What mobile tools are you using for your productivity? iPad? Android? iPhone? BlackBerry? Other? What works really well about the mobile tools you use (features you can’t live without) and what’s challenging about them (you’d be a productivity rock star if only…)?  We’d love to hear from you!

(please disclose to readers if you have an affiliation with the product you are recommending)

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We often get asked, “What software should I use to view my GTD task lists on the iPhone?

For those of you on Mac, our recommendation is OmniFocus. For those of you on PC or using Web-based apps, we have not vetted an iPhone application yet.  Rest assured, we’re working hard on this and will be sure to make an announcement when we find something that passes our rigorous vetting process.  Here are the only software applications that have earned David Allen’s recommendation.  And of those, just the Netcentrics GTD® Outlook® Add-In and eProductivity™ for Lotus Notes® have earned the coveted “GTD-Enabled” distinction.

In the meantime, tap into the wisdom and personal experience of your fellow GTDers by reading the many discussions about this :

• on GTD Times
• on our Getting Things Done Forums
• on our GTD Facebook Fan Page
• on our LinkedIn GTD Enthusiasts group

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We are pleased to announce the release of a resource that many of you have been asking for:  a  GTD & BlackBerry Guide.  A few of us are now on BlackBerry as our portable solution and we put together a Guide on the best GTD tips, tricks, and practices for making your BlackBerry rock for GTD.

It’s chock-full of 45 pages of coaching advice on getting the most out of shortcuts, Email, Tasks, the Calendar and MemoPad using the built-in features of a BlackBerry (which means you won’t find any  requirements of any 3rd-party software to buy to apply what’s in the Guide.)

Download a free sample

Buy the Guide now (only $10 for a PDF)

So…the next question that’s been pouring into our customer service department today:  What about a GTD Guide for iPhone users? [Read more →]

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For those of you using eProductivity for Lotus Notes, and are looking to view your tasks on iPhone or BlackBerry, Mark Hughes has created a solution for that. Learn more…

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Ryan Norbauer wrote an interesting article on what he calls, “The Psychology of OmniFocus: How to Wrap your Head Around the Finest (and Most Perplexing) GTD App on the Market.”  We know many of you are OmniFocus fans out there (we are too) and I thought this was an interesting read.  I particularly liked:

“If you’re just borrowing ideas from GTD here and there, like the idea of grouping your to-do lists by context, you’re missing almost everything GTD has to offer, which is a terrible shame.”

This article is worth a read on tapping into the full power of GTD + OmniFocus.  Read more…

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Click to see larger image

A Community Contribution from Brian Isikoff, sharing how he manages GTD lists on his new iPad

I’m a four+ year adoptee of GTD, an IT Procurement professional since 1992, podcast producer, writer, and all around nice guy. Lastly, I’m the owner of a sparkly new iPad.

That iPad has quickly become the center of my GTD system. The form factor is the key for me.  The device is highly portable – certainly around the house, neighborhood, and many of my favorite destinations. The iPad’s planner-ish size and capabilities allow me to not only implement GTD but take many of actions captured in the system. To complement the native Apple calendar, contacts, and email, I added Toodledo (which syncs with the free web service of the same name.)

My iPhone  also running a synced copy of Toodledo (and calendar, email, safari, etc.) which provides the little notepad / Moleskine equivalent to my system. It’s also a little more discrete than pulling out an iPad – ideal for the BART train, while on a walk, coffee break or arriving at a meeting a little early.

Implementation Specifics [Read more →]

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One of the most common tools we get asked about is the iPhone–specifically, our recommendations for syncing Tasks to an iPhone.  Here’s some helpful information around that:

What does the David Allen Company recommend for implementing GTD® Task lists on the iPhone?

The iPhone was not built with a Tasks application, so you will need to find an App that will support the GTD best practices for a list manager (e.g. sort by category/context, allow but not force due dates, allows related notes to be attached to the Task, etc.)  What you choose for the iPhone would depend primarily on what do you need to sync it to.  The corresponding application you want to sync it to (Mac, PC or Web) would narrow down the best application for you to install on the iPhone for Tasks. The end result is that you would have a Tasks application on the iPhone–>syncing through a service–>that then shares that information with a corresponding application on the web or desktop. [Read more →]

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Hey there Kindle Fans, did you know that GTD Times is available for your Kindle?  Check it out.  We’ve also optimized GTD Times to read it more easily through your iPhone browser.  And, if you just want the highlights of what’s been posted, follow GTD Times on Twitter.

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Thanks for this community contribution from Pete Tambroni. Here’s how he has setup his GTD organization on the iPhone…

In the original Getting Things Done, much of the focus was on paper systems with an electronic complement. These days much of our world is the opposite.

I try to have as much as possible in electronic form with a paper complement. Having things on a computer or PDA allows it to be searchable and easily changed from one category to another. But just because we can search for something doesn’t mean we should. Why not just know where it is? [Read more →]

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What’s out there for Lotus Notes users who want to sync To Do’s to their iPhone? Nothing.  As far as I know.  Believe me, I’ve searched for nearly a year. As a Notes user who was enchanted with an iPhone, I thought surely a To Do synching solution could not be far behind.  Nope. Nothing. You can sync Calendar and Email, but not To Do’s. It’s not a complete mobile GTD solution for me without To Do’s.

Because the iPhone was built without a Tasks application it means building not only a secure syncing solution, but a corresponding App on the iPhone. I thought Lotus would be doing that, but not from any releases I’ve seen so far.

A guy wrote to me this morning to ask what solutions are out there for this, as he’s about to roll out iPhones to their entire workforce. They use Lotus Notes and he’s been unable to find anything that will sync Notes To Do’s to the iPhone.  He asked if we are building it (no plans to.)

Has anyone heard of anything coming or available that will sync Lotus Notes To Do’s to the iPhone?  We’d love to hear about it.

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