Nirvana HQ

JMartinez said:
I'm glad to see that you returned to Nirvana, can you explain your experience with Everdo and what has motivated your return to Nirvana?

The Nirvana team is working on translating the app into other languages.

My good friend Elbert Mc Laughlin (CEO of Nirvana) contacted me in July to comment on some things about the Spanish translation.

Friends, Nirvana is still alive, it always has been ... I think its long life on the web proves it, Nirvana has been with us for 11 years.

We have always said that we would like to receive more updates and improvements, but .... I work as an IT Technician, .....

In technology there is the saying: If something works, don't touch it.

It is true that we would all like more updates, more features and improvements, but ... honestly, Nirvana works very well. If it is true, it has a bug that must be corrected, but it does not prevent you from using the application, much less trusting it.

I have known Nirvana since I discovered it, I think I remember that it was around 2010 (when I began to be interested in GTD) and it was one of the first applications specially designed for GTD that I found.

I signed up and I have always had data in Nirvana, some time I have used it as the main application, another time I tried omnifocus, todoist, wunderlist (RIP) ...

Now since 2015 (6 years) I have been with Nirvana without changing.

I have never, never, lost data on Nirvana, never had the feeling that I couldn't trust it.

Yes, we users may want more functions, but I tell you one thing

Above any function, the only thing I ask is that it be reliable, and that it allows me to get things out of my mind without fear, and that does it in an excellent way.

Attached files? what's the problem? it is stored in Dropbox, GoogleDrive, Onedrive or any cloud storage and a link is put.

Topics? ... I always have Nirvana in dark mode, I love it.

You have to be patient with the nirvana team, they go at their own pace and as has been said on occasion, it is not their main business, they are a Marketing and web design agency in Montreal with a small team dedicated to Nirvana.

Anyway.

I'm glad you're back
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I agree…mostly. What has given me pause is when they introduced calendar integration last spring. They did not include the ability to filter calendars so every Google calendar I have (10) shows up in Nirvana. When I contacted them 2 days later they responded to say they would fix it. That was over a year ago I believe, and still no fix. I understand this is not a Nirvana support forum, but that, to me is an illustration of a bug that was never addressed. (I call it a bug because every other app I have seen that has Google calendar integration allows you to select calendars). So this, coupled with the very sporadic communication with users caused me to bail after 3 months, despite having paid for an annual subscription.
 
I have been using Todoist for the better part of 2021. I have been trialling NirvanaHQ on and off for few months. Currently, I am working my way through the GTD Workbook. On Move 2, I need to decide on a Capture tool and I have chosen NirvanaHQ for its purest form of GTD implementation. I'm yet to decide on a Notes app to keep my project notes; for that, yet to decide on either Apple Notes or Obsidian.
 
FocusGuy said:
My 2 cents :) For notes it depends on your goal. If you want to make a real data base of knowledge you could have a look at obsidian wich is a really good choice. it's a zettelkasten system and it's grat for multiple links. In the same way you have Roam, the brain, If it is just a good reference material working with Nirvana or another software have a look at evernote. They have made progress and it is a good choice (I use evernote ;) ) If you work with apple software or you need something simple just for note apple note is nice.
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Obsidian seems to be like a "personal knowledge management" application. I have been trialing it for nearly two months and I find it might not be a "note-taking" tool for GTD purposes. I'm an Evernote Premium subscription for 10 years. Lately, I feel like the app is bloated and the mobile app sucks big time. It takes ages to load up! I have found the Standard Notes app pretty straightforward. I'm thinking of setting up that one as my GTD Project Notes app. If it works well I might purchase their Premium option when they do the Black Friday deal. :)
 
Ridwan said:
Obsidian seems to be like a "personal knowledge management" application. I have been trialing it for nearly two months and I find it might not be a "note-taking" tool for GTD purposes. I'm an Evernote Premium subscription for 10 years. Lately, I feel like the app is bloated and the mobile app sucks big time. It takes ages to load up! I have found the Standard Notes app pretty straightforward. I'm thinking of setting up that one as my GTD Project Notes app. If it works well I might purchase their Premium option when they do the Black Friday deal. :)
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Hi @Ridwan I am interested about what you said about evernote. I also use it since 10 years (mainly on my mac) premium too. I dont have any problems with it . It works well. I hope I won't... I make links from Omnifocus to evernote and evernote to omnifocus. Eveything is fine. I think and put my project's plan in Evernote and all what I intend to do, and I put my very next action in Omnifocus. Every non actionable stuff is in evernote.

I also use google drive for relative documents.

I also love apple apps. Note is nice and reminders too. We can use tags with ios 15 with both. My only worry is about security. There is no way to make a copy of my notes and it can be complicated when you get a lot of datas. And in the pas I had some problems with reminders whitch erased some lists after a bad sync. Of course there was no copy too. Si I decided a go to Omnifocus I finally kept.

For obsidian I discovered that a lot of people use it for GTD. It a very interesting software. I agree it is a "personal knowledge management". I think a may use it for GTD if I get fed up of evernote. May be there is an import tool from evernote to Obsidian...
 
Ridwan said:
Obsidian seems to be like a "personal knowledge management" application. I have been trialing it for nearly two months and I find it might not be a "note-taking" tool for GTD purposes. I'm an Evernote Premium subscription for 10 years. Lately, I feel like the app is bloated and the mobile app sucks big time. It takes ages to load up! I have found the Standard Notes app pretty straightforward. I'm thinking of setting up that one as my GTD Project Notes app. If it works well I might purchase their Premium option when they do the Black Friday deal. :)
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The same development team that makes Obsidian also makes a really good note outliner app called Dynalist. You might want to take a quick look. Most of the functionality is completely free with no limitations. I've always said if anything happened to NirvanaHQ, Dynalist would be my fallback, but for now it's what I use it for general/meeting notes, storing links, and project/procedural checklists.
 
FocusGuy said:
Hi @Ridwan I am interested about what you said about evernote. I also use it since 10 years (mainly on my mac) premium too. I dont have any problems with it . It works well. I hope I won't... I make links from Omnifocus to evernote and evernote to omnifocus. Eveything is fine. I think and put my project's plan in Evernote and all what I intend to do, and I put my very next action in Omnifocus. Every non actionable stuff is in evernote.

I also use google drive for relative documents.

I also love apple apps. Note is nice and reminders too. We can use tags with ios 15 with both. My only worry is about security. There is no way to make a copy of my notes and it can be complicated when you get a lot of datas. And in the pas I had some problems with reminders whitch erased some lists after a bad sync. Of course there was no copy too. Si I decided a go to Omnifocus I finally kept.

For obsidian I discovered that a lot of people use it for GTD. It a very interesting software. I agree it is a "personal knowledge management". I think a may use it for GTD if I get fed up of evernote. May be there is an import tool from evernote to Obsidian...
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I don't have any major problems with Evernote myself. I find the load time slightly longer on my iPhone 12. It was worse on my prev iPhone 6. Key features that have kept me from moving away from Evernote are backlinks and the webclipper. Lately, my Evernote usage has dropped drastically and I using Apple Notes for quick capture and my primary note-taking app. I guess with iOS 15, Apple Notes will be a real contender in the Notes space.

I'm not sure how many GTDers are using Obsidian? I would like to do some research on implementing GTD with Obsidian.
 
Sojourner said:
The same development team that makes Obsidian also makes a really good note outliner app called Dynalist. You might want to take a quick look. Most of the functionality is completely free with no limitations. I've always said if anything happened to NirvanaHQ, Dynalist would be my fallback, but for now it's what I use it for general/meeting notes, storing links, and project/procedural checklists.
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That's right. Recently, I have found out Obsidian's dev team created Dynalist. I have not used Dynalist. I shall take a look. Cheers.
 
FocusGuy said:
I miss Nirvana. It was so simple for GTD. It was easy to act with it too. I quit because the was no real local safe of the database. I thought later on, that I had the Mac app so there was a copy surely in my drive + Sync on the web... May be... I just wonder about this software : I never hear anything about the company. Do the developpers still works on it ? Will it be persistant in the future ? I bought a life licence and I dont really understand their business model :oops: And as i is a professional use I am a bit worry...
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I have Nirvana's lifetime license. I bought it ages ago for around £30. Nirvana dev team are really slow in developing the app. I suppose, having some limitations will make us mindful of what goes into the task management app?
 
I am back to Nirvana. It was (again) a very difficult decision. I invested a lot of time making something right with omnifocus and learning the system.

This happened since I red again GTD. I realised I spent a lot of time with omnifocus optimizing my system. I also realise that tools are important but not as GTD is. They are just tool and their purpose is to help us making the job.

I also realised reading that i felt like @Jim about it and taskpaper on another thread. I think he is right.
Jim said:
The user interface was too cluttered, the design too complex. Even after they refined it. Hiding complexity doesn't remove it.

OmniFocus makes me feel like its design is in control. Opening OmniFocus felt bad to me. Clutter and fuss come to mind. I never got a lot done when using OmniFocus.
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This aspect of "control" and "feeling" information for making decision later is indeed a core principe for me. This part of feeling about a software is so important and depends on the way you appropriate each information and how you enjoy working with a software.

What I like (again) with Nirvana is that it respects GTD principles so I dont have to think or trick the system or even spend my time making perspective. I just apply GTD and do stuff. I understand where I am and where I go. I can visualize my H3, H4, H5 and see theirs areas .

Of course It is not as powerfull as Omnifocus 3 is. Nor as pretty as Things 3, but it is the workhorse of GTD and it does the job ;)

I also bought a lifetime licence so I hope I will be quiet for a long time...
As I kept my reference material in evernote I will get a kind of copy of my projects witch is the most important for me. I will make again the links from one to the other when I will do my weekly review tomorrow.
 
FocusGuy said:
I miss Nirvana. It was so simple for GTD. It was easy to act with it too. I quit because the was no real local safe of the database. I thought later on, that I had the Mac app so there was a copy surely in my drive + Sync on the web... May be... I just wonder about this software : I never hear anything about the company. Do the developpers still works on it ? Will it be persistant in the future ? I bought a life licence and I dont really understand their business model :oops: And as i is a professional use I am a bit worry...
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Funny you mention "local...database" with NirvanaHQ. They have a simple export option to save everything in a CSV, JSON, or XML format. I have a scheduled reminder in Nirvana to remind me to regularly export my data in CSV format for safe keeping.

From what I understand, the company behind NirvanaHQ has a separate business model from Nirvana that provides the majority of their financial support. NirvanaHQ is more like an addition to their primary business because they use the GTD methodology themselves. It doesn't seem like they do much with it, but when you have something that just plain works, why mess with it is my thought. In fact, Nirvana has probably been the most stable, usable, and reliable app I've used over the last five years.
 
I have just finished the migration by hand from Omnifocus to Nirvana. It tooks me the entire day. I still dont understand why they did not make an import tool for this but anyway. I feel much better now. Thanks for your threads. Reading all you wrote here, helped me a lot to understand what I wanted and what I was attending about my system. Everything is now perfectly clear and NIRVANA gives me a bird eye about all my engagements. I made a good .csv safe like you said @Sojourner and saw it was correct with apple numbers. I work by context they are clearly identified at the top of the software and on the bottom too. So Nirvana is really a good software for GTD. I feel much better now and I can really apply GTD.
Tommorow I will do my weekly review and make the last migrations from Evernote. It wont be long so far... ;)
 

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Sojourner said:
Funny you mention "local...database" with NirvanaHQ. They have a simple export option to save everything in a CSV, JSON, or XML format. I have a scheduled reminder in Nirvana to remind me to regularly export my data in CSV format for safe keeping.

From what I understand, the company behind NirvanaHQ has a separate business model from Nirvana that provides the majority of their financial support. NirvanaHQ is more like an addition to their primary business because they use the GTD methodology themselves. It doesn't seem like they do much with it, but when you have something that just plain works, why mess with it is my thought. In fact, Nirvana has probably been the most stable, usable, and reliable app I've used over the last five years.
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I totally agree with Nirvana's reliability. The app is rock solid.
 
FocusGuy said:
I have just finished the migration by hand from Omnifocus to Nirvana. It tooks me the entire day. I still dont understand why they did not make an import tool for this but anyway. I feel much better now. Thanks for your threads. Reading all you wrote here, helped me a lot to understand what I wanted and what I was attending about my system. Everything is now perfectly clear and NIRVANA gives me a bird eye about all my engagements. I made a good .csv safe like you said @Sojourner and saw it was correct with apple numbers. I work by context they are clearly identified at the top of the software and on the bottom too. So Nirvana is really a good software for GTD. I feel much better now and I can really apply GTD.
Tommorow I will do my weekly review and make the last migrations from Evernote. It wont be long so far... ;)
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I will be moving my Todoist tasks to NirvanaHQ this weekend.
 
In August 2019 they wrote a tweet about various features coming:
https://twitter.com/x/status/1164832887251668995
More than two years have passed and nothing they mentioned has been released yet.

(By the way, I do not care about attachments being a feature in to-do apps. I think that using cloud storage and including links to files is more than enough.)
 
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