We Ask, You Answer: GTD 2.0

Brian says on December 24th, 2007 at 9:12 am

My most essential online tools are igoogle and gmail. These form the basis of my digital computer desk and almost all of my day-to-day work flows through these pages in some fashion. Lately, the Remember the milk application add-on for gmail has been very good too.

If I didn’t have these I would probably have to resort to my hotmail account along with netvibes.com.

Mark says on December 24th, 2007 at 9:37 am

I too am a google fan. I keep my inbox down to a few starred items that need action, and (more for distraction reduction than productivity improvement) I use google reader to quickly scan through lots of different websites in very little time.

I use google’s spreadsheets to track shopping lists and costs, google calendar to track birthdays and plan holidays. I share these with my wife to ‘collaborate’ on these things.

Oh, it gets longer. I also use picasa/picasaweb, blogger, maps, etc., etc. It’s not that I think google apps are the best, its just that I don’t see the point in ’shopping around’ when I know google apps will be ‘good enough’, reliable and free.

Kiran Kon says on December 24th, 2007 at 9:46 am

I have moved back to a largely paper based system having ran through the whole gamut of GTD tools. I have migrated from RememberTheMilk (http://www.rememberthemilk.com) back to a stack of index cards aka “Hipster PDA”. However, the one service I can’t move away from is IWantSandy (http://www.iwantsandy.com). The convenience of being able to send items in when I am at a computer or with my Blackberry is just unbeatable. For me it’s an terrific alternate medium for GTD’s “Inbox” to my index cards. If it disappears tomorrow, I will just have to make do with either an extra index card in my hipster PDA or with my trusty old Olympics Digital Recorder.
(Related : http://www.themiddleclassguy.c.....-poic.html)

Miche says on December 24th, 2007 at 9:52 am

Google - period. Gmail, iGoogle, Calendar, Notebook, Docs, and Reader, all plugged in to my Google Desktop (except Gmail) and Firefox. Google is my complete GTD system.

I use Gmail to receive my daily agenda, which I fill out every night before going to bed in Calendar, and GTDInboz to manage my tasks. iGoogle keeps my daily to-do and research tools. Notebook keeps my lists and snippets for stories. Reader helps me find stories, in conjunction with RSS feeds from Google saved searches. When I’m “offline”, I use Desktop as my productivity hub, otherwise my Firefox plugins do the trick.

If I had to replace this system, I’d likely use Remember The Milk with Mail.com (although I can’t imagine switching back to Mail, I’ve been using Gmail for 7 years now). Calendar would be replaced with Kalendra, Notebook with Diigo, Docs with the online Open Office, and Reader with Tiinker (although I use Tiinker now too - it’s great for fleshing out stories).

David Reber says on December 24th, 2007 at 10:22 am

I’ve got to agree on the Google products. Gmail, Gcal, and Google Documents in concert with my Motoroloa Q9C have been great tools in my GTD system. I’ve never used Notebook but it looks like something that will help me keep track of some of the blog posts for future reference (thanks Miche!).

Todor says on December 24th, 2007 at 10:24 am

Definitely Google products - Gmail+Calendar+Notebook+Picasa.

I also work with Remember the Milk, intergrated in Gmail via Greasemonkey.

miss_mary says on December 24th, 2007 at 11:04 am

My fav apps are google calendar as well as gmail.

As someone who works full time and goes to University, I really appreciate Google calendar. Google calendar is very user friendly and you can also print things out quite easily. The reminder as well as the weather options of Google calendar are great also. It is very nice to use Google calendar to organise all of your obligations. And, you can also print out a daily guide to your day very easily.

I also really like g mail. I have two gmail accounts: one for friends and family as well as one for business and schooling. I had no choice but to obtain gmail, because my old e mail address was quite old and somehow became a giant mess of spam. For politeness sake, I will not be sharing with anyone what my old e mail was hosted on, but it was with one of the first companies to offer free e mail addys. Since I hadn’t a choice but to cancel my old e mail addy, I just wound up going straight to gmail and have been very happy ever since.

I kinda like Google Docs, just because I can save my work “virtually” and that helps the memory of my computer out. However, when my family and I buy a new computer in the New Year, I am going straight to Open Office - because I really need a humble Equation Editor.

James Marwood says on December 24th, 2007 at 11:07 am

This did happen to me. I changed companies which forced me into using a very locked down laptop - no more whatsnextapp or tracks. Then I had my gmail account hacked and lost all access to my google account. Docs, mail, blogger, notebook, igoogle, reader all gone. Google did nothing to help and so I have been forced to look again at how I organise my self.

I have moved to a more distributed, redundant way to store my data. I have got a SB memory stick with most of what I need on it - firefox and whatsnextapp for the basics, plus document storage and back-up office applications, just in case. I have netvibes set up as my homepage and reader replacement and I now have a paid for email service. I am still using gmail to grab that pop3 mail, but it also goes to my mac and my PC. Both of those are backed up daily, so should be safe. Finally I now use plaxo for my contacts and calendar. This is synced with my mac and PC, and via those to my ipod and phone.

With all these potential interfaces I have to be very careful to limit myself to making changes through only one interface. That is plaxo when I am on the road and the mac when at home.

I agree with the posters above that Google make some awesome products and they can be used to run everything. However remember that this is all dependant on that google account and if you lose that, you lose everything else. This is VERY painful and there is nothing that really can be done other than starting again. By all means use Google but keep everything backed-up elsewhere.

Jeff O'Hara says on December 24th, 2007 at 11:47 am

I am a big fan of http://toodledo.com Nice firefox extension, google calendar integration, imified intigration, igoogle widget, and more.

-Jeff

Darrel Girardier says on December 24th, 2007 at 11:56 am

For me, it is all about jott.com. My ability to add on the fly and then have it go directly to my inbox is priceless.

Ras4 says on December 24th, 2007 at 1:20 pm

Todoist.com is the one I use to apply my GTD. Easy to customize to suit the GTD system, a calendar and can integrate with my gmail. Good bye Google Notebook

Rick says on December 24th, 2007 at 3:25 pm

Toodledo (http://toodledo.com) has it all for me. Their iPhone and Firefox integration has made me tons more productive.

touch0ph says on December 24th, 2007 at 4:28 pm

iGTD for Mac OS X has been an enormous help to me. I started using the application without even knowing what GTD was heh. iGTD is freeware and the author just asks for donations. iGTD feature: prioritize, progress bar, notes, projects and sub-projects

gmail has been one of my collection devices as well as a voice recorder and a Moleskine notebook (they hold up very well.

nXqd says on December 24th, 2007 at 7:43 pm

I currently use RMTM, but I think notebook and pen work better

Jake says on December 24th, 2007 at 9:35 pm

I use todoist as well. Awesome app, great mobile interface that I use as a sidebar as well. I like that it also acts as an outlining app as well. Provides some nice functionality that specific apps like RtM don’t do to well with (though RtM is looking rather enticing these days…)

Joe’s Goals is a nice app for cyclic activities. Netvibes is my portal and I use google office apps because of the email integration.

Zotero is pretty awesome for research and papers too!

Sean O says on December 24th, 2007 at 10:37 pm

I currently use toodledo. I moved to it from Nozbe, which I liked a LOT. And when I only have access to email, like at work, Iwantsandy saves me a lot of time.

DWarrior says on December 25th, 2007 at 3:15 am

Still in infant stages, but I’m trying to install GTD in my life as a habit.

As my main apps, I use Vitalist+Google Calendar. For my digital inboxes, I use Jott linked to Vitalist, so I can record all my thoughts as they come without having to pull out pen and paper, and they’ll show up when I’m by the computer. I also have Google Notebook Firefox Extension that lets me Clip pages and text bits when I’m surfing the web and decide something needs action or review (for reference, I use delicious bookmarks which are a convenient way to have all my bookmarks without having to sync stuff).

I keep my iGoogle very simple, I have my Inbox (Google Notebook Gadget), the weather, a clock, Dictionary’s word of the day, and Aristotle’s QoTD. I might even narrow it down further, but for now I think it’s ok and not too cluttered.

I also have a handy USB drive with my Portable Firefox with all necessary extensions/settings along with a bunch of other programs.

The other tools I use regularly are GMail (which has special labels for emails pertaining to pending projects), Google Docs (keep track of my timesheets), and DropBoks for file storage.

Basically, the nucleus of my organization is Vitalist, which seems to be holding my stuff together for now. Without it, I would be looking into other alternatives, like Nozbe or maybe ThinkingRock for my USB stick, basically anything that would allow me to follow the GTD system and be able to do reviews from anywhere, since I now spend most of my waking hours out of the house. I also experimented with an online mindmap for GTD on Mindomo (using Relationship arrows to link projects with Next Actions, which unfortunately got too clunky once I put in all my stuff).

If Google Calendar weren’t available, I could probably use any of the million other calendar services offered, as I don’t really use any advanced features that aren’t offered by other developed systems. In fact, once I get a more versatile phone that allows me to enter calendar data using a PC, I’ll probably switch to its calendar.

@Stephen | Productivity in Context says on December 26th, 2007 at 9:02 am

I use pencil and paper for my daily lists, and a calendar of my own design for my hard landscape. Projects are brainstormed on a sheet I found at Corrie Haffly’s blog, then transferred to Wrike for tracking/implementation and sharing.
For E-mail, I use Thunderbird as my laptop client, on a USB stick, it retrieves mail from my Gmail account and from my hosted accounts. I am migrating away from Gmail, and have already left Gcal, due to the fact that I can control the hosted accounts better.

@Brian says on December 27th, 2007 at 9:41 pm

iPhone. Signed up for iNozbe. I can now update my Next action list from anywher, check off completed items, etc… iNozbe works pretty fast even over Edge. I was almost going to give my phone to my wife, then found tha app. Now am looking to “Upgrade” my everyday carry laptop to a macbook.

Kyle Wiebers says on December 28th, 2007 at 12:00 pm

I like to use a more digital approach because being a college student most of my work is done either on a computer or online. This gives me prime access to my system that I have set up. I use Remember the Milk to manage my lists that I have set up. I chose RTM because of the different ways you can add tasks and because you can add information to each task. I have Jott set up to add tasks, along with Gmail extension and the Google Calender subscription of the items due dates. This system works well and I am reminded about what I need to do and can easily add things by phone, email, or any of the other interfaces RTM has set up. It works really well for me and I’d recommend it to anyone else.

Sarah Rainsberger says on December 29th, 2007 at 8:15 am

Just because no one’s mentioned it yet, OmniFocus is a wonderful GTD application for the Mac. Much more flexible than iGTD. (We started there, then switched to OmniFocus.)

Otherwise, Google for just about everything else.

Eric says on December 31st, 2007 at 2:50 am

GTD Outlook plug-in + Exchange + Papyrus on Motorola Q using over the air exchange Active sync

Alexandre says on December 31st, 2007 at 3:36 am

Google (Gmail + Calendar), RTM, delicious and Firefox. Without them I’m not much of an organized person. They also helped me a lot migrating from Windows to MacOS.

Ian says on January 2nd, 2008 at 9:21 pm

I had a good look around trying a few (especially Omnifocus) before deciding on an online GTD app and I am now using http://www.Toodledo.com. It syncs with iCal, Google Calendar, my RSS reader, it also emails me my to do list each day, and I can access and update Toodledo on my mobile phone. Most of it is free too!

I have also had a look at http://www.goalorganiser.com which is a much smaller one-woman business, it’s well designed with a great interface and a well designed focus on next actions, but lacks the features of Toodledo.

neatnoi says on January 3rd, 2008 at 10:27 pm

I’m using ourofficeportal.com (free web app) to manage my daily tasks at work. There are so much information that i have to organize and share with my boss and colleagues…docs and calendars… trust me, this portal helps.

Unless there is another application that allow me to share calendar and have similar or enhanced office tools to increase my productivity at work, guess i won’t switch.
What online productivity/organization application do you find essential, and why? What would you replace it with if it disappeared tomorrow?

airwhale says on January 9th, 2008 at 8:53 am

I too use many of the Google products. My GtD setup is based around a number of Notebooks. The tagging, the simplicity, the Firefox extension and the easy access from any computer makes it a superb fit for way of collecting, processing and organizing.

I recently also moved to GMail from Thunderbird, and like it well so far. Of course, with the inbox at zero each day, I spend considerably less time than before in my mail-app.

For work-stuff, I also need to keep Lotus Notes up to date, so the ability to invite my other email-self to meetings is a feature I use a lot.

Roachy says on July 8th, 2008 at 10:48 am

I use MonkeyGTD - it’s a bit convoluted to set up in the first instance, but it’s amazing. Ditched iGoogle as it’s too much of a productivity drain (I find the urge to add Digg, gmail etc to the iGoogle desktop too much!). Use Evolution as a mail client frontend to Exchange calendar, notes and mail…