Oct
10
GTD Agenda
Having been a fan for GTD for some time and talking about it in this blog, I was contacted by Dan Baluta of GTDAgenda to review the product. My initial opinion was positive as it contained a simple web interface and I was pleased by how well it transfered on to the mobile site on my Touch HD.
I also like the Goals and Check Lists functionality which helps to focus the planing on reviewing things from a more strategic and long term focus. This along with the ease of use made me try two weeks using GTDAgenda instead of Outlook.
Goals
I started with My weekly review on the Sunday morning by documenting my Goals. The system was extremely easy to use and input the goals in. Until I at a later point wanted to change (correct the fact that I had not categorised the goal correctly). Unable to see an obvious way to change the goal category I just left the category marked “no category”
This option about editing items once you have created them is a recurring issue especial as I used the Mobile interface a lot and have large fingers on a touch screen .
Projects
One of the features that made the system good to use was the logical progression from Goals to projects and then to tasks. The system encouraged the individual project to be attached to a goal.
The graphical display once a project is set up shows the progression clearly at a glance. Surprisingly the ability to edit a project once it is created exists.
The other advantage of this view is that it shows all the related tasks, with the Next Action marked with a Star. A simple and easy to use section.
Tasks
The Task view is simple and clean allowing a quick way to view edit task by either priority or project. I found this really easy and clear to use.
I should also say at this point you can sort tasks by Context from a menu at the side. This is possibly the screen you will use most of the time.
Editing and creating tasks is simple from this or the project screen.
Other Features
There is also a calendar and checklist functionality in the system, I have found the checklist function to be much more useful than the calendar as I am currently using Outlook as my calendar.
The one strange and somewhat annoying problem was I used the email task and updates option, which sends the email in the middle of the day as opposed to early morning which would be more useful.
Final Thoughts on GTD Agenda
I really like this application and with the addition of a few things like the ability to edit the Goals and a client App for the common mobile platforms it would be an excellent tool for applying GTD or even ZTD. The main problems I had were to do with loosing signal on my mobile when on the train and the fact that the mobile interface seems not to have all the functionality of the main site.
So I would recommend trying the trial of GTDAgenda but due to work commitments and some other reasons I am back to using Outlook to implement my GTD.
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