Newbie needs your advice, please - PC @ work, Mac @ home, iPhone everywhere else

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brianmeadors

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I used GTD in a paper system for about ten years in a profession that had a lot of paper. I'm now in a new career in which virtually everything is electronic. I'd like to get my GTD tool optimized, because a paper system is too inefficient.

Here's my current situation: Windows is used at work, and Outlook is the email system. At home I have only Macs. Everywhere else I have an iPhone, and the iPhone calendar, contacts, and mail sync with my Outlook at work. My Outlook calendar at work must always be up to date because co-workers often schedule meetings based on what Outlook reports as my availability.

My GTD inboxes are my Outlook email, my home email (which I cannot access from work), and whatever little paper notes I may take.

I'm in the process of investigating Facilethings.com but question if its calendar can be synced with my Outlook calendar.

What is your recommendation for a system that can handle this kind of setup, i.e., make it easy to use inputs from Microsoft Outlook, Mac, and iPhone?
 
There are probably many alternatives.

I use Evernote as it is platform agnostic. There's a good set up guide in GTD Connect but if you have a strong paper system, I think it will be easy to adapt as Evernote is a blank canvass.

My electronic tickler is in Nirvana HQ. I'm not a fan of the way Evernote handles reminders and Nirvana will send you an email reminder each day.

Good luck.

Dave
 
Or you could use something like Nirvana for all of it (or Doit, Zendone, GTDNext ... even Facilethings, I suppose). They all work on any kind of computer, and they all allow you to forward emails into their inbox if that is important to you - a feature I very seldom use myself. Zendone and Doit have GCal calendar sync, if that is important to you - that is another feature I do not use myself.
 
Look at IQTell. It is cross platform, has an actual email client with macros that can handle both personal and outlook emails, but does have a learning curve.
 
I use Evernote as well partly because Evernote syncs across multiple platforms smoothly.

I use the Evernote Outlook plugin to get emails into Evernote.

On the iPhone, I created an Evernote "contact' so that I can tell Siri to "email Evernote" and then dictate a brief note that I want to capture.

I still keep my most of my calendar on Outlook though I'm migrating my personal calendar to the iCloud calendar because of work related issues.

Ron
 
Everyone's situation is different, but I too use Mac at home, PC/Outlook at work, and iPhone. Here's how I set everything up.

Because I'm in an Outlook environment at work, my system uses Exchange to keep it synced together. One could just as easily use iCloud, Office365, or Google as base. I use the native Mac/iOS apps and Outlook, so how they talk with each other is completely in the background. It was important to me not to have to add another tool in order to implement GTD. Also, I travel and needed a solution that was accessible even when frequently offline.

Outlook at work functions as one would expect, handling my mail, calendar, contacts, next actions (Outlook Tasks), and notes.

I set up my Mac and iPhone to sync with the Exchange server so that my calendar, work mail, notes, and reminders are always up to date. Similarly, I've added Gmail for my personal mail.

The system works great, keeping hard lines between actions, calendar, reference, and incoming mail while minimizing the number of tools and places I need to check. I've tried online solutions such as IQTell, Wunderlist, Asana, Todoist, and others. In the end, each of these added a level of complexity that decreased the trust I have in my system.
 
Hi Brian - I like Stew's comment about every situation being different. Here is my cross-platform setup, as one example that may help.

My key question is: Where do I need to see each context?

I have a PC/Outlook/Exchange at work, PC at home, iPhone, and an Android tablet - and I struggled to find something truly cross-platform.

I keep my work contexts (@Work, @Agendas, @Waiting For, etc) in Outlook/Exchange. If I need to add a work task from anywhere, I send it to my work email and process into Outlook tasks.

For all personal contexts (@Home, @Errands, @Internet, @Travel...) I use Wunderlist. Any app-based, cloud-synced list will do. All of these tasks I can see on my work PC (running the app or website), plus on iPhone, tablet, and home PC. My wife even installed Wunderlist on her phone so we can share our @Groceries and @Costco lists.

It's worth noting that I also have a similar split for reference: Evernote for personal, OneNote for work. Splitting a work/personal calendar would be tough (and potentially disastrous) so I keep just one calendar in Outlook/Exchange that syncs to iPhone.

This does require some "processing" up front to determine which inbox to send it to. When in doubt I send to work email and can add to a personal list from there.

This won't work for everyone, but I've become quite fluid with this set-up. You might come up with your own solution after asking yourself which contexts you need to see on each device.

-Matt
 
You can always stay with paper. I don't think paper is any less efficient than digital it's just that digital allows you to filter and search quickly. Paper is certainly the most flexible of systems. Also, I do so much work digitally, i enjoy doing something in analog. Like Folke mentioned, forwarding email to yours system is not all it's cranked up to be, and many other electronic features are not exactly necessary. If you're system is solid, paper is as good as any. However, if you are really jonesing for digital, I would split your system and use Outlook at work (see setup guide) and paper at home (since I assume your home life did not change, only your work life). Good luck.
 
I was in the same situation and used Appigo Todo for a number of years. They have versions for Mac, iPhone and a web-based version that I used at work which was a Windows environment. I now have a Mac at work so switched to OmniFocus.
 
If you're comfortable with cloud-based solutions, particularly ones with web interfaces, I'd suggest going that route. Then you don't have to worry about what platform is/isn't supported.

If your iPhone syncs with your Outlook calendar I'd guess your company is using MS Exchange. There are a lot of services that have Exchange integration. One example, Sunrise Calendar, which was recently purchased by MS. There are many, many task management apps that are also cloud-based. I used to use Wunderlist, which was also recently acquired by MS. The nice thing about Wunderlist and Sunrise is that they can work together; Wunderlist tasks with due dates can be displayed in Sunrise as all-day calendar items.

But these aren't the only options. I currently use Evernote, which has Mac, Windows, Web, iPhone and Android clients. There are many, many other options to choose from. The nice thing about this forum, though, is that if you have questions about a particular product there's a good chance someone else here is using it and can offer suggestions.
 
OF user stated "You can always stay with paper. I don't think paper is any less efficient than digital it's just that digital allows you to filter and search quickly. Paper is certainly the most flexible of systems. Also, I do so much work digitally, i enjoy doing something in analog. Like Folke mentioned, forwarding email to yours system is not all it's cranked up to be, and many other electronic features are not exactly necessary. If you're system is solid, paper is as good as any".

You know....I have been digital for some time now. I am really thinking about going back to a paper-based system, at least for my projects, next actions, waiting for, etc. lists. I have to use Outlook for my calendar for meeting access. But paper really is intriguing me in this regard. Hmmm...
 
Longstreet said:
You know....I have been digital for some time now. I am really thinking about going back to a paper-based system, at least for my projects, next actions, waiting for, etc. lists. I have to use Outlook for my calendar for meeting access. But paper really is intriguing me in this regard. Hmmm...
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I am a dyed-in-the-wool digital man, but paper has some advantages. It doesn't crash. And talk about platform independent! Like I said, I'm not going back to paper myself but it has some advantages.
 
bcmyers2112 said:
I am a dyed-in-the-wool digital man, but paper has some advantages. It doesn't crash.
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Yes it does, it can get destroyed in fire, lost, cat can eat it, sheep can trample it into the manure and on and on. Crashing paper is almost impossible to recover, crashing digital is not a big deal if you practice safe computing and do regular backups and store at least some off site.
 
Oogiem said:
Yes it does, it can get destroyed in fire, lost, cat can eat it, sheep can trample it into the manure and on and on. Crashing paper is almost impossible to recover, crashing digital is not a big deal if you practice safe computing and do regular backups and store at least some off site.
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You sound like me on sales calls (I sell scanning services and electronic document management and workflow solutions). You won't get much argument from me -- my GTD lists are digital and I see no reason to switch. But some of us have little contact with sheep or their manure, and for many of us if our lists were consumed by fire we'd have far bigger problems than recreating our GTD lists. Just saying for some people paper is the way to go and there's nothing wrong with that.
 
BTW, I use digital exclusively for managing my lists and a lot of my reference material but paper is still my preferred method for capturing thoughts. I carry a pad and pen at all times (specifically a GTD notetaker wallet but really any pad and pen will do) and it has helped me establish the habit of capturing random value-added thoughts wherever possible. I spend a lot of time helping clients go paperless on an organizational level, but personally there are some respects in my life where paper is still where it's at.
 
bcmyers2112 said:
Just saying for some people paper is the way to go and there's nothing wrong with that.
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No argument there. I only objected to the comment that paper doesn't crash, it does and the results can be devastating. I would also argue that my GTD system and its lists and checklists are critical information for the operation of my business and so deserve high protection. My system has pieces in it so that in the event of a personal emergency, death or injury, a relative stranger would be able to pick up my lists and keep things going. I find that critical for a farm with livestock. The sheep will die if not cared for so I have to be sure they are protected in the event of my incapacitation.
 
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