iPhone CRAZY! Nozbe, Pocket Informant, Toodledo...

[tedpenner]

The iPhone has changed my life no doubt. I use outlook at work because I must unfortunately. But at home, the GTD model is going full tilt! I also use a PC which means no incredible MAC software like OmniFocus and would prefer something web-based as opposed to an install. I now find myself really stalling in terms of full implementation because I can't decide on the best product for GTD use (entry on the web, and implementation via the iPhone). There are many options now and good ones at that.

Penny for your thoughts?

 

[mickmel]

Nozbe and Toodledo are arguably the top web-based GTD apps with a solid iPhone app behind them. I personally like Nozbe better, but Toodledo has its place. I wrote and in-depth comparison of them a while back if that helps:

http://www.gtdhelp.com/200901/nozbe-vs-toodledo/

Let me know if you have any questions beyond what's in there.

 

[mcogilvie]

Here are my two lists:

Good Enough:
Things (mac + iphone)
Omnifocus (mac + iphone)
Toodledo (web+iphone)
Remember the Milk (web+iphone)

I find that I like to have actions associated with projects, but do better not planning too far ahead, as in canonical GTD. I'm currently using Things, which is ok. I wish the iphone app supported focus areas, but I make do. Omnifocus has a rather slow sync, is a bit like driving a truck, but is good. Toodledo is the most flexible of the web apps. RTM has a very nice iphone app, but I don't care for the web UI- it's too easy for me to do the wrong thing, and it's not all that flexible. It would be good for someone who wants to do extensive tagging, though, and it's completely adequate for orthodox gtd.

Not Good Enough (for me- YMMV):
Nozbe (web + iphone)
Pocket Informant (iphone; syncs to Toodledo and Gcal)

Nozbe never made enough sense to me for me to get all my projects in- completely unappealing and unintuitive UI. RTM is most often mentioned as the best web app, with Toodledo second. I haven't seen many reviews that favor Nozbe. Pocket Informant has so far been a real disappointment. It might be good for those wanting a gcal-syncing calendar, but it's no good to me for my lists. Equating todo tags with calendars makes it hard to use the web version, because tags don't autocomplete there. Using folders for projects doesn't work for me. Filtering is primitive. Although labeled as GTD-supporting, it seems geared for people with relatively few "projects" and long lists of actions for each project, with the top one being the next action. Really opposite of how I work: lots of projects, one to a few next actions per project. There's no good manual, and many of the UI choices related to color seem poor.

 

[industryofcool]

Use google Calender. The new Google Sync function lets you two-way sync !

On this forum I also found a mention of the app called note2self which makes it very easy to collect data. You just start the app, hold the phone to your ear, say what you want to record and when you hold the phone in front of you again it stops the recording and immediately mails the sound file to your e-mailadress !

Otherwise I use e-mail as my main GTD system and I have that setup through IMAP so My Iphone is always up to date !

 

[tedpenner]

Thanks for all the responses. Please keep them coming. I am very curious to know what people are doing.

I like Nozbe web interface the best but Toodledo is adaptable now and works just fine. I like the look and feel of it with Pocket Informant for the iPhone. It's still developing but it looks like the most promising mix so far. I might try synchronizing with Google to give me closer integration to email and see how that goes.

 

[Jon Walthour]

Still looking myself

I've been looking at a web-based solution myself lately that syncs with the iPhone. I'm worried about data loss and am intrigued with the Office 2.0 concept. Nozbe is appealing for its strict GTD implementation, but it lacks several things (checklists, someday/maybe, due dates on projects and start dates on NAs/projects) that I can't yet go with it. Toodledo seems good, but I'm still mulling it over with its use of priorities, hot list and folders=projects differences. I'd be very interested in what others have to share about their experiences with these products. What are some things I may be missing in considering these options?

 

[mcogilvie]

Toodledo seems good, but I'm still mulling it over with its use of priorities, hot list and folders=projects differences. I'd be very interested in what others have to share about their experiences with these products. What are some things I may be missing in considering these options?

There are a lot of different ways to use Toodledo, and has a lot of fields that can be used in various ways. While it supports priorities, due dates, start dates, folders, tags, and more, you do not have to use them. You do not have to even see them, because unused fields can be turned off in the settings (the data in fields is retained, so you can play around with using different fields very easily). I was using Toodledo until fairly recently, and I used folders as areas of focus, not as projects. With a paid subscription (~$15/year), you can have subtasks, and I used that. Projects go on project lists, subtasks go in other contexts. Very workable.

 

[Jon Walthour]

If I may ask, why did you stop using Toodledo recently?

 

[mcogilvie]

If I may ask, why did you stop using Toodledo recently?

I'm using Things, which has beat out everything else on the iPhone app store as a GTD app, and has generally come out on top as a Mac app. Things is a little better at focusing on a single project, and has advantages on the Mac that a native app has over a web app in terms of keyboard shortcuts and easy linking to files. On the other hand, Toodledo works very well with Jott and a lot of other things, so I have thought about going back. While no GTD list tool is going to be perfect for everyone, I think Toodledo and Things are both good choices.

 

[jjkavanagh]

In my experience I have found that omnifocus supported contexts and projects better then things on the Iphone.
I used RTM for the past 2 years as a pro member. I would much rather give my money to RTM rather then omnifocus, but I find that in order to follow GTD on the iphone with RTM you end up making to many work arounds. It takes some of the clarity away so when I was glancing at my lists I was missing things.

How do you have your things configured on the iphone out of interest?

 

[Jon Walthour]

Thanks, mcogilvie. I've been using OmniFocus for about a year now and have gotten very used to how it works. I've just been looking for a web-based/cloud-based option after hearing the podcast on Office 2.0 on Connect. I took a serious look at Toodledo as you suggested, but found it came up short in allowing for repeating projects/folders and project/folder notes. I guess my system has gotten so grooved with the OmniFocus workflow that it's hard to change at this point. I'd love to find a way to have my OmniFocus data hosted somewhere so I can access it from a web browser. That would be the best of both worlds for me.

 

[mcogilvie]

In my experience I have found that omnifocus supported contexts and projects better then things on the Iphone.
...
How do you have your things configured on the iphone out of interest?

I use areas of focus (I have 10) quite a bit on the desktop in getting everything where it needs to go. The projects list in things by itself is not very useful when you have dozens of projects, so projects always go into areas of focus. I typically drag projects and next actions into areas of focus from the inbox, and then put them where they belong. It's very quick.
I drag email, urls, filenames into Things notes, also very quick.

I find the big difference between the desktop and iphone versions is that the iphone version doesn't use areas of focus (yet). I tag all my projects (but not next actions) with an area of focus tag just so I can sort my projects into manageable lists on the iphone. It's easy on the desktop: select all projects in an area of focus, and hit the associated tag, either on the tag list or a shortcut key. Easy. I've played with subtags (for agenda lists for different people) and tags for time needed. I can't say I make them a regular thing, but I haven't deleted those tags yet. So not really too much customization.

 

[mcogilvie]

Thanks, mcogilvie. I've been using OmniFocus for about a year now and have gotten very used to how it works. I've just been looking for a web-based/cloud-based option after hearing the podcast on Office 2.0 on Connect. I took a serious look at Toodledo as you suggested, but found it came up short in allowing for repeating projects/folders and project/folder notes. I guess my system has gotten so grooved with the OmniFocus workflow that it's hard to change at this point. I'd love to find a way to have my OmniFocus data hosted somewhere so I can access it from a web browser. That would be the best of both worlds for me.

I have OF as well, but I find it slow to start and to sync on the iphone. If anyone has any tips there, I'd be interested in hearing them. The trick to projects in Toodledo is to have a context for projects. Then that item has notes and repeats. You can do that instead of using folders or in addition to.

 

[Julian]

Speeding up OF Sync

mcogilvie,

I think OF advises several things to speed up sync:
1. Update both Mac and iPhone to newest version
2. Check Mac (Preferences->Sync->Show clients) and delete old sync "clients" that are no longer used. They may be detritus from upgrades etc.
3. Archive inactive projects to reduce sync overhead
4. If this doesn't do it, you could re-sync the iPhone to ensure the database is not the problem

 

[tedpenner]

mcogilvie,

I think OF advises several things to speed up sync:
1. Update both Mac and iPhone to newest version
2. Check Mac (Preferences->Sync->Show clients) and delete old sync "clients" that are no longer used. They may be detritus from upgrades etc.
3. Archive inactive projects to reduce sync overhead
4. If this doesn't do it, you could re-sync the iPhone to ensure the database is not the problem

If Omnifocus ever gets in the cloud, I'm sold. Until then, I can't imagine a reason to use it.

 

[Oogiem]

If Omnifocus ever gets in the cloud, I'm sold. Until then, I can't imagine a reason to use it.

I'm the opposite, I can't imagine using anything cloud computing based at all. Way too much security and reliability risk for my tastes.

 

[mcogilvie]

mcogilvie,

I think OF advises several things to speed up sync:
1. Update both Mac and iPhone to newest version
2. Check Mac (Preferences->Sync->Show clients) and delete old sync "clients" that are no longer used. They may be detritus from upgrades etc.
3. Archive inactive projects to reduce sync overhead
4. If this doesn't do it, you could re-sync the iPhone to ensure the database is not the problem

Tried them all. OF still takes 5-6 seconds to open on the iphone and anywhere from 15 to 50 seconds to sync. Just not acceptable, and it's not clearly better than Things.

 

[Jon Walthour]

The trick to projects in Toodledo is to have a context for projects. Then that item has notes and repeats. You can do that instead of using folders or in addition to.

I'm not sure I'm following you here. Are you suggesting using the contexts in Toodledo for projects and then the Toodledo folders for contexts?

 

[mcogilvie]

I'm not sure I'm following you here. Are you suggesting using the contexts in Toodledo for projects and then the Toodledo folders for contexts?

No, sorry. The DA method for Palm uses "computer" as a context, and "project" as a context. If you do that, you can have NA's as subtasks of projects. You need a paid Toodledo account, which is about $15/yr. Because projects are tasks, they can have notes and due dates.

This is a lot more flexible than using folders for projects, which is unwieldy for a large number of projects. If you don't use folders for projects, you can use the folder for something else; I suggest areas of focus. Then each folder can give you all the projects for a given area of focus, and you can show all the associated next actions under that project. It's not perfect, because it lacks the ability to filter out only that project; you see the other projects in the same area of focus. But it's pretty good.

You might think tags would be useful, but Toodledo lacks autocomplete (which Remember the Milk does have), so a lot of tags puts a burden on the user.

 

[Jon Walthour]

Thanks for the clarification. Unfortunately, at first glance it strikes me as unappealing -- you have to use this as that because that doesn't do what it's supposed to do, which means this other thing doesn't work quite right ... etc. But, we'll see. I'm going to take your suggestion and mull it over for a while. Thanks.