Forging a New System

Note: This post is over a year old. You may want to check later in this blog to see if there is new information.

It’s been a weird week. I found together just when I needed it. And I had reached a point of frustration with Leopard problems in iGTD and had gone looking for other solutions only to find none. 1 hour after I gave up the public alpha of OmniFocus was released. I pre-registered for a license (good deal). Then Bartek announces iGTD2 with some screenshots/casts today and things are looking pretty competitive again. I just want one system I can trust and love! I’ve found my divorce rate with mac apps is about 90% and my typical relationship length is about a year. Development cycles and my interest level and needs tend to get out of phase at some point. Once I’ve settled into a new routine, I’ll be revisiting some of my productivity posts to talk about more current affairs. In the meantime, I’ll be trying to get to know OmniFocus better…

The biggest problem I’m finding in my new system is Together’s lack of ability to create external links. I’m integrating OmniFocus, VoodooPad Pro and Together (as well as a strong dose of Leopard-powered Spotlight indexing), and the former two play great with each other, and both can pop links into Together and each other, but I can’t link to a Together item. Not to mention it lacks any Applescript support, which both of the other programs have in good supply.

I’m also figuring out efficient ways to tie together my existing online group productivity apps with my personal ones. I have a litany of requests for our wiki provider and a few for our project manager. I think both will be responsive, so I just have to figure out exactly what it is I need :).

Ultimately, I’ve come to realize that there may never be a one-size-fits-all app that can handle the complete realm of task and project management as well as information archival and group it all together. I’m alright with having separate applications dedicated to each area, as long as they can link to each other. Once I get the wrinkles in this system worked out, I’ll share what I’ve learned and see what other suggestions I can get!

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3 Comments

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  1. Sigurdur Armannsson 11.19.07 / 5am

    I too bought a license for OmniFocus, one for my main mac and another for my laptop. It’s still buggy but should be working fine at release time. Let’s hope so.

    But I have not given up on iGTD and the new version looks very promising. iGTD is my main GTD app at the moment and I can live with the bugs for a little bit more time.

    There is also a new kid in town, Things. (www.culturedcode.com/things/). Still in alpha or beta but is also worth attention. Very nice looking app.

    I hope that by end of January all those apps will have been released and one can finally decide what to use.

  2. Ian Beck 11.19.07 / 1pm

    If you’re interested in Things, I actually just published a screencast preview of the current alpha version:

    Things alpha preview

    I saw this post in my RSS feeds as I was finishing up the screencast, which was pretty funny for me. I’ve been going through the same problems with figuring out which task manager to use, but Things has me pretty excited.

  3. brett 11.19.07 / 1pm

    I’m downloading the screencast as I write this ;). I’ll more than likely link it from a main post later today. I’m looking forward to Things and have been on the waiting list for months now…

    I think the thing that I like most about OmniFocus is their understanding of the GTD method and focus on creating a viable commercial application. It will take more experimentation to see if I can be as productive with it as I’ve been with iGTD.

    I guess I’m torn between being really excited about the array of choices coming up, or being scared that I’ll spend more time experimenting than actually getting anything accomplished. We’ll see. I’ve always enjoyed developing my systems as much as actually using them ;).

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