest app I own. By all means, look at them all. Why should I be the only one to have all the ugly, poorly designed software? Sigh.
The online version looks really good (probably developed by a third party) although it's in beta and I found it buggy. So I will stick with Appigo Todo Online for now.
 

Triggaaar

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Looking forward to the impending round-up.

I like the fact that user experience ranks highly, it's all to easy for us geeks to overlook how nice the UI is.

Now all I need to do is work out how to adapt the results to my requirements :confused:
 

tommysqueak

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Triggaaar;98785 said:
Looking forward to the impending round-up.

I like the fact that user experience ranks highly, it's all to easy for us geeks to overlook how nice the UI is.

Now all I need to do is work out how to adapt the results to my requirements :confused:

I agree. If you're using an app/s for GTD, you're going to be using it daily. So you want something that has good usability and is a joy to use. Especially when it comes to weekly reviews, it's all too easy to put them off and great software that you love to use, encourages you to do them.
 

Triggaaar

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tommysqueak;98825 said:
I agree. If you're using an app/s for GTD, you're going to be using it daily. So you want something that has good usability and is a joy to use.
Well of course you agree, it's your idea :D

Now then, where's that round-up?
 

AJS

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Good luck with the round up. As an android phone user, I can tell you it's been a frustrating journey trying to find a good combination of web/mobile solution for GTD or any other system for that matter. Generally if the web app is good then the mobile app is poor as is the case with Gqueues and Asana. Or conversely the mobile app is good but the web apps are horrible - witness Google Tasks and Toodledo (IMO).

Two more you could throw into the mix are Producteev which now has a fairly basic but functional mobile app, and Astrid which now has a fairly basic but functional web app to match it's outstanding mobile product. One day we'll get the happy marriage!
 

AJS

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I just read through previous threads and see you have already covered both Astrid and Producteev so my apologies for recommending them as two which you could look at for future reviews!

In any case I'll be interested to see which combination you've found best for your own purposes. Producteev looks promising since they've relaunched the new web app except there's now no Google Calendar sync which for me is a bit of a deal breaker.
 

Triggaaar

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Producteev and Wunderlist look good, except they're missing some GTD elements.

I've found Doit.im nice and simple for a newcomer to GTD, although I'd like to be able to have projects within projects (I don't even know if that fits with GTD, as I haven't done my reading yet, but I assume sub-projects are ok).

Irritatingly the offline Windows Doit app is missing a bit of functionality from the web version (simply a case of the developers not fitting some buttons etc).

Once I learn the ropes I'm keen to try ThinkingRock. I see Tom hasn't reviewed it as it seemed too complex, but it is really more complex than the multi app Toodledo solutions?
 
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