GTD-applications are very popular at the moment: there are many (imho even too many) of them, and they all promise to bring order into our chaotic lives and to increase our feeble productivity.
But … do we really need a separate application for this? In my view, it wouldn’t be difficult to turn Scrivener into a perfect GTD-application. Just two new features would be needed: the possibility to add a start date and a due date to each document, and the possibility to arrange documents by these dates. And there is no need to say that such dating features would be very convenient too for those who intend to use Scrivener only for writing, for all serious writers have activities to plan and deadlines to respect.
Is this an absurd idea, or perhaps an idea worth considering?
If you want a good, “flat” GTD program, take a look at TaskPaper. It’s cheap, and about as purist as you can get, and as easy to maintain and plan as typing. Since the files are pure text, you can easily drop in relevant sections into the Binder. And, since the format is text only, any changes you make in Scrivener can be dropped back into TaskPaper.
Based on your comments about Taskpaper from another thread I downloaded the program. It is, indeed, a nice, simple application. It seems as if it would also be a good application for notetaking, especially in a meeting…
Like you, I am cross-platform and I’m curious about how the PC version, Todopaper, works. The web site for downloading that application is down, so I’m wondering if you use it and what your experience is. Thanks!
I wish I could help you out, but my alternate platform is Linux, so I really couldn’t tell you how good the Windows version is. I have been using the Vim macros whenever I am not around a Mac.
Being an avid user of Omnifocus (one of the many GTD app on the Mac), I really don’t think Scrivener should be asked to do GTD or any kind of “life / work planning”. It may be me, but it just does not feel right. Scrivener is all writing-related, as is its outliner : it relates to a specific writing project. Now, all projects in your life / work are not writing-related, and even those that are usually need some phone calls to be made, people to be met, email to be sent, etc…
That has nothing to do with the writing part, yet you would want to keep that kind of information in each project’s .scriv file anyway ?
And then what would you do if you have several projects going at once ? Then you would need a specific .scriv file to centralize your tasks from all projects, or else you’d defeat one of the main strength of GTD : the contexts, grouping actions from different projects under a common context. The only reason I can see of using Scrivener here would be to save a few bucks. But when you rely heavily on GTD to manage your workload and achieve many projects at once, saving a few bucks is not a smart option and you’re better off buying a real GTD app.