Software for GTD on Windows

[abie]

New to GTD, and looking for good software.
Based on reading previous posts, it looks like a lot of people really like OmniFocus, and that this software was created specifically for GTD, so makes a lot of sense to use this.

The only thing is that I run on Windows not Mac.

Any ideas for Windows users?

Thanks.

 

[kelstarrising]

This article I did on our blog should give you a good starting place:

http://www.gtdtimes.com/2010/01/19/how-to-choose-a-gtd-system/

 

[ellobogrande]

Some software options to consider

I'm making the assumption that you don't have a device that plugs into your computer and synchronizes data. Here are a few options you might consider:

• Google Calendar (with Google Tasks for action lists)
• Microsoft Outlook (integrated PIM and e-mail, but costly and accessible from one PC)
• Palm Desktop (free, but no integrated e-mail and accessible from one PC)

The nice thing about the first option is that it's totally free and if you ever own an Android phone or tablet in the future then you can use GTasks to synchronize your action and reference lists. Spend $4 for the paid version of GTasks; it's worth it.

 

[abie]

To Kelly,
Thanks for your response.
I looked at your article, but I didn't see that you mentioned any particular softwares. Particularly, I'm interested in a Windows analog of Omnifocus, or anything else that would do the trick.

For Kelly and anyone else,
I can even spell out my issue more particularly. For anyone who'd rather not get into details, you can skip this paragraph. Currently I use Outlook as my email client but my real GTD stuff is in a simple wordpad file. The file includes sections for NA's, projects, waiting-fors, etc. The next actions are a series of lists, each list being for a particular context. Anyway I actually give each action a priority level using stars at the beginning of each line, because priority is important to me. So I would like to have a way to sort the file based on priority (sorting the file by line would do the trick). Just wordpad doesn't sort. And it would come out messy even if I found an editor that did sort because the list headings would get sorted too - just messy. If there were software made for sorting or searching like this, and all the other things I might want to do in GTD, it would just be a lot simpler.

btw ellobogrande, keen of you to deduce what you did - I do not have a device that syncs up. What I do currently is just print out my whole GTD wordpad file once a week, and keep that as my inventory of tasks. I also make a "today" list for each day, which includes that calendar items for that day, and this functions as my hard landscape for that particular day.

thanks for reading.

 

[kelstarrising]

Hello Abie,

Have you thought of creating your lists in an Excel spreadsheet instead and excluding the heads on sort?

 

[WAR]

Abie,

Have you ever looked at any of the videos on the NetCentrics Outlook Add-In site? I think their product is outstanding.

 

[Philb]

New to GTD, and looking for good software.
Based on reading previous posts, it looks like a lot of people really like OmniFocus, and that this software was created specifically for GTD, so makes a lot of sense to use this.

The only thing is that I run on Windows not Mac.

Any ideas for Windows users?

Thanks.

Take a look at "My Life Organized". There is definitely some similarity with Omnifocus. There is a light edition that is free and will let you get your feet wet, and then there are more advanced editions available. MLO is very customizable and has several handheld clients available, and the development and community is very active.

Hope this may be helpful.

 

[LMeeker]

Looking for software that synchs between Windows and MAC

I spend time on both a windows and a mac machine, and have a blackberry altho the phone might change soon). Any suggestions on GTD supporting software that is/can be accessible from all 3 platforms?

 

[mcogilvie]

I spend time on both a windows and a mac machine, and have a blackberry altho the phone might change soon). Any suggestions on GTD supporting software that is/can be accessible from all 3 platforms?

I'd look at Toodledo and Remember the Milk. Both are web services, but with apps for mobile devices.

 

[tyGTDer]

Take a look at My Life Organized.

I evaluated MLO for 60 days and went with it. I sync between my home and work computers using dropbox and use the 'zoom-in(focus)' feature to focus on work or home to stay on track. I like being able to review any and all of my outline in both locations since I have a separate MS outlook 2010 instance for home and work.

Work is corporate exchange email and the home computer is obviously personal outlook email. I migrated all of my outlook tasks to a single MLO file. Using dropbox, this works out really nice since i have access to all my tasks in both places. With that I can review errands for instance and hit those on the way home.

I use an android phone with the google connector to outlook for calendar sync.

I've yet to sync contacts since I really have what I need on the phone already and most of my other contacts in outlook are for use on the computer.

Hope this helps...

 

[JohnV474]

Blackberry/Windows/Mac

I spend time on both a windows and a mac machine, and have a blackberry altho the phone might change soon). Any suggestions on GTD supporting software that is/can be accessible from all 3 platforms?

RexWireless makes products for the Blackberry, specifically designed for GTD usage. They are called ToDoMatrix and IdeaMatrix. You could imagine them as a tree outliner of folders and tasks, and the data can be viewed based on @Context, or Priority, Due Date, Delegate, etc.

The company has a web interface also, which is called RexDesktop. It is accessible from any browser - Windows, Linux, or Mac.

There is no need to manually sync, as the Blackberry updates the web version automatically and vice versa.

One enormous advantage of this setup is that you can lose or break your phone and have both computers crash and you will still have access to all of your data from any other computer's browser.

This is, by the way, my favorite GTD setup because it allows you to be productive anywhere you have your phone... which, for most people, is everywhere.

In fairness, I will note that there is a bit of a learning curve to the software, though it can implemented immediately while you learn all of its capabilities. My opinion is that it is worth the effort. They still offer free trials I believe.