January 2nd, 2008 in Featured, Productivity

Lifehack.org Readers’ Favorite GTD Apps

Last week, we asked:

What online productivity/organization application do you find essential, and why? What would you replace it with if it disappeared tomorrow?

I was surprised at how many people chose Google’s suite of productivity applications — Gmail, Google Docs, Google Calendar, iGoogle, and so on. I hadn’t really thought of these as “GTD apps”, per se, but thinking about it, it not only makes sense, but I realized that for a long time I’ve use these as my primary GTD applications as well.

After some playing around with various GTD-based services on the web, I retreated to my trusty Moleskine and a Treo synced with Outlook. To be honest, though, I don’t use the Treo’s productivity apps very much — I find the thumb keyboard horribly uncomfortable and awkward to use, and the loss of integrated handwriting support (after I’d spent years mastering Graffiti) makes the built-in keyboard the only way of using the Treo on the go. Yes, I’ve used the third-party Graffiti replacements, and yes, I have an external keyboard, but neither works particularly well.

Which leaves me with the problem of how to get stuff done when I’m away from home — and I’m away from home a lot. Like a large number of lifehack.org readers, I too have built up a system on Google’s applications that is the backbone of my productive existence. I use:

Google Docs for writing (lately replaced with Buzzword, though)
iGoogle widgets for todo lists, file access (with, for example, Box.net’s widget), phone messages (using Callwave’s widget), and of course accessing and creating documents using Google’s own Google Docs widget.
Gmail for email, naturally
Google Notebook for note-taking, but also for creating classroom presentations. I often have 5 or 6 videos, webpages, and other online materials I want to show my classes, so I use Notebook to capture and organize the links into the order I want to show them.
I don’t use Google Calendar, but I should — until fairly recently there was no good way to sync Outlook and Google Calendar, and there’s still issues when you add in the Treo (and while I don’t use the Treo much for lists and documents, I use the calendar function extensively — though I do most of my editing on Outlook, not the Treo itself).

Lately, I’ve committed to using Toodledo, which doesn’t sync with my Treo but offers a good mobile interface — and allows entry of tasks via Jott’s Links service. Which means I can enter new tasks via Jott’s incredibly accurate speech recognition/transcription, overcoming the limitations of the text entry on the Treo.

Another thing I like about Toodledo is that I can set up custom folders, which allows me to categorize my todo list by projects (a lot of GTD systems are built around the idea of contexts, which isn’t as useful for me). And it also allows me to ignore my categories — I can organize by date and just see the tasks I have to do today, regardless of what project they belong to. I like that flexibility.

If Toodledo disappeared, it would be pretty easy to move to another online todo list manager. They all have strengths and weaknesses, but rarely anything that would prevent me being able to use just about any of them. Right now, Remember the Milk is looking pretty good. And I’ve also been looking at Sandy a lot — that could be a good replacement, though I’m not sure I want my email to become my todo list.

Lifehack.org’s readers described a bunch of interesting systems they’ve put together around the various Google apps, along with their tips for using them:

Mark uses Gmail’s “starred item” feature to highlight items that need action.
Miche describes Google as “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 GTDInbox 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.
miss_mary says she appreciates that she can access her Google apps easily, from anywhere — useful for a university student.
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.
And James Marwood offers a warning to Google users: put a backup system in place. Google accounts can be hacked, corrupted, or accidentally deleted:
[R]emember 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

Other apps that people recommended included:

Diigo: Social bookmark/clipping system
DropBoks: Online file storage
iGTD: Mac-based GTD system
Joe’s Goals: Goal management
Jott: Transcribes your voice messages into text and forwards them to email, SMS, and various web services.
Kalendra: PC-based calendar and contact manager
Netvibes: customizable homepage
Nozbe: GTD system
OmniFocus: Mac-based task manager
Plaxo: contact manager and synchronizer
Remember the Milk: Todo list manager
Sandy: Automated reminder service
Tiinker: RSS feed reader and recommendation engine
Todoist: Todo list manager
Toodledo: Todo list manager
Vitalist: Todo list manager
Wrike: Task and project manager
Zotero: Bibliographic reference manager

Many of these were named both as people’s every use apps and as replacements, which suggests that the field of online productivity apps has developed to the point where nearly every task is covered by several good, effective, and almost always free or affordable applications. There’s a wide variety of good substitutes for nearly every app.

That’s good news for people who, like me, dream of the day when their work is accessible from anywhere, on any computer. Maybe it’s time to start thinking about GTD 3.0…

WRITER'S BIOGRAPHY

Dustin Wax

Dustin M. Wax is a freelance writer and project manager at Stepcase Lifehack. He is also the creator of The Writer's Technology Companion, a site devoted to the tools of the writing trade. When he's not writing, he teaches anthropology and gender studies in Las Vegas, NV. He is the author of Don't Be Stupid: A Guide to Learning, Studying, and Succeeding at College.

Follow him on Twitter: @dwax.

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47 Responses

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Jeff O'Hara says on January 2nd, 2008 at 10:59 am
I have been using Toodledo for quite a while now and love it. I am currently testing out remember the milk because of the new firefox extension for gmail, but already i’m seeing i’m going to switch back.
Karen says on January 2nd, 2008 at 11:15 am
I have to use Google for all of this. At work, I can download nothing, and although I have a stick with portable apps on it, I believe that the IT department or the administration would have a fit if I used it. I cannot sync anything to my palm since I cannot download any of the tools needed for that process. The outlook program they have us use is administered by the employer, therefore not of much use at home. So, Google it is!
We’re pretty far behind where I work, they are right to protect the system as there are a lot of careless computer users on staff, but things are rarely updated.
Gadget Badger says on January 2nd, 2008 at 11:41 am
I love iGoogle for the fact that it can be used as a dashboard for online life. Especially when paired with Google Notebook, Calendar and GMail – what more could you need.
I know there are other homepages, but as ever with Google it just works simply and effectively, mobile or desktop. Google’s reliability is what makes it acceptable for GTD, though I must admit I still use my moleskin when out and about.
I love iGoogle so much that my blog is dedicated to it.
http://www.gadgetbadger.com/
satyendra gupta says on January 2nd, 2008 at 12:08 pm
for syncing outlook and google calender you can use free application from http://www.syncmycal.com/
-
Satyendra
http://ceospeaks.mrkconsultancy.com
Elmer Thomas says on January 2nd, 2008 at 12:29 pm
I use a combination of RTM, Google Apps and HighRise. Just recently I added Plaxo, so that I can sync my contacts with my Pocket PC. For syncing my Google Calendar with my Pocket PC I use GooSync. I wrote about the details of my setup here: http://www.thinkingserious.com.....e-cabinet/
David says on January 2nd, 2008 at 1:11 pm
While I have tried many of the apps listed, including trying to integrate GTD into various Google Apps, I am very impressed with Toodledo. I have been using it for about a month now, and really find it to be useful. One of the functions I like most is the ability to sort via numerous categories, contexts, or other variables. The interface for my google homepage is wonderful as well. I considered abandoning it for Remember the Milk upon the release of their recent gmail integration firefox extension, but found that it just did not match up to Toodledo. Toodledo combines what I enjoy about web based solutions with the same concept of using a spreadsheet type tool. Plus it offers the ultra cool pocket mod print out tool – very nerd chic. Great post. I am interested to see how others will waste / save time with GTD in 2008. Hopefully my efforts result in getting more done than repeatedly setting up tasks:)
Dubber says on January 2nd, 2008 at 1:20 pm
I can’t possibly be the only person to have discovered Thinking Rock, can I? It’s a free bit of software out of Australia that implements GTD brilliantly. It’s multi-platform, brilliantly thought-out and even integrates with Mail and iCal (I’m on a Mac) so you can do clever things like send an email to a person you’re delegating a task to in a single click. About a 20 minute learning curve, and then you’ll wonder how you ever managed without it.
My Calendar is Google Calendar synced to iCal using gSync. Other people make appointments for me (my PA, for instance) so they can put them in Google Calendar, and it will automatically show up on the MacBook. That in turn syncs to my Windows mobile using ‘Missing Sync’.
Email (Gmail account IMAP’d in Mail) is processed out of my inbox through Thinking Rock (which, did I mention, is completely brilliant).
I’m not affiliated with any of these products, incidentally. I describe the internet to the independent music sector, and these have been some much-recommended tools.
Dustin Wax says on January 2nd, 2008 at 1:39 pm
Satyendra: Thanks for the recommendation. I’m trying out SyncMyCal, which seems to work pretty well — the issue will be if Outlook’s already dodgy performance syncing with the Treo is made worse by adding in yet another sync partner. I should note, though, that SyncMyCal isn’t really free — the trial version is seriously hindered: you can only sync the next and previous 3 days, which is practically useless. The paid version is $25.
Infosec says on January 2nd, 2008 at 1:46 pm
Dubber – I also use Thinking Rock. I think it is one of the better GTD apps; I have tried many for Mac and PC and I always go back to Thinking Rock. TR is fast, has a logical workflow, provides nice printable reports, etc. I have several Macs at home and a PC at work. Because it is cross-platform I can save the files on a USB drive and use it on any of my macs or my PC. It is freeware/donationware.
Paul Phillips says on January 2nd, 2008 at 3:01 pm
My life organized is a clever app for GTD
http://www.mylifeorganized.net/
KS says on January 2nd, 2008 at 6:20 pm
I was wondering what everyone thought about Thunderbird/Lightning/Sunbird vs Gmail/GCal vs Outlook as far as GTD goes? Microsoft figured out a long time ago that email and calendar go well together, and some newcomers (relatively speaking) have also. Just wondering which people use for GTD and why. Thanks!
P.S. Don’t forget about Piknick, Aviary, Zoho Suite and Mint. Great RIAs. (Rich Internet Applications).
Reese says on January 2nd, 2008 at 7:03 pm
You know online calendars and to do lists don’t really do anything for me; if anything I find them counter-productive.
I tried remember the milk for a few minutes (literally), then deleted my account. I felt like all the time I was taking to set it up and put tasks/reminders on the list was time I could be using to actually DO things on the list.
Good Ol’ pen and paper work best for me. I do however use Rainlendar desktop calendar, and sometimes mark an important date on it.
FX says on January 2nd, 2008 at 10:11 pm
I enjoyed it very much.
FX
Thanks！
tracy ho says on January 2nd, 2008 at 11:02 pm
Great tips for sharing,
Thank you
Tracy Ho
wisdomgettingloaded
Al at 7P says on January 2nd, 2008 at 11:36 pm
Re: SyncMyCal – I use this as well to sync up Outlook with gCal. An open-source alternative to SyncMyCal is RemoteCalendar (you can go to SourceForge to download).
Re: Tbird/SunBird – This is one of my killer GTD setup (using the Lightning add-on), and syncing is an important part of the setup. Coincidentally I blogged about it a couple of days ago on my site :)
nXqd says on January 3rd, 2008 at 6:24 am
Google notebook, notebook and pen. Keep your life simplfied :)
Juan says on January 3rd, 2008 at 9:09 am
After reading the post, which is very good, as usual, and then reading all the responses, I decided to try something with GMail.
I have found a way to use GMail as my To Do list and this is how I have done it.
I created new labels, like TODO: Work and then created a new filter, and told it to look at the email it was sent to.
Then I send an email from my gmail (testemail@gmail.com) account to the same gmail account, but I add this to the email address +todowork and the email address will look like this testemail+todowork@gmail.com.
So when I received the email, google will Label it TODO: Work and I told it not to show it in the inbox.
This way I can have multiple todo lists and have them NOT clutter up my inbox.
How does that sound? I am going to try it and see how I get on with it.
I hope I managed to explain myself properly!
Juan
Troy Malone says on January 3rd, 2008 at 12:41 pm
I use the GTD outlook addin and that works fine for my personal side. I think that GTD becomes a different animal when you are managing a number of people. I have found that you can’t mandate the study and implementation of David’s system. (believe me, I have tried!) But the question becomes “how do you bring a GROUP up a few notches in productivity?” I have found that implementing a group collaboration system works wonders in this regard. If for no other reason, it holds people accountable and keeps everything transparent. I hate learning about missed deadlines on the day of. I would rather manage through tough spots BEFORE they become an issue!
I am biased though…
Troy Malone
Chief Evangelist
http://www.pelotonics.com
ubergeek says on January 4th, 2008 at 2:02 am
I use http://www.ubernote.com It is a bit unstructured, but works well for my case of multiscatterbrainiteous.
Christian Hess says on January 5th, 2008 at 11:04 pm
Some time ago, my Gmail account was suddenly disabled, without any warning or explanation. Google support never bothered to answer my inquiries. Along with email, I lost access to my Google Groups, my Blogger site, my iGoogle page, etc. Therefore, out of painful experience, I would NEVER trust Google’s tools as my GTD system. For that, I use my Treo along with the Agendus desktop/handheld apps, as well as the ThoughtManager list manager.
Juan says on January 6th, 2008 at 6:05 am
Hi,
Good article as usual.
I have just started using Googlemail as my To Do list manager.
I have setup a Filter rule and a Label, the label is called 1-TODO:Work and the filter rule looks for an email sent to myemailaddress+todowork@gmail.com.
Once it received the email, it will label it 1-TODO: Work.
The easy thing about this is that you can send yourself an email within googlemail. So the email is from myemailaddress@gmail.com and its sent to myemailaddress+todowork@gmail.com.
Hope that helps someone.
Juan
Kate Hudson says on January 6th, 2008 at 12:41 pm
I tried a whole bunch of gtd style apps and didn’t find any I liked, so I built my own, http://goalorganiser.com. It is pretty basic as functions go, but it organises my next actions and suggests what I should do first which is something that helps me a lot.
Yon Lecander says on January 9th, 2008 at 12:52 pm
GTD is a great system, but it’s also true that everyone can customize it to make it even more effective. I do think that original GTD with paper files is in he past already. I substitute it with Wrike, you mentioned it in your post. Wrike is not a to-do list, it’s a project management tool, but it can be of great help with getting things done too. I use Wrike for collaboration with my team and I don’t see the point of using several applications, if I can use just one :)
nXqd says on January 22nd, 2008 at 4:00 am
I’ve tried and used a lot of electric tools but IT DOESN’T WORK. I come back with my notebook, I really love it. I love to organize my notebook to take note and create todo list :)
Great example:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/davegray/145761460
Swaroop says on January 22nd, 2008 at 4:09 am
I use Vim.
mirc says on January 24th, 2008 at 10:23 am
Thanks Best Regards
AGC says on January 25th, 2008 at 1:04 am
I usually have my own laptop with me. My best todo list is a Word document. I have a four-day school week with 1-2 classes per day, so I have a table (M-Th going across, early class/late class going down) with all my school commitments (assignments, readings, tests) in the table. I try to update that every week or so, keeping the next 2-3 weeks worth of information in that table.
Either above (last semester) or below (now) that table, I have all my other todos – errands I need to run, emails I need to write, calls I need to make, other misc. stuff. If I have something that is urgent, I’ll highlight it (yellow seems to stand out well enough).
For long-term reminders (including when library books are due), I use Outlook. If I know now that I’ll have to make a phone call on a certain date a few weeks away, I’ll put it in Outlook with a reminder – when it pops up, I’ll move it to the todo list.
I looked at Remember the Milk, but it would take too long to set up. My system works, so why play around?
indy says on January 28th, 2008 at 12:26 pm
i’ve started to test and use various interesting combinations of tools…
* rtm for gmail – a firefox plugin that integrates rtm in your gmail, both visually and f.ex attaches it to a label of your choice (like “todo”). when you label an email, an rtm task is created with a link to the email.
* todoist vs gmail – delegate to todoist is a firefox plugin that lets you create a todoist task with a link to the email in question. there’s also a js shortcut that accomplishes the same. a todoist task has a link that opens a tab/window with the email/ conversation in question (like the “new window” link from gmail)
* todoist vs launchy – launchy has a todoist plugin that provides you with a shortcut to add a task in todoist. f.ex, i can type the following to create a task: alt-space (for launchy popup), ‘to’ + tab key (for todoist auto-complete), ‘add “today > test task” to “my project”‘, enter-key.
* palm (treo) vs airset vs g-calendar – airset has a sync application that can be used against palm desktop, and in turn has ical feeds that can be fed to g-calendar.
* igoogle has widgets for gmail, todoist, rtm, joesgoals, dontbreakthechain, nozbe, gcalendar, google bookmarks, google reader, etc… the widgets for rtm, g-bookmarks, g-reader can have categories or labels specified, so i have several instances of those widgets…
it goes without mention that i use igoogle for my “productivity homepage” – it gives me a nice overview of today’s and overdue tasks (todoist), the latest email (gmail), my next actions/ tasks in selected projects (nozbe), how i’m doing on my habits (joesgoals, dontbreakthechain), and my calendar today and tomorrow (g-calendar).
there’s a lot of interesting tips on tools here – personally i would like to know how you can combine these tools with other stuff, especially igoogle…
Anthony says on March 17th, 2008 at 10:02 pm
I recommend checking 5pm – http://www.5pmeb.com.
This is one of the latest web-based project management services our there.
The interface is very unique. Everything is within a click or two.
Integrates with email, RSS, iCal. Also has an interactive Timeline.
mirc says on June 19th, 2008 at 6:17 pm
You know online calendars and to do lists don’t really do anything for me; if anything I find them counter-productive.
I tried remember the milk for a few minutes (literally), then deleted my account. I felt like all the time I was taking to set it up and put tasks/reminders on the list was time I could be using to actually DO things on the list.
Good Ol’ pen and paper work best for me. I do however use Rainlendar desktop calendar, and sometimes mark an important date on it.
mırc says on June 19th, 2008 at 6:18 pm
Thanks Best Regards
k says on June 23rd, 2008 at 9:48 am
Hey mate, I am using iCal on my MacBook in combination with NextAction! on my BlackBerry. Works pretty well. In case you are interested I could write a review for you on this :)
禁煙マン says on October 3rd, 2008 at 2:40 am
先物取引
 禁煙
toplist says on October 26th, 2008 at 12:42 pm
thnak you
gomlek says on October 26th, 2008 at 12:42 pm
thank you
Dan says on October 27th, 2008 at 8:25 am
I recommend http://www.gtdagenda.com
You can use it to manage your goals, projects and tasks, set next actions and contexts, use checklists, schedules and a calendar.
A mobile version and iCal are available too.
Lida Dai Dai Hua Jiao Nang Seo Yarışması says on December 9th, 2008 at 8:25 am
thanks
mırc says on February 5th, 2009 at 5:24 am
I tried remember the milk for a few minutes (literally), then deleted my account. I felt like all the time I was taking to set it up and put tasks/reminders on the list was time I could be using to actually DO things on the list.
Good Ol’ pen and paper work best for me. I do however use Rainlendar desktop calendar, and sometimes mark an important date on it.
Ligtv izle says on April 5th, 2009 at 1:09 am
You know online calendars and to do lists don’t really do anything for me; if anything I find them counter-productive.
I tried remember the milk for a few minutes (literally), then deleted my account. I felt like all the time I was taking to set it up and put tasks/reminders on the list was time I could be using to actually DO things on the list.
Good Ol’ pen and paper work best for me. I do however use Rainlendar desktop calendar, and sometimes mark an important date on it.
Ash Menon says on April 11th, 2009 at 1:12 am
I sync Outlook with Toodledo, since I don’t use the calendars, just the TodoList. Personally I find Outlook to have the best TodoList / Task management system out there, among the desktop based ones.
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