What is best solution for mac+pc+iphone

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shelhed217

Registered
I hope there is an expert here who can help me, I currently use an iMac at home, a PC at work, and I carry an iPhone. I have tried omnifocus on the iphone and I like it, but I don't see anyway to get it on my desktop PC at work. I probably would add 80% of my items at work if I had an easy way to do it. Does anyone have any suggestions? Will I ever be able to enter things into mobile me as web based?
I started checking out toodledo +appigo todo, looks like it might work but I am not sure I will like it as well as omnifocus.
thanks in advance
 
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Mark Jantzen

Registered
My Setup

I'm in a situation where I can't install or modify things on my PC at work.

Outside work I use Omni Focus on an iMac with a sync to an iPhone 3G and this setup works so well for most of my GTD lists that I've just given up trying to get everything into literally one system. Instead I look at my GTD setup in two segments -- at work and main system.

I think a segmented approach can be a complete GTD system as long as you limit the segments to just the ones you need. It's kind of like having one physical in box at home and one at work.

Not saying this is a solution or even an answer to your question but it works for me.

One thing that opened up Omni Focus for me was organizing my Library with top level folders that match the Horizons of Focus. This way I can keep my 10,000 Foot Projects separate from my 20,000 Foot Areas of Focus and leverage Omni Focus to get a real GTD system.

To get really weird I find I'm more attracted to using paper GTD lists at work so I've organized my lists there onto plain paper as an experiment (with a Connector on the way). We'll see how that works.

Hope that helps!

Mark
 
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jwulfert

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Best solution for mac+pc+iphone

I am in the same situation with an iMac at home, a PC at work and I currently carry an iPhone. I have spent countless hours trying to find a good system to use for GTD in this mac+pc+iphone setup. I love the power of OmniFocus, but have actually found Toodledo to be the best option. I started with the Appigo ToDo app from the App Store, but recently converted to the Toodledo app from the App Store. I can enter my next actions while in the sales field, or while at my desk, or at home. Everything syncs beautifully to the iPhone with the Toodledo app. Furthermore, I use the Notebook feature in Toodledo, and the Appigo Notes app to maintain digital notebooks related to projects. The notes are available on the web, or on my iPhone whenever I need them.
 
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dschaffner

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Until recently making the switch from PC to Mac, I used lifebalance for my task manager. They have PC, Mac and iPhone version which all sync.

Now that I don't need to use a PC I've moved on to using omnifocus... but I was very happy with lifebalance for a long time.

- Don
 
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jnz42

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I use a Tablet PC at work, iPhone, and iMac at home too. I take most of my notes in a moleskine and use Omnifocus as my trusted system. I do some data entry on the iPhone during the day. If I have many actions to capture or need to manage projects, I either wait until I get home, or use the free version of Logmein from my work PC to take over control of my iMac at home. I then have full access to Omnifocus on my home iMac from my work PC.
 
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mickmel

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I'm a big fan of Nozbe (http://www.nozbe.com/). It's web-based so it's cross-platform, and they have an excellent iPhone version. A "real" iPhone app is due out within a few weeks.

The big advantage is that there is no need to sync -- just pull up the site from any PC with internet access and you're good to go. It works very well for me.
 
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fokke.kooistra

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I would suggest Evernote when you have an iPhone and want to work with both a PC and a Mac. On my blog I have written about using Evernote as a GTD system. You can find the url in my tagline.
 
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madraj

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Using Evernote for Mac+PC+iPhone

So I checked out Omnifocus and I REALLY liked it, but the lack of a PC app kills it. I need a way to manage my stuff at work.

So I'm using Evernote. By default it's just a list management program - it doesn't have any of the GTD processes built-in the way that Omnifocus does. So it took me a really long time to figure out how to adapt it for my purposes. I looked at Fokke's blog and others that I found in the Evernote forums.

But now that I've got it going, it works GREAT. I use it as both my reference file and my GTD list, so I'm killing two birds with one stone. I set up notebooks (their parlance for folders) for my inbox, next actions, waiting for, someday/maybe, and projects (split into personal and professional). Then I use tags for context, not only ways to work but also for people. I used to waste lots of time trying to figure out agendas for 1:1s with my staff, peers,and boss. Now I just do a search for tags linked to that person and for "Waiting For" and I have my agenda right there.

The iPhone cilent is really good. I was using Reqall before (way too simplistic for GTD), and it took forever to launch. The iPhone is really quick, and it's nice that I can get to all my reference files (I access restaurant menus on the go all the time). The cherry on top is that it geo-codes the notes, so if I am doing something that's geography specific, it remembers where I was (haven't really figured out yet how to incorporate this).

Minor downsides are that there's no way to automate "Completion" (as in it's hard to hide the completed items - I just delete them), you can't put due dates on things that have to happen on a specific day (I use my calendar), and the PC client doesn't auto-fill tags as you type (the Mac client does this and it saves a ton of time).

The big downside, again, is that unlike Omnifocus and other GTD-built apps, you have to create your own folders and tags for GTD.

raj
 
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Julian

Registered
EverNote auto-complete workaround

I assume that the problem with not having auto-complete on the PC is that 1) it slows you down and 2) you may end up with spelling variations.

Another way to accurately and quickly tag 1 or multiple notes in EverNote is drag-and-drop.
Either drag the note onto a tag, or drag the tag onto the note.
Haven't tried this in the Win version, but if it works as well as the Mac version, it could solve the auto-complete problem.

Please let me know if it works on the PC.
 
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madraj

Registered
Tagging in Evernote

The drag and drop does work in the Windows version - it's the main way that I tag things. At the risk of sounding nitpicking, the time it takes to keep dragging and dropping tags, or even highlighting multiple notes and then dragging and dropping them onto a tag is much less convenient than just having the app auto-fill as you type the tag. That way when you're actually creating the note, it would be fast.

But I realize that I am nitpicking. Outside of this one thing, the Windows and Mac apps both work great. A few other points:

- If you create a note using your iPhone, Evernote automatically geo-tags the note. I was at a restaurant the other day and took a photo directly into Evernote, and was able to locate where I was. Haven't yet figured out the full utility of this, but I imagine there's some useful applications of this.

- The free version of Evernote gives you 40 MB per month in notes. That's PLENTY for just doing GTD. You'd be hard-pressed to fill up that much space with text notes. It does get small if you're also using it for reference as files will eat that up pretty quickly.

- The OCR in Evernote is very cool. It does a good job of recognizing characters. They really sell the fact that you can take pics of receipts and business cards from your iPhone when you're on the go. Problem is that the iPhone has a crap macro lens (that's the one for close-up right?). Apparently if you buy the Griffin Clarifi case, it works REALLY well.

- If you do get the premium version (it's $5 per month, and I think $40-50 per year, can't remember), you can also store any kind of file (as opposed to just PDFs and photos for the free version). So I've been using it for my MindManager and MS Office files.

raj
 
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ellelang

Registered
my vote goes to toodledo

after reading and comparing gtd software works on my iphone and a pc at home and work, i finally found a solution that is great - toodledo.

long story short, first i bought nozbe and didn't like it at all. plus, i think apple discontinued the iphone app around the time i bought it. I love the elegance of omnifocus, but there seems to be a learning curve to using it and is mac based. that doesn't work for me.

toodledo installs effortlessly and syncs easily. i can honestly say it is great and is the perfect solution for me to keep work and personal organized on more than one pc and on my iphone too.

btw, i work with an enterprise software company and have no affiliation with toodledo. so, feel free to disagree, just wanted to add my 2 cents.
 
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mickmel

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I guess I hadn't looked hard enough at Toodledo before -- it's really quite solid.

I'm still officially a Nozbe guy, but I'm gonna give Toodledo a good try and I'll post back later with my results...
 
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mickmel

Registered
Crap. It's pretty good. I don't want to have to move everything over... :)

I'm still a bit torn (Nozbe has a few things that ToodleDo doesn't), but I'm likely going to make the switch.
 
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