New perspective on GTD tools

I’ve been using Todoist for some time, & just love it! It’s simple, but not too simple (like To-done). It’s powerful, but has great interface, optimized for fast & efficient work. It has very useful views, reminders & integration options. In short, it’s just working, which is the characteristic I like most in software.

However, there’s one problem with Todoist: it’s great for ants, but humans shouldn’t be “mere” ants. I mean of course that humans should have a vision that views the big picture & not just the track of tasks. & the big picture includes possible targets one can navigate to, & the predicted value from reaching them. As GTD sensei David Allen says, one should have the Imagined Outcome in mind, & not just the next actions to execute.

This is why I wish to switch to tools such as LifeTick, which are goal oriented & value(s) driven. LifeTick seems to be following a clear methodology, enforcing the user to derive concrete reachable goals from his core values, & their weights. This should enable users to focus on targets, & their importance, & not just on the next task at hand.

Compared to Todoist, the interface is a bit more slick & user-friendly – optimized for new users. But I like it as well. Unlike Todoist, LifeTick isn’t completely free – the free edition has limited features & other limitations, but I’m more than pleased to pay them the 20$/year for the unlimited version & would have probably donated it anyway.

So, I wish to migrate to Goal oriented tools, such as LifeTick. Will I make it? Am I more than an ant? Not sure, I’ll post an update if/when I find out.

 

Cool desktop apps

Just before I’m finally getting my MacBook (ETA January 6th) & some time before all desktop apps are abandoned in favor of webtop ones, here’s a list of some general desktop apps I just couldn’t have lived without (BTW, they’re all free!). If you haven’t already, I really recommend giving each of them a try.

1. FreeMind (All platforms) – Once you start using it, you just can’t go back to the boring text documents paradigm.
2. John’s background switcher (Windows) – You just must use this one: fetch Flickr desktop wallpapers periodically, according to tags, text search, photograhpher or time!
3. Virtual Dimension (Windows) – Why settle for just one desktop, when you can have N simultaneous ones?
4. Ditto (Windows) – Great clipboard manager, so that you won’t lose what you’ve copied.
5. Open Iris (Windows) – A Semantic Desktop from DARPA. So cool & useful!!!!
6. Protégé (All platforms) – A very friendly & extremely useful Knowledge-Base editor, with interface for both simple (frame-based) ontologies & advanced (OWL-based) Semantic Web ones. (Good for ordinary people, really!!!)
7. StarLogo TNG (All platforms) – The only type of tool letting you actually see & understand the complex systems around you. The TNG version allows non-programmers to easily create amazing simulations.
8. Tomboy (Linux) – Cool wiki sticky notes.
9. Stickies (Windows) – Useful sticky notes, with alarms.
10. EverNote (Windows) – Cool note taking application, with timeline & categorization.
11. Unlocker (Windows) – Useful utility that tells you & comes to the rescue when some resource is held by some program.
12. i.Disk (Windows) – Let’s you see whose taking your disk space.
13. FreeUndelete (Windows) – Let’s you easily recover deleted files. Works like hell!

I’ve removed the apps that are too obvious, although so vital & valuable (e.g., FireFox, Skype & SecondLife), & also those that are too technical however valuable (VMWare, Denim, YALE &c). For a more complete list of apps I’m using, check out http://myprogs.net/dibau_naum_h

 

Early adopters of the world: Use OpenIRIS!

I read a few years ago about the DARPA CALO project (Cognitive Agent that Learns & Organizes), or was it the PAL project (Perceptive Agent that Learns)? Anyway, I was quite amazed, because I was thinking back then about similar architecture & technologies. Well, about a month ago, they decided to actually ship the technology, & open its source!!!!

It's called OpenIRIS (http://www.openiris.org/), & it's a "Semantic Desktop", in which you work on your applications (Browser, Mail, Chat, Calendar, Tasks, Documents &c), & behind the scenes everything is analyzed & organized in a beautiful ontology (!!!) that enables you to "Integrate. Relate. Infer. Share.".
DARPA just paid researchers from some 22 universities, to actually go & implement the semantic technologies that have such huge promises, using today's paradigms & technologies.

I've started playing with it a few weeks ago, & today decided to actually use it. Well, I'm holding my hands from evangalizing (except for the post's title), but I'm quite impressed from the result! There are some small problems, & the giant platform is slightly slow, but the basics seem to work – some giant OWL-based ontology is being accumulated behind-the-scenes, & used for integrating the information. (One thing does annoy: I hope they'll switch to FireFox (instead of the old Mozilla), because I can't use a browser without my extensions…). I might even try write a plug-in for FreeMind or some other app I can't live without, & see how it works.

Thanks DARPA, SRI & all other researchers for bringing the future closer!

Update: Oops! There's only a Windows version … Seems like I won't be using it much, coz my primary OS is Linux. (hey, please spend the last mile effort for the sake of Linux & MacOS early adopters…)

 

GTD tools I’m using

• iGTD - main GTD system. Available only for Mac OS X. The main weakness is that it’s a desktop app, and you can’t work on it from multiple machines.
• FreeMind – for daily GTD practice & work environment + calendar reminders. Here’s my daily template (to view it, copy the link & open it in FreeMind, in Browse mode).
• NetVibes – for all inboxes, viewed all the time as it’s the browser’s homepage
• Vitalist – online GTD application. It’s online, which is great, but suffers from serious usability problems, & frequent downtime periods (at least it seems to be not accessible from my network perspective. Perhaps in Europe/US it’s better).
• EverNote - for reference, all deliverables are stored there.
• 30boxes - Google Calendar – for calendar

Except for EverNote, all work just as well on my Linux.

Some screenshots:

iGTD:

FreeMind:

Older screenshot (click on the image to enlarge):

NetVibes:

EverNote:

30boxes: