GTD App designed by David Allen himself!

David's write-up from just after the Summit, and PDF with drawings from 1994, will be in our next Productive Living newsletter!

If you're not a subscriber, you can sign up using the field at the bottom of every page on https://gettingthingsdone.com/. The newsletter is a double opt-in, so after you enter your email address, you'll receive and email with a confirmation link.
 
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If only some great programmers could create this! I listened to this online and yes, it would be the most amazing system to have.
 
I interviewed David almost 2 years ago for my vlog (
(starts in Dutch but the interview is in English)). During the interview he talked a bit about software and that he already tried 2 times to get the development started. But with the current technology it would cost way too much to make it and he was not sure that they would succeed.

I love Nozbe for my GTD implementation. It's developed for GTD and it's developed by people who practice GTD. And it works and syncs on any platform.
 
John Forrister said:
David's write-up from just after the Summit, and PDF with drawings from 1994, will be in our next Productive Living newsletter!

If you're not a subscriber, you can sign up using the field at the bottom of every page on https://gettingthingsdone.com/. The newsletter is a double opt-in, so after you enter your email address, you'll receive and email with a confirmation link.
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John

Are there any plans to release any of the material (audio, video, etc.) to GTD Connect members who couldn't make it to the GTD Summit? I, for one, would happily pay for some of the material.
 
David Parker said:
John

Are there any plans to release any of the material (audio, video, etc.) to GTD Connect members who couldn't make it to the GTD Summit? I, for one, would happily pay for some of the material.
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As far as I know the whole GTD Summit video is available for attendees and those who purchased a very moderately priced (a charity donation) live stream access.
 
Oogiem said:
Sadly though that access is limited to just a few days.
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It's 60 days! In an email to attendees they wrote:
GTD Summit said:
You can re-watch the entire livestream until the 1st of September by inserting the password: ????. We raised €12.474 for the InterActing Foundation together with meereffect.
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David's drawings are indeed very interesting and it would be cool to see it developed. I don't mean to be critical or open up an age-old debate and of course, my observation might be wrong but I find it interesting that these schematics show a system that is far from simple, it seems to me. In all the GTD guides it is hammered home: keep your system simple, flat lists, don't add processes that might be tedious to maintain, etc. The drawings, it seems to me, advocate all kinds of interrelationships between various data points. And there is nothing wrong with that but that generally has not been the GTD message.
 
Peter Van Harmelen said:
The drawings, it seems to me, advocate all kinds of interrelationships between various data points. And there is nothing wrong with that but that generally has not been the GTD message.
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I think DA and his team have advocated keeping your systems simple because there simply hasn't been a technology that could tie everything together in a way that wasn't cumbersome to use. As I understand it, DA's vision of the ideal app would interrelate everything in a way that is easy to use.

Alas, it's what we in the technology sales business call "vaporware" or "slideware." In other words: it only exists as an idea.

Not only has DA tried twice to work with some top technology partners to develop such a GTD-enabled app, but a company called IQTELL tried to do so on its own. The IQTELL people ran into the same brick wall that DA acknowledged hitting: it costs too much money to build something like this and there isn't yet enough of a market for it to make it profitable.

I think it's interesting to see DA's vision of an ideal GTD app, but my guess is it won't become a reality unless substantially more people adopt GTD in the future. Unless or until that happens, I'm happy to continue to use imperfect tools to implement GTD because doing so still makes my life easier than it was before I practiced it.
 
bcmyers2112 said:
I think DA and his team have advocated keeping your systems simple because there simply hasn't been a technology that could tie everything together in a way that wasn't cumbersome to use. As I understand it, DA's vision of the ideal app would interrelate everything in a way that is easy to use.

Alas, it's what we in the technology sales business call "vaporware" or "slideware." In other words: it only exists as an idea.

Not only has DA tried twice to work with some top technology partners to develop such a GTD-enabled app, but a company called IQTELL tried to do so on its own. The IQTELL people ran into the same brick wall that DA acknowledged hitting: it costs too much money to build something like this and there isn't yet enough of a market for it to make it profitable.

I think it's interesting to see DA's vision of an ideal GTD app, but my guess is it won't become a reality unless substantially more people adopt GTD in the future. Unless or until that happens, I'm happy to continue to use imperfect tools to implement GTD because doing so still makes my life easier than it was before I practiced it.
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Very good point and makes sense. Probably the reason why many of us have been app hopping for so long
 
TesTeq said:
It's 60 days! In an email to attendees they wrote:
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From my email it was only 20 days after the end of the conference for folks buying the digital access. I didn't buy. I cannot guarantee I can get to all those useful bits in the next 3 weeks!
 
Oogiem said:
From my email it was only 20 days after the end of the conference for folks buying the digital access. I didn't buy. I cannot guarantee I can get to all those useful bits in the next 3 weeks!
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As far as I understand they've heard the message and extended the availability period.
 
Peter Van Harmelen said:
David's drawings are indeed very interesting and it would be cool to see it developed. I don't mean to be critical or open up an age-old debate and of course, my observation might be wrong but I find it interesting that these schematics show a system that is far from simple, it seems to me. In all the GTD guides it is hammered home: keep your system simple, flat lists, don't add processes that might be tedious to maintain, etc. The drawings, it seems to me, advocate all kinds of interrelationships between various data points. And there is nothing wrong with that but that generally has not been the GTD message.
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For me these drawings are windows to @DavidAllen's brain and his thoughts about the system before the GTD book was published. They describe the mental framework that does not need to be implemented by one tool. I think such application will never be developed but we can use these drawings to review our GTD toolset.
On the other hand GTD implementation guides were written by @kelstarrising and were focused on managing GTD lists as simply as possible without delving into advanced functions of each app and inter-application links. @bcmyers2112
 
TesTeq said:
For me these drawings are windows to @DavidAllen's brain and his thoughts about the system before the GTD book was published. They describe the mental framework that does not need to be implemented by one tool.
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I agree. Looking at these drawings got me thinking about ways to improve my GTD practice even if no tools exist to fully automate them.
 
bcmyers2112 said:
I think DA and his team have advocated keeping your systems simple because there simply hasn't been a technology that could tie everything together in a way that wasn't cumbersome to use. As I understand it, DA's vision of the ideal app would interrelate everything in a way that is easy to use.
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As a software programmer I look at the drawings and instead see a design for an integrated system of apps that share data as required. I see no valid reasons for it to be a single app. Trying to cram all of that into one huge monolith is both a disaster to program and also hard to maintain. A single app is harder to adapt to take advantage of new tools, technologies and hardware. Instead I see it as a design for an integrated system comprised of many separate pieces. Any app that tries to be be everything for everyone is doomed to failure from the start. Instead I'm looking at it to see how to program the hooks and sharing between best-in-class apps within my own ecosystem. Some of that is going to involve some programming and linkages that the major app developers are now building in to their GTD apps. It's a good window into the whole cosmos of GTD and a good design for the high level overview but not IMO a good design for a do everything app.

I've added it to my Someday/Maybe list to take a serious look at where my current system of Apple Calendar and mail, Omnifocus and DEVONThink can be hooked together more seamlessly given the new tools available in all those programs. Depending on how this next quarter (12WY) goes with LambTracker programming I may try to tackle it in the Oct-Dec timeframe. What I'd like to see come out of the dissemination of those drawings are the tools, workflows and "glue" that ties together at least one set of apps in each of the major operating system environments, Mac OS, Linux and yes, even Windows including both Android and iOS portable devices that implements that vision. That is something I think is doable. I want to take a look at the Mac environment, might give a quick look at Linux but absolutely will not even touch Windows so there is an opportunity there for other folks to push it forward.

What if all of us who are long time GTD practitioners focused on how to program the glue that binds separate apps together instead of yet again trying to build the "one app to rule them all"? I bet we can come up with some very creative and useful tools that will take everyone closer to implementation of that vision.
 
Oogiem said:
I see no valid reasons for it to be a single app.
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David Allen's vision was to create an "app agnostic meta app" that would serve as a dashboard into which you could add things in a fairly automatic way, and would integrate inputs from disparate sources (email, social media, etc.) and could learn (I presume using some form of machine learning) to manage that information to suit the individual user. Here's a good article with some more background:

https://www.fastcompany.com/3003010...pp-will-free-your-mind-and-empty-your-inboxes

Both attempts to create this technology ran into the same obstacle I mentioned above: too expensive to create, and not a large enough market.

I'm sure if some people from this forum put their heads together they might be able to create some tools that could help integrate a few software packages together. It might be helpful to some people. I wish you success with it if you choose to undertake the project.

But I think your very idea of coming up with something to act as "glue" for "best of breed" apps underscores the very challenge to creating the meta app envisioned by DA: who decides what's "best of breed"? You hate Microsoft. I don't. One of the reasons I appreciate GTD is that it doesn't force me to buy a specific brand of computer or a particular brand of software -- or even force me to use software at all if I want to manage something on paper.

DA envisioned a "meta app" that would work with... pretty much everything. That's a big undertaking.

The GTD meta app is a wonderful idea. Even though it didn't get off the ground, it was worth trying. And it may see fruition someday. It would be great if it did. But if it doesn't happen in my lifetime... I still have GTD behaviors and habits to help me overcome the limitations of today's technology.

As someone who is not a programmer, my big takeaway from these drawing was a glimpse into how the guy who pioneered GTD sees the methodology working. It gave me some ideas to improve my GTD game. Using the same old tools. At least for now.
 
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