Above Beyond

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Steve Wynn

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Me again :)

Has anybody implemented a GTD solution using Above & Beyond?

At first glance it appears to be a piece of software that might be suited to GTD. Is has a Project List, great. It has status Labels, that could be used as Context (though limited to 7 ). Good alarm system with tickler alarms. The ability to create a follow-up task/Next Action. Task notes, that copy over to the follow-up/Next Action. Filtering based on status/context, project, specific text etc. Priority system A1 to Zxx. Priority listings of Tasks/Actions, Alphabetical listings. Recurring items, deadlines, memo items.

On top of this it has Dynamic Scheduling. Basically it automatically shows you the next item to action based on various factors, priority, deadline etc.You can set your hours for both your business life and personal life, plus the boundary for your day. There is also a more advanced Marval prioritisation, which is a cost based value for not completing an action (need to read about that a little more). But you can very easily defer something to another day if you don't fancy doing it. Unless of course it has a deadline of today, in which case you are warned if you try to defer.

Now with the priority system I could see myself using it not in the traditional way, but say 'A' priority for things that must be done today, 'B' things to do when I have time, 'C' for a waiting on list and then say 'Z' for my someday/maybe list.

It seems very good for giving you an overall look at your day/week and shunting things around automatically, based on your current workload. It also lends itself very well to doing things based on the time available and your current energy levels etc. You can increase or decrease your workload by hitting a button.

I also believe you can run the entire program now from a USB Flash drive, which considering I am having trouble finding a good portable solution with Pocket PC might be useful. Though I am yet to try.

A note worth mentioning is you have to run it in Pro mode to get a lot of these features and the dynamic scheduling functionality.

Anybody tried Above & Beyond from a GTD perspective ?

Any hints, tips, problems?

Regards

Steve
 
Steve Wynn said:
Has anybody implemented a GTD solution using Above & Beyond?

Any hints, tips, problems?
Click to expand...

I remember looking at it briefly some time ago. I thought then and think now that the dynamic scheduling was almost certainly a bad idea, and at best more trouble than it's worth. You have to come up with a task, priority and time needed to finish. It works best if you have a regular business-day routine. It does not seem aligned at all with GTD, but might be helpful to a limited group of people.
 
I used Above and Beyond quite a bit before adopting GTD, and I've tried using it with the GTD methods, but I could never get it to the point where I felt it was a "trusted system". I was enticed by the dynamic scheduling, but I have to agree that there are just too many variables to take into account, a computer program couldn't possibly succeed at presenting you with the correct action to do "now". I ended up ignoring the dynamic scheduling and used it as a to-do list, and there are many other programs that do that particular job better.

What I think it does well is easily mapping out a tight schedule, so I keep it on my system for very busy days when I have to get 20 things done in a certain order by a certain time. By estimating the time each of those 20 tasks will take, A&B makes it easy to keep me on track and lets me adjust the schedule when needed. I can easily determine if I'm going to make my deadlines. I practice though, I might have to do that 3 times a month.

After trying Time and Chaos for a year, I finally moved to Outlook, and I'm happy to have the ability to customize it extensively.
 
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