Things

[Hugh]

cw

Juggle does seem a nice digital wall-planner with all the functions one might need for working out and setting out one's writing work-plan - and an order of magnitude cheaper and much less complex than, say, Omniplan or Merlin.

H

[crimewriter]

Thanks, Hugh.

Maybe I'll continue with my well-thumbed working method: start first thing in the morning with large pot of headbanger coffee, then sit down at desk and get on with writing novel. (I've just completed Number 17 and it should be published next year, so this might be a reasonable way of doing it.) I always have the feeling that other people know something I don't, though.

cw

[antony]

Maybe I'll continue with my well-thumbed working method

I only wish I had that luxury!

The main reason I use GTD (apart from helping keep track of the business side) is that I normally have between 3 and 6 books or series on the go simultaneously. It's not for everyone, and by the sounds of it, you don't need it. But those of us who do are very grateful for it

[Maria]

Maria, I use Taskpaper as a simple to-do list. I jot down things as they occur to me, mostly in the project labelled 'Today'. Things works best as a visual representation of what I have to do for the next six months.

Back to work.
Oh, it's lunchtime.
cw

Here we already had dinner, and a good-night whiskey...

I agree, there are different main purposes in those 2 apps. In TaskPaper I work with tags to get a little structure for those task I really should work on (tags for days, people concerned and places), and I glad am to observe that I _use_ the "system" in my actual life.

Thjs wonderful implicity means, some would-be nice features are of course missing. I hope to find similar simplicity and better organisation of more complex tasks / projects in Things.

Have a nice rest of the day,
Maria

[Hugh]

Thanks, Hugh.

Maybe I'll continue with my well-thumbed working method: start first thing in the morning with large pot of headbanger coffee, then sit down at desk and get on with writing novel. (I've just completed Number 17 and it should be published next year, so this might be a reasonable way of doing it.) I always have the feeling that other people know something I don't, though.

cw

Me too. In my case, I'm usually right.

About the book: I hope you'll tell us about it, and the other sixteen, when the moment is appropriate.

[Ahab]

I second the recommendation for Task Paper. Very simple list-keeper on the surface; quite sophisticated with lots of fiddly bits for Those Who Must. I tried iGTD and OmniFocus, having gone looking for something to replace the dead-in-the-water Mori, and found Task Paper to be the best manager for my fairly simple way of listing the things that must get done--book writing, magazine writing, magazine editing, unnecessarily complicated life with tasks from gardening to house-building to wood-harvesting.

[Prion]

Things is, IMO, Tracks' (http://www.rousette.org.uk/projects/) good looking cousin with two important differences:

runs locally (without having to fiddle around with Locomotive etc.)
Tags, really useful implementation
you can reorder everything manuallly (Tracks only allows sorting of contexts, not tasks)

Ok, that's three differences but nobody expects the spanish inquisition, right?

Very cleanly laid out, some task are ugly enough by themselves already so there's no need to make the messenger equally unattractive in my opinion

I find the date handling confusing, checkboxes etc I would like natural language (next wednesday) or a date picker much better.
I would appreciate better support for keyboarders like myself

Recurring tasks, well I used to think I needed that sort of thing in a task manager, but in the meantime I found I actually *want* to keep that apart from my Tasklist.
The Remind tool does whatever I need and much more. Emphasize much. You can sync that with iCal and make adopting it into Things (or whatever you are using) part of the review routine. There's a nice Textmate bundle available, too. I always wanted to know how Textmate produces this extra nice looking HTML (at least that's what I think the remind month representation is) but been to busy doing other stuff. Anybody?

Maybe this little extra work helps postponing digital ...eh, what was it called... Amnesia? Must have forgotten the term, so probably doesn't work. Good night everyone and good morning, Maria
Prion

[Siren]

Thanks for the info on Things' current inability to handle repeating tasks, everyone. I think I'll stick with OmniFocus until that feature is implemented, then I'll look at Things (which does, otherwise, look very attractive). I have no trouble in remembering to do big one-off tasks - it's all the tedious, dull, recurring ones that I need to be reminded about.

[ptram]

While I try Things, I continue using iGTD, as I've been doing for the latest months. I'm also trying to use OmniFocus, from time to time, but cannot get into it. Despite the very pleasant appearance, it doesn't seem to understand the way I work.

For example, I've several committents. For each of them, I create a folder in the Project inbox. Inside each committent's folder, I open a sub-folder for each working project. This subfolder contains my tasks:

- Committent1
---Project1
-----Plan
-----Write
-----Edit
-----Translate
---Project2
...

I can't see a way of doing the same with OmniFocus. Both the Project and Context inbox seem to me flat, not allowing sub-folders. How do you deal with this?

Paolo

[Tripper]

You can have subprojects in OF. Simply Indent a task to turn it into a Super task with subtasks.

You can also have grouped contexts. EG I have several under Errand and several grouped under mac.

[AmberV]

To do that in OmniFocus, you would create a Folder at the top level for commitment, which does not need actions in it directly. Folder types let you store projects and other folders within them. Projects in OmniFocus are more like the traditional usage of the word, and not GTD projects, which are simply any tasks requiring more than one step to accomplish. So projects cannot be nested. If further levels of nesting in the library are required, than folder sections can be set up. I have a few areas of responsibility that had folders of projects within folders of projects. But in general I try to keep the list as flat as possible. I'd rather have things visible than hidden under layers of separation.

OmniFocus projects populate the auto-completion field when creating new tasks. So, you wouldn't actually want all of those low level projects you listed to be globally available in auto-complete, especially since there will be many instances of those items in different projects! OF is set up to accommodate that by using standard outlining techniques to further break projects down, allowing more strict GTD usage within them.

Say you fill out your project with 10 tasks on the first pass, and then go back and analyse to make sure you do not have complex tasks with multiple requirements that could become a snag once you start working. Click on the trouble task, press Cmd-Shift-] to create a child, and develop that out as a GTD project. For example, "Plan" in your list is probably composed of many different specific things that need to be done, different for every single writing project. If not, you can just leave it as a complex static thing in your head and go with it, otherwise you can expand it out without fear of cluttering the Library sidebar and auto-completion pop-up.

I prefer this outlining method to iGTD's project/task dichotomy because it allows for easier flexibility. Making sub-projects is as easy as indenting tasks. If you decide a sub-project is become complex enough to have its own space in the Library, just drag the task over and drop it. It becomes an OF project! Inverse is also true. Drag an OF project into a another project and it will become an outliner based sub-project. I know, you can do this kind of conversion in iGTD, but to me it does not feel as fluid. Plus, I'd rather keep GTD style projects in the main working area, than cluttering up the project sidebar.



This is how I would set it up. Note I'm using mixed project styles to accomplish the way I would approach this project. The top level "Project 1" is set to allow all tasks to be available immediately (no strict next actions). This is indicated by the two parallel arrows on the right. I've set up the Plan sub-project likewise, because research points and other planning things needn't be done sequentially. But Writing I've left as a sequential project. Step 1 of Chap. 1 must be completed, and all of Chap. 1 must be completed before Chap 2. Of course, one would probably approach this phase non-sequentially as well--I just wanted to show how you can have mixed types in a single project. Everything that is grey and italic will not show up in working views where "Available" is the filter. So if you just want to concentrate on what you *can* do at the moment, you can filter this view to only show black and purple items. Or, you can set it up to only show the purple item, the next action, and work in a strict GTD fashion.

The choice to use Outliner style sub-projects or Library projects in the sidebar is up to the user. Do you want these things in auto-complete lists, coming up for weekly reviews, and so on? If so, just drag them over into the Library list and turn them into projects. I prefer to keep the Library as minimal as possible. But that is just my working preference.

[exegete77]

Thanks for all the information. Amber your last post was very helpful.

Now, I will be switching jobs in the near future, and will be working in a mostly Windows environment. Is there any type of equivalent of OmniFocus (and OmniPlan) that works cross-platform?

[Tripper]

Thinking Rock is platform independent and can apparently work on a USB stick.

http://www.thinkingrock.com.au/

And it's free...

[Timotheus]

And here yet another one: Midnight Inbox .

[Tripper]

I'm not sure Midnight Inbox works in Windows...