One good app, one bad app, Trish

[unstuffed]

Okay, the story so far: I've been having a bit of a tumultuous week, mentally speaking. It's been similar to the language crisis that comes when learning a new language by immersion: suddenly nothing makes sense and you don't know how to say anything in any language. But my immersion crisis has been with GTD. In other words, this week everything went pear-shaped.

Anyway, I discovered a small application for the Mac over on the 43 Folders forum, and decided to give it a go. I'd mentioned this here, and Trish expressed an interest in knowing how it went, hence her name in lights.

Well. The app does what it's designed for, but there's waaaay too many dialogue boxes for me. I want simple and clean, and that wasn't it. I'm a bit cranky when it comes to UIs, having seen far too many badly designed interfaces. And this one struck me that way: I want my GTD implementation to be elegantly simple, otherwise I'm far too likely to ignore it.

In addition, some of the nomenclature didn't make complete sense to me. Again, I want my GTD processes to make sense to me, without the necessity of having to constantly translate the terms.

In short, I can't really recommend it. If anyone else would like to give it a go, or uses it and wants to correct my point of view, it's called Ready, Set, Do! I'm not saying it's bad, understand, just that it's too convoluted for my tastes.

On the positive side, I've discovered Yojimbo, which has all sorts of neat features, is beautifully simple, and is also shareware. It's not designed specifically for GTD, but I suspect it's got so many uses that I'll be happy forking out once the demo time is finished.

And it's named after a great film made by a great director and starring a great actor. So every time I use it I'll be thinking of Toshiro Mifune. And that's got to be good. :-D

 

[ReBuild]

If your in test mode for a OS X GTD program give Actiontastic a look. Web link http://www.kaboomerang.com/blog/category/actiontastic/

It's a very simply clean GTD program. Only at version 0.9.1 though stable plus at this point free. I've being playing with it for a couple of days and like what I see.

Another alternative is to wait for Omni Focus to come out. It apparently is the logical outbuild of Omni Outliner Pro + Kinkless.

 

[unstuffed]

Oooh, that one looks nice...

If your in test mode for a OS X GTD program give Actiontastic a look. Web link http://www.kaboomerang.com/blog/category/actiontastic/

It's a very simply clean GTD program. Only at version 0.9.1 though stable plus at this point free. I've being playing with it for a couple of days and like what I see.

Another alternative is to wait for Omni Focus to come out. It apparently is the logical outbuild of Omni Outliner Pro + Kinkless.

Thanks, ReBuild, Actiontastic looks nice, and seems to do most of what I'm looking for. I'll check it out properly next week, I think. I'd downloaded MailTags and MailActOn, but hadn't installed them yet, so there's another reason for me to get moving.

Mind you, I've got to install Quicksilver first. Sigh. One thing leads to another, and one shiny app leads to a dozen more.

I'd had a bit of a look through Kinkless, but never got around to trying it, even though it's been highly recommended. I imagine when Omni Focus does come out, there'll be a flood of Mac/GTD geeks swarming all over it for a while.

By the bye, are you a Java developer? Just going by the naming conventions and your alias...

 

[ReBuild]

No I'm not a java developer ... just spent a lot of time in project management roles working with IT types as well I have a great interest in pulling things apart and rebuilding then. I find it a good way to learn and grow.

On Mailtags and MailAct on have both, though only use part of the powers provided by each. Cannot speak to Quicksilver, though it does get a lot of support.

For my money a simply GTD system is the goal ... one that I don't have to think about and fuss over. So I try real hard to stay away from lots of little Hacks, unless I see a real benefit.

 

[bvkeen]

Mind you, I've got to install Quicksilver first. Sigh. One thing leads to another, and one shiny app leads to a dozen more.

I've only had the Mac experience for about a month now, but would definitely encourage you to load Quicksilver up as soon as you get a chance. The productivity boost you will get from doing so is remarkable.

Good luck.

 

[Brent]

This is another vote for Quicksilver. I actively miss it whenever I use any other OS.

If you're looking for a super-clean system, have you considered using text files? That's what I use. One for Projects, one for Someday/Maybe, and one for each context (as appropriate). I just use Quicksilver to access any of them from anywhere I am. Ctrl-Space-P-Enter and I've got my Projects list.

 

[unstuffed]

Mmmmm, Mac

This is another vote for Quicksilver. I actively miss it whenever I use any other OS.

If you're looking for a super-clean system, have you considered using text files? That's what I use. One for Projects, one for Someday/Maybe, and one for each context (as appropriate). I just use Quicksilver to access any of them from anywhere I am. Ctrl-Space-P-Enter and I've got my Projects list.

I am quite a plain text girl, but I was wanting something neat to handle application crossovers, such as when I want to remind myself to reply to an email after gathering some info from other apps. I tried using the emails themselves as the reminder, but obviously this fell in a heap, since I was committing the cardinal sin of not specifying the next action.

And shiny Mac apps are so sweet. ;-)

 

[mcogilvie]

This is another vote for Quicksilver. I actively miss it whenever I use any other OS.

I have never figured out the attraction of Quicksilver. I suppose if I were continually looking up contacts all day, it would be useful, but I don't. With a lot of applications, QS offers to do things I don't want to do, and doesn't do simple things I would like to do. It's not much good to me for opening files, because a lot of times two or more files have the same name but different extensions, or have very similar names. Am I missing something?

 

[kewms]

I have never figured out the attraction of Quicksilver. I suppose if I were continually looking up contacts all day, it would be useful, but I don't. With a lot of applications, QS offers to do things I don't want to do, and doesn't do simple things I would like to do. It's not much good to me for opening files, because a lot of times two or more files have the same name but different extensions, or have very similar names. Am I missing something?

Using the down arrow to page through a list of four or five similarly named files still seems faster to me than using the Finder. (Or even PathFinder, a very nifty Finder alternative.)

I also use the search plug-in a lot, since I can search from wherever I am without surfacing my browser window.

I wouldn't say I'm the raving Quicksilver fanatic that some are, but I find it pretty useful. It's worth some time to read some of the tutorials that are out there, and page through the plug-in list. With only the default documentation and the default plug-ins, you're missing a lot.

Katherine