In Search of the Perfect GTD Tool

So here I found myself working at a software engineer's dream - Google - and the flood of to-dos coming in by email now made my Hipster PDA hopelessly inadequate. But now what to do? Abandon myself to the chaos that is, for many people, the email inbox? Tell everyone that I won't do anything unless they write it down on a 3x5 index card? Quit my job? Of course not. Instead, I searched for a better tool.

Just try googling some combination of GTD, software, tools, and getting things done. You will find more automated GTD solutions than you could possibly write down on an index card. Every little web app that allows you to hold a list of things suddenly calls itself GTD software. How could I possibly sort through them all?

In my compulsively methodical style, I started from the beginning: What was it that I really needed and wanted? I made a list of my "requirements." It looked something like this, in approximate order of need:

• effective time and task management
• email integration
• low or no cost
• offline access
• accessible from more than one PC (via data synchronization or web solution)
• a GTD-like paradigm
• access from my iPhone

The top priority, of course, was effective time and task management. That's what it's all about! I put GTD-like paradigm near the bottom because I am not a GTD fanatic; as long as the system made me more productive it could use a butterscotch pudding paradigm for all I care. I did need the tool to be accessible from more than one PC because I wanted to have the same data with me when I am at work and at home. (After all, I sometimes do work stuff at home and home stuff at work.) And I put iPhone access at the bottom of the list because I thought it would be a nice-to-have.

Given 20-20 hindsight, I see how utterly naive that list was! After I selected a tool and had worked with it for a while, I found that offline access became less important with iPhone access. In fact, iPhone access should have been second or third on my list. Also, something gravely important was missing from the list. Can you guess what it is? Product stability and vendor reliability should have fought iPhone access for second or third priority. That's the first thing they teach you in enterprise software services 101: stability and reliability outweigh almost all other considerations. And I forgot that to my own regret.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. I took this list (as it was) and put it in a spreadsheet. But not just any spreadsheet. I put it in a Google Docs spreadsheet from my personal gmail account and then invited my Google email address as a collaborator. That way I could work on the document from home or from work without any synchronization issues. The items on my requirements list became column headings in the spreadsheet.

Then I started sifting through Google search results to compile a list of products that looked like good candidates. For each product returned by my search, I went to its home page and gave it a very quick look. I read the product features page (if there was one), I looked at screen shots, and sometimes registered and tried out the tools for a minute or two. After that brief review, I went with my gut: Does this look fun to use, and does it look like it will do what I need?

When I had 20 prospects that passed my gut-reaction test, I decided enough is enough. I listed those candidates down the rows in my spreadsheet. Those candidates were:

iGTD	http://www.igtd.pl/iGTD/iGTD2/index.html
GTDInbox	http://gtdinbox.com/
Things	http://culturedcode.com/things/
Midnight Inbox	http://www.midnightbeep.com/index2.html
Kinkless GTD	http://kinkless.com/kgtd
OmniFocus	http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/omnifocus/
Thinking Rock	http://www.thinkingrock.com.au/
Vitalist	http://www.vitalist.com/
Nozbe	http://nozbe.com/
Backpack	http://backpackit.com/
Tadalists	http://www.tadalist.com/
Tracks	http://www.rousette.org.uk/projects/
Tracks Exchange	http://tracks.morphexchange.com/
Personal Tracks	http://www.personaltracks.com
Tracks Train	http://tracks.tra.in/
SimpleGTD	http://simplegtd.com/
Mojonote	http://mojonote.com/
Tasktoy	http://www.evernote.com
Todoist	http://todoist.com/
Evernote	http://www.evernote.com

I won't try to explain or evaluate these tools here. If you're interested, explore them yourself. Suffice it to say here that after trying these out for an hour or so each, I decided that GTDInbox was just what I needed.

I had great hopes for GTDInbox. Too bad it didn't work out for me.