Discussion about the ultimate GTD app

John Forrister

GTD Connect
Staff member
Here's something to look forward to: This month we'll be recording David Allen and Eric Mack discussing the ultimate GTD app, what’s involved in building it, and why it hasn’t happened yet. They will expand on the points David wrote about in a recent newsletter.
 

John Forrister

GTD Connect
Staff member
We recorded this morning. As soon as we do some light editing, we'll post it on GTD Connect. It was a wonderful discussion about the past, present, and future of GTD software.

Lots of interesting stories about paper and digital systems. Eric even reminded us that 20 years ago he called me in San Francisco to say that the software I was involved with developing had erased David's data, right before he was leaving town to work with a client. Let's just say that erasing most of the hard drive is not a feature anyone wants in the ultimate GTD app.
 

TesTeq

Registered
Eric even reminded us that 20 years ago he called me in San Francisco to say that the software I was involved with developing had erased David's data, right before he was leaving town to work with a client. Let's just say that erasing most of the hard drive is not a feature anyone wants in the ultimate GTD app.
Let' put it in the app development perspective. On iOS it is practically impossible to touch data that does not belong to the app. That's progress!
 

John Forrister

GTD Connect
Staff member
Let' put it in the app development perspective. On iOS it is practically impossible to touch data that does not belong to the app. That's progress!
Yes indeed, major progress. If I recall correctly, the issue 20 years ago was that the software was installed in a non-standard directory. When it was uninstalled to upgrade, the uninstaller performed a recursive delete, removing everything in the directory, including files that did not belong to the software. Windows allowed that, but the software should not have been coded to delete files it had not installed.

The good news from that experience is that it became one of my favorite ways to conceptualize processing an inbox to zero.
Is there anything in the inbox? Yes.
Process the first item to remove it from the inbox.
Is there anything in the inbox? Yes.
Process the next item to remove it from the inbox.
Is there anything in the inbox? No.
End recursion. (Until tomorrow.)

It's better than the shampoo instruction to lather, rinse, repeat, because that one never ends.
 
Top