The Productive Organizer

WebOS is an OS that i have least experience in and a search on softwares that tailors to Getting Things Done yields very little results other than our dear Evernote.

That is why its refreshing to see Outline Tracker for WebOS. I did not give this a spin since i do not have a Palm Pre or Pixi to try it out.

How much does it cost?

There is a free version on the App Catalog that limits you to 50 tasks but the full version costs USD23.50.

What version of WebOS is it compatible with?

You will need webOS 1.3.5

What are its main functionalities?

• Organize tasks and sub-tasks as many layers deep as you need
• Keep track of where you can work on a task and who’s responsible
• The dynamic to-do list shows only the tasks you can work on here and now
• Color-coding shows at a glance who’s responsible for a task — you, your organization, or no one
• The dynamic waiting list shows tasks that are waiting for action by someone else — a single tap takes you to their entry in the webOS Contacts application
• Items with a due date appear in the webOS Calendar and the project outline, and tasks appear in the dynamic to-do list as well
• Coordinate with others using Basecamp from 37signals (useable through any web browser, with custom apps available for many kinds of smartphone)
• Basecamp items are cached locally, so Basecamp projects can be edited without a network connection. Changes will be uploaded when the network connection is available.
• Supports David Allen’s Getting Things Done® methodology
• Also functions as a general-purpose outliner, exporting to (and importing from) the modern XOXO format, easily integrated into web pages

GTD – Able to Organize in tree structure

with this you can essentially create Tasks and Sub-Tasks or Sub-Projects

GTD – Able to filter by Contexts/Places

if you are to perform GTD you will need to be able to filter your tasks by places or agendas. This one does it but not sure if it can achieve the sophistication of Appigo ToDos context filtering. [context/places intro and tutorial >>]

GTD – Waiting for looks good!

You can review your waiting for list according to the people. Outline Tracker allows you to go to the Palm’s contacts when you click on the person’s name.

Very useful.

GTD – comprehensive task view and integration with webOS Calendar

This is a good move that i don’t see on alot of mobile apps on iPhone since you will need a fair bit of work to achieve this on the iPhone OS platform.

essentially, your items need not be tasks and need not have dates. this gives it flexibility, but also increases the developer’s complexity.

also, note seems to be missing if you want to add additionaly details.

the kicker is that those items with due date specified will go into your webOS calendar. some folks definitely love to have this in their GTD system.

Final Thoughts

i thought its abit expensive at $23 bucks but really not sure if all App Catalog application are priced at that range. I hope we come accross more apps like this to compete and come up with good GTD apps for the webOS.

At the iPhone App Store competition have kept the incumbents at the top of their game and we do hope to see more of these on the webOS.

[Outline tracker for Palm Pre and Pixi >>]

I came across this Windows desktop application that aim to follow the Getting Things Done to organize the information you come across in your daily lives.

I didn’t manage to give it a try but it does look very sophisticated, on the level of Mind Manager by Mindjet.

How much it cost?

its not free and the price might turn off a few people. it cost like USD197.

Who is it for?

Probably for people who have a windows desktop or laptop as their main GTD planning and collection center. Definitely not for me since i seldom have access to my personal computer.

What are its main functionality?

You would have to check out a very very detail walkthrough at Information Management Tool’s website. There it will show you how to Collect, Process, Organize and Review using their software

• flexible structure helps you to merge individual to-do lists, projects, articles into a strategic plan
• use the program for online research, journaling, to-do lists, note taking, document archiving, GTD and more.
• break down large projects into smaller parts using as many tree-levels as you need to keep everything in one place and under control
• use Wiki-hyperlinks to tasks, web pages, notes, to-do lists etc.
• capture web pages directly from the integrated Gecko Web Browser by Mozilla
• drag-and-drop notes, hyperlinks, files in appropriate place in the free-form database, reorganize your projects and tasks at any time
• reorganize your projects, to-do lists, ideas and tasks at any time you want
• find what you need when you need it using fast search
• create your own structure of GTD Trusted System, capture, organize and manage all your projects and tasks in the free-form central database
• real-time immediate save of all added information to the database
• fully customizable interface: more than 300 icons, custom colors and font formats to help you focus on what is most important
• capture any ideas, notes and edit them using full-featured Rich Text Editor
• recall items quickly with tagging
• align your time, effort and energy with your highest priorities so you can focus on what really matters most to you
• browse local files and forlders using integrated Folder Explorer
• work with multiple projects without feeling overwhelmed
• save any web pages in HTML, edit them in the integrated HTML Editor and preview them
• integrated tools needed to create your own structure of a logical and trusted system outside of your head
• display only the tasks, notes, to-do lists etc. you want to see at the moment by expanding them

Final Thoughts

It does look more polish than alot of the free desktop apps that i see, but its steep at USD 197 and i wonder with the coming of the mobile internet you should be paying that much for a standalone desktop app.

[Take a look @ Information Management Tool >>]

Introduction

Are you looking for a software that enables you to access Microsoft OneNote on your iPhone? If you are then, MobileNoter is probably what you are looking for.

I think alot of folks out there really like to use Microsoft OneNote for note taking. For folks that want to keep research materials, or information pertaining to a project or a business object that they are working on, OneNote is the closes software you get to a real note book.

I personally think its one of the best products release by Microsoft and it should be bought as a stand alone application.

If you currently already have much information stored in OneNote and would like to access them from your iPhone or iPod Touch, MobileNoter can do the job.

Pricing

This is a subscription based service. The desktop and iphone application is FREE. But monthly subscription comes up to USD 1.25 per month.

iPhone Version reviewed

1.0

What does it do

MobileNoter is bascially a service that, for a small fee per month, allows you to sync selected notes to MobileNoter Server and enables 2 way sync with your iPhone Mobile Noter Software.

How to setup and how MobileNoter looks like after the break

[Read the rest of this entry...]

Introduction

I gotta give a shout out to Dominique from CalenGoo for facilitating this review. I would say out of all the intriguing software on the app store CalenGoo interest me the most.

I am big on planning and scheduling in a Getting Things Done kind of way and i make use of Google Calendar as my main calendar so it is natural that i would make it a criteria in choosing my GTD device.

In this review i would break down why this would rock more than the native Google Calendar sync and where it will not be that good in.

Why you would want to sync your calendar to google

Ubiquitous Calendar Assess

A good reason other than Appigo ToDo that sways me to the iPod Touch 2G was due to its ability to sync google calendars and contacts via exchange protocol from Google  to my iPod Touch.This means that you can assess to your events and schedule offline, you don’t need  a constant internet connection.

What this means also is that you make your google calendar your base where you house your events and schedule. If you are using an iPhone your calendar synchronize with it. If you are using an Android phone your Android phone calendar gets synchronize with it.

When you get home or in the office and want a better view of your calendar, you can view the same events and schedule from your desktop internet browser.

Auto-Backup of Calendar via web synchronization aka Offline Mode

Remember those windows mobile days where you need to put your windows mobile phone into a cradle and sync your contacts and calendars to your desktop through ActiveSync? Well in web 2.0 you don’t have to rely on that any more.

Offline mode for iPhone,Android and Adobe Air for desktop allows you to assess your calendars when you do not have an internet connection and automatically or manually synchronize your events and schedules when you have one.

In each device the application will make use of the local database in your iPhone. If there is an internet connection, the application will invoke a sync request to sync your data with the web database. What this means is that should you lose your phone, you will still have assess to your data as it is last sync this morning to the web.

Thus for this concept to work well your software must periodically poll to see if you have an internet connection, if it has, it will sync it.

Through iPhone Exchange services you are able to sync your calendar to google and will periodically update. It works very well and i am satisfied with it.

Continue after the break for review of CalenGoo with screenshots

[Read the rest of this entry...]

Introduction

The GTD Series is a series of articles where i share about how i carried out GTD to help me function in daily work.

Part 1 here talks about my plan and overview of my GTD system

Part 2 here talks about why i eventually chose iPod Touch 2G as my main to do list console

Part 3 here talks about why i choose Appigo ToDo for iPhone as my main task manager

Part 4 here talks about how to plan for big projects and smaller projects

Part 5 here talks about how to make use of Contexts, Tags to Execute your tasks

Part 6 here discuss about how you can review projects better using iThoughts mind mapping software

In this article, i will talk more about making use of mind mapping softwares such as iThoughts to plan projects and take notes.

Viewing things from an overall perspective

One of the flaws that i realise for using Appigo ToDo as my main GTD application is that if you want to get a holistic view about things, its difficult.

Why is this so?

In the first part of the series, i highlighted that should you have a new multi step action collected or an action that belongs in an existing project, you should flow back to your Appigo ToDo to perform your project planning assessing what is the actionable task that you should be doing.

Dependencies and Bottlenecks

To me, with my ipod touch on my side all the time, collection is great and dropping it into sub projects. However, certain difficult projects, you would want to see what u have done in chronological order, or an order that shows u dependency. This can’t be done well with most GTD software on the market.

Many folks that use Microsoft project would have realise the importance of dependencies in milestones and tasks and would like to have this flexibility.

For further example we go back to our buying a bicycle example i illustrated in planning for projects and big projects:

1. Ask Son what kind of bicycle he likes
2. Find out how much your family have to pay for the bike (budgeting)
3. Research on where to buy the cheapest bike on the internet
4. Give son a look at the bike see if he likes it
5. Find out what to look out for if it is the first time you are buying a bike
6. Go down and buy the bike
7. Wait for the bike to be delivered to you

In the example here, there are certain things that have no dependency and some that  you have to execute it in a chrono logical order. Example u need to research where to buy the cheapest bike if u are tight on your budget. If you haven’t done that, you can’t carried out the rest of the other actions.

The there are some such as get the son’s approval which, depending on what kind of parent you are you might not care about that and would most likely proceed to action 5 or do it concurrently.

Those actions that do not generate a bottleneck or have dependency are easier to settle. You use your Context management of where you are at such as @Home, @Errands to help u do it fast.

Difficulties in Weekly Review or Daily Review of Project

Those that do, its difficult to use Appigo Todo to view that.

Here we have 3 tasks. If we go by my plan. I would most likely be scheduling my day to solving this client problem. Then i can see what is my next action in office and resolve them. Suppose the bottle neck or the dependency is under @Waiting For or @Contact, then i need to do that first in order to start my actions in @Office.

You can’t see that link in such a GTD application.

If that is the case, what we need to fall back on is to our Weekly Review, Daily Review or Project Review, where we identify what is really the next action.

However, the thing about all these to do list is that, unless you use the desktop ones, you get to see in an order which task you have done and what is left to do.

In Appigo ToDo if you done with the task, it automatically removes it and puts it at the bottom should you chose to show it.

The solution to this is that you should be looking for a mobile task management software that is THAT flexible. But if that is the case, you are looking at something ah la Microsoft Project + Context filtering on iPhone. Do we have that? The answer is i have failed to locate such an application.

iThoughts as a solution

The discovery of mind mapping software such as MindJet and iThoughts have brought about a possible solution to this.

I am still experimenting with it but so far its been a complicated planning process. I don’t want to make it overly complicated so its purely to test out how good iThoughts is as a GTD planning tool.

As a primer to what iThoughts can do, please review this article that shows how powerful this would make your iphone and ipod touch.

Viewing the Vision,Goals and Areas of Responsibility

The thing about iThoughts is that you can bring your map from your favorite desktop mind mapping software Freemind or Mind Manager to this app and vice versa.

So it means that if iThoughts close shop on you, you are not screwed.

So back to topic. You can actually create a vision map to enable u to plan and review your goals and what you hope to achieve.

There are numerous templates out there on the web, and the good thing about iThoughts is that you can always have a template map and duplicate that map so that you can reuse and reuse a map template again.

Here is an example of a map illustrating your goals for the year or 3 years and what are the area’s of responsibility to bring you to that. The great thing about this mind mapping tool is that it can take a large area so u can literally go on to plan your projects here as well. But for me i just find it very clustered if i go on further. I would rather plan sub projects in a seperate map.

iThoughts enable you to show progress as well.so that means you can do quarterly review of these maps to see how far you are from achieve these goals and whether for example you need to redefine your big projects( your big projects will be those Area of Responsibilities, which are equivalent to large lists in Appigo ToDo)

Planning projects in detail

By setting a Project Planning Mind Map Template, you can easily duplicate this template and start planning your projects.

A note is that, it would be best to plan really extensive projects that are more complex here in iThoughts. For simple stuff like buying a bicycle, i would recommend software like Things or Appigo ToDo. It makes life easier. Different software have their strengths and weakness and GTD to-do list excel in quick collection and filtering based on contexts.

Mind Mapping software like iThoughts do not do filtering that well.

The goal of project planning is that you have an idea about

1. Why you are doing this (Purpose)
2. Where you are at
3. Where do you want to be (Outcome)
4. What are my constraints? (time? resources? other complexity?)
5. What do i have to do (Milestones)

And in a template such as this, things become very clear at one glance. This is an example about buying an insurance policy. So the purpose and  outcome and constraints are spelt out clearly whenever you review and plan.

You will also be able to see your progress of each milestones clearly plus how much time you have left or whether a milestone is overdue (denoted by the red clock in “REquest advice from advisor”)

Here we drill down from the milestones to tasks. The conflict that i have is that you can’t really filter your tasks by context. But really if you are someone who wants a once glance review and plan ahead, such a task management mind map will be great.

Here you see that a target icon marks my next action and what i should be focusing on. This would work, if you schedule a time to carry out such a sub project. If you don’t schedule it on your calendar then if you keep so many sub projects map you end up checking here check there to see what you should be doing.

This is where you really give and take and really appreciate Appigo ToDo. You can view all your sub projects and which is your next actions easily but not iThoughts.

I would suggest that for someone who is using a task management application like Things or Appigo ToDo, put your tasks necessary in your Appigo Todo, don’t double entry. it wastes time.

Use iThoughts purely as a review and planning from a higher perspective.

1. Review your iThoughts Milestones
2. Move to your Appigo ToDo check if its completed
3. If it is and all the tasks in the milestones are completed move the progress to the appropriate level.
4. Re-evaluate milestones and brainstorm if there are tasks that needs to be added into any of the milestones.
5. Review if you can still meet your deadline.

Conclusion

This is by no means a good solution. But iThoughts is such a flexible software that it can weave into this purpose of reviewing and keeping track of your 50000 – 20000 feet stuff.

That way you don’t lose track of what is the overall objective.

Introduction

In one of my previous post, i did a brief overview on Mindjet, a mind mapping software that is available for your ipod touch or iphone. Mindjet is also the company that brought you mind manager, a state of the art mind mapping software that is pretty expensive for most of us.

Digital vs Analog Mind Mapping

I used Mind Manager before and really its a great software to mind map on your laptop or desktop. But my good friend Melvin made a comment, that if he were to mind map, he would rather use a piece of paper.

I find that digital mind mapping have advantages, particularly, you can:

• re-arrange the nodes so that you can structure your thoughts
• you can easily archive and reference them next time for notes
• you can translate them into project plans or tasks list
• you can link them to your word,excel and web documents

Perhaps the problem with a desktop or laptop is that for Kinetic people they need to scribble down things instead of clicking and typing and looking at a screen.

For me though, I find it difficult to collect my thoughts or do planning facing a digital mind map. I am a kinetic person, which means i remember things better if i scribble it down. But really, the problem for me is that i tend to misplaced by maps all over the place. So i like something digital, but also enables me to mind map wherever i can, not bounded to any desktop or laptop. The best option is that if i were to be able to find something good on the Apple iPhone app store it will be good!

Requirements of my mind mapping software

In my exploration of apps on the Apple iPhone App Store, i found a few softwares that does mind mapping. Some of them are great like Mind Meister, which touts that their app for the iphone can sync real time with their online maps.However, as part of my needs to keep notes offline and away from the web, i need better solution. Specifically:

• Maps must be sophisticated compare to desktop mind mapping tool
• Maps must be able to view both on iPhone and desktop
• Maps must be portable
• Pricing must be affordable

So i stumble upon Mindjet and iThoughts.

iThoughts Overview

iThoughts was released first before Mindjet. And the similarities between the 2 applications are very very similar. I got a feeling the folks at Mindjet copied what the folks at iThoughts did to come up with theirs (don’t sue me! everyone will think the same way after looking at the comparison here!)

The problem of them being so similar is that for the same price which one should i go for?In the end i took my plunge with iThoughts instead of MindJet and i have not regretted since.

Pricing

Both iThoughts and Mindjet cost USD6.99. Its not cheap, but its not that expensive compare to GTD apps that i bought such as Appigo ToDo. The cost is nothing if it brings improve productivity to my life. Hey, some of my dinner cost like USD15, so i believe i am not paying an expensive price for an independent application.

Version

Version reviewing is version 2.1.

Why is it good?

Basically, most of the basic things you are able to do on your desktop mind map software such as Nova Mind and Mind Manager you can do it here

Able to handle large maps

iThoughts uses a canvas to paint the topics and they tout that you can go greater than 1000x the screen area which is more than enough for me.

You can zoom in zoom out of maps to get a better vantage view after you have rearrange or finish composing

Very good performance

What i really like about this application is that not only does it have a lot of good functionality, those that i expect to be in it, but on the iPod Touch 2G it does it with a very good performance.

• Double tapping immediately brings out the Topic input screen
• Not much lag on scrolling around canvas to review Map
• Organization of the above map neatly is fast

Very friendly Topic input mechanism

Entering a new topic or nodes is a breeze! All you need to do is touch on a parent topic once to select that topic. You can enter a new topic by touching the top buttons to either enter a child or sibling topic.

Additionally, the fast way is to double tap an area to insert a child topic.

(More screenshots and functionality explanation after the break)

[Read the rest of this entry...]

We know how slick the Google Reader, Gmail and Calendar client is on iPhone and Android. They seem to be like a regular application rather than a browser. Its no disappointment that one of the biggest highlights this month which is Google Wave is now like the great Gmail web client. Techcrunch Noticed something special about bookmarking the Wave page though:

Just like with any Web page on the iPhone, you can save a bookmark on your Home screen, and it creates a little icon which launches mobile Safari to that page. When you save the Wave bookmark to your Home screen, however, something different happens. You go to Wave, but without the Safari wrapper which allows you to navigate to another page or search the Web. Instead, it looks more like a regular app and there is no way to navigate away from it. Everything else works the same as in the mobile browser version.

I haven’t gotten a Wave Account, but i hope someone would be kind enough to give me an invite for this! can’t wait to try it.

Introduction

This is part of a series where i talk about my GTD experience and  my setup.

Part 1 here talks about my plan and overview of my GTD system

Part 2 here talks about why i eventually chose iPod Touch 2G as my main to do list console

Part 3 here talks about why i choose Appigo ToDo for iPhone as my main task manager

Part 4 here talks about how to plan for big projects and smaller projects

Part 5 here talks about how to make use of Contexts, Tags to Execute your tasks

Part 6 here discuss about how you can review projects better using iThoughts mind mapping software

In today’s article i will talk more about execution of tasks and how you do that with the help of contexts and tags.

So what are Contexts and Tags?

In a sense, contexts and tags are categories that you assign to your tasks or projects so that you can better manage them. The problem for most people is that no one gives them a systematic way or methodology of grouping things. Because of this, alot of people i know feels categories dun work.

The worse i seen are color categories in MS Outlook. The problem with that is, whenever you look at that category color, you starting thinking:

What did i tie that color to?

and then,

What should i be doing for the category that this color is tied to?

That is just a waste of brain power i feel.You take 2 steps in your head to finally come to review what you need to do. Most of the time, u take so long to remember what that color is for haha.

How David Allen Categorize is based on primarily 3 kinds of actionable task that you will do:

Location Based

These are categorized as location restrictions that stops you from doing other tasks that happens when you are in this context. Some Examples:

• @Errands
• @Commuting
• @Office
• @Home

I usually have these contexts on my Appigo ToDo Context instead of Tags. Why i use context is because context on Appigo ToDo is because you can only select one context and not multiple. So essentially it means,

If i am at the office, i cannot be at home

I thought for location based categories these are the best. A note is that some people would include an @Anywhere category for tasks that you can do anywhere. I don’t have that in mine as if I don’t select a context to filter or i don’t assign one, it automatically means i can do it anywhere.

Mode,Chunk Based

This is abit more tricky. David Allen describes that there are tasks that when you are in that category you can be more productive doing them at one go. Mine would include:

• @Waiting For
• @To Contact
• @Online w Computer
• @Project A
• @Project B

Some people schedule themselves or have a mind trigger to let them know that they are in such a mode or schedule work chunks like these. They don’t belong to a certain location but if you are reviewing what you are waiting for to be done so that you can reach your objective, you might as well look at what other bottlenecks are there. Same as for online with computer. if you are online, might as well finish all you can do online.

On Appigo ToDo, I use Tags for these, more as a preference since I leave the location based categories as Context and those that i would need to select multiple categories as Tags. So it means that i can select @Waiting for and @To Contact to see bottle necks and people necessary to contact.

People Based

These are categories of stuff that you would want to review with a particular individual or group of individuals. Some common ones are

• @Boss
• @Project Team A
• @Colleague A
• @Wife

So as you can see, they are not location but adhoc meet ups or arranged meet ups with people(s). On Appigo ToDo I use Tags (similar to Mode/chunk based tasks) so that i can select multiple people I have agendas with.

Schedule and Execute

This flow chart illustrates how you can make a decision about what are the steps that can take place in your typical day to get things done.

Having contexts and tags are well and good but how successful you are at doing it or executing the tasks and completing them is a matter of your understanding of yourself and your categories. I learn the hard way that doing and execution is important, if not work just keeps pilling up while you put so much contexts and tags that you spare little time in doing the actual work.

[Read the rest of this entry...]

Introduction

This is part of a series where i talk about my GTD experience and  my setup.

Part 1 here talks about my plan and overview of my GTD system

Part 2 here talks about why i eventually chose iPod Touch 2G as my main to do list console

Part 3 here talks about why i choose Appigo ToDo for iPhone as my main task manager

Part 4 here talks about how to plan for big projects and smaller projects

Part 5 here talks about how to make use of Contexts, Tags to Execute your tasks

Part 6 here discuss about how you can review projects better using iThoughts mind mapping software

In today’s article i will share with  you how I normally go about planning for tasks, projects and sub-projects.

Where are we now?

Ok, so in Part 1 I have presented this workflow chart which is how i would illustrate my collection, planning, processing and execution model.

Today, I will talk a fair bit on project planning. I skipped the collection portion cause I think this is a more complex portion of GTD thus i would explain more on this first.

What Constitutes as Projects?

When you collected an idea, piece of information or a probem, you decide if it is actionable. If it is, the key to decide if it is a project or a simple actionable task is how much steps you need to execute to reach your successful outcome.

Remember, thinking about your successful outcome is important, just like defining clear and manageable goals, it keeps you on the right direction on what you are suppose to do.

Personally, that was what is described about projects, but to me there is no hard and fast rule. Why this is important is because you need to break a task down to actionable steps.

If it is too complicated, you do not know how to start the blardy task and you end up procrastinating on it.

So for task that is named:

“Get Son a new bicycle”

It can be a very simple actionable step, like go downstairs go to the nearest bike shop and buy the bike. That is, if you already know what you are looking for.  But most of the times it is not so simple.

That simple task normally consist of:

1. Ask Son what kind of bicycle he likes
2. Find out how much your family have to pay for the bike (budgeting)
3. Research on where to buy the cheapest bike on the internet
4. Give son a look at the bike see if he likes it
5. Find out what to look out for if it is the first time you are buying a bike
6. Go down and buy the bike
7. Wait for the bike to be delivered to you

So, you see, our task may not be that simple at all.

Another small problem that maybe isn’t that small

In life, most of the time don’t end up the way you wanted it to turn out. Take the example that in your work as an IT engineer, you are suppose to solve a problem on your IT system you are supporting.

So again, the simple task will go something like this in your normal to do list:

“Solve why the entries do not show up on the procurement page.”

It is a simple task, if you investigated and found that a bug in your source code will delete off these entries when the user view it. So Simple

Or it could be you investigated and turn out that the entries don’t come just from your system but goes to another system and then back to your system.

Then it becomes a bigger problem that could go something like

1. Find out from database whether the entries are there
2. If database entries are there, investigate at source codes to find out if there is a problem with the codes
3. If your codes do not have a problem, find out if the other system did give us the right entries to combine to ours
4. If they didn’t inform the engineers from the other system to investigate and get back to you
5. Engineer gets back to you say that the problem is related to them but they do not have the expertise to fix it nor the budget
6. Inform your boss about this and discuss with him
7. Set up a meeting between the manager of both projects
8. more shit stuff
9. more shit stuff

Yes, sometimes our lives can get quite bad in IT line. but it is a good illustration and our friends in other industry can attest that one small problem can remain small but most times they just get bigger and bigger and take longer and longer.

The above 2 serves as examples of why certain task, you have to break them down into projects with actionable steps. Had they remain as the original task entry, you will not see what needs to be done. I can list down the steps to this xamples well because i have experience with them, but sadly not everything is like that. Making them actionable and asking “What is the next action?” would enable you to kick start the engine to perform the work.

[Read the rest of this entry...]

Introduction

This is part of a series where i talk about my GTD experience and  my setup.

Part 1 here talks about my plan and overview of my GTD system

Part 2 here talks about why i eventually chose iPod Touch 2G as my main to do list console

Part 3 here talks about why i choose Appigo ToDo for iPhone as my main task manager

Part 4 here talks about how to plan for big projects and smaller projects

Part 5 here talks about how to make use of Contexts, Tags to Execute your tasks

Part 6 here discuss about how you can review projects better using iThoughts mind mapping software

In today’s article i will share with  you guys the software to complete the iPod Touch picture which is Appigo ToDo list

Appigo ToDo

Before i got my iPod Touch, I have already decide which application to do list i would be using. This is after extensive research and comparison between Omnifocus,Things and other cheaper to do list.

Eventually these are the reasons that tilt me towards Appigo ToDo

1. Omnifocus backup and ubiquitous nature is only limited to desktop synchronization. Thats not good enough for me since my main computer is not a Mac but a Windows PC. I would much prefer that I can sync my to do list to a web application
2. Omnifocus cost 20 freaking bucks. When you look at the to do list application on the App Store it makes it hard to understand why it will cost 20 freaking bucks.
3. Things, although polished, have a big problem for me, no recurring task capability. you will always want an option where you can create a to do task that creates a “do 20 chin up for the week” task every saturday.
4. The reasons why i choose Appigo ToDo have alot to do with the Advantages listed next.

Projects and Sub-Tasks/Sub-Projects

One main difference about to do lists like these compared to outlook is that they are like mini project management applications. Most of our lives consist of small projects like

1. Enrolling your kid for the new year
2. Building your new personal computer
3. Taking over the new project
4. Secure the release of the set of documents

That’s what i normally require. Its either an Area of Responsibility or a Project to meet that area of responsibility.

Appigo ToDo allows you to have 2 levels of it. You can have Lists as your big project and Projects in your Lists as your sub projects.

The Lists are very clear. The first one is a list showing All your tasks in all your lists. The red tag shows the overdue ones and the gray tag shows the total. You can color tag each lists so that in your task it becomes easily distinguishable if you are the sort of visual person.

In your lists, you can denote one more level down which is your sub project. Very ideal for specifying mini projects. These sub projects are distinguishable by the tree icon.

One thing to note is that in these task view, you will only see the name of the sub project and not the tasks in your project. Some people will get annoyed by this and I can understand the technical limitation of it but i think it is a livable flaw. The grey tag shows the total number of tasks in the sub project and the red tag shows the number of sub tasks in the sub project that is due.

Note the due date listed below the task. For sub projects, you will see the most earliest due sub task’s due date. So in my “Building a iPhone app” project Sep 23 is the due date of my earliest due task.

Touching your sub project will bring you to your project view where you can add, update and delete your tasks.

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