A Community Contribution from Jason Verly

For anyone who uses a Mac and utilizes the GTD method, you may eventually look into what software you can use to help manage your project and next action lists. Currently on the Mac, the leading apps to help manage your lists are OmniFocus and Things. Each app covers four of the five steps of the GTD workflow: Collect, Process, Organize, and Review. (Sorry, but you still have to do ‘Do’ on you own.)   Here is a comparison of how each application handles these four steps.

Read more from Jason Verly’s article

Editors Note: Many of you know we are partners with OmniGroup. We wanted to provide this article to our GTD Times readers, as Jason has done a great job comparing these two popular applications.  It should give you some great information from a fellow GTDer, when choosing which one is best for you.

For more GTD videos, check out GTD Connect, our online learning center. You’ll find nearly 100 Videos on GTD Connect, from “2 Minutes with David Allen” clips to replays of our monthly Webinar classes.

Whether you’re a proficient OneNote user or just started using it after reading my GTD and OneNote article posted on GTD Times it doesn’t take long to populate the software with a tonne of pages and a tonne of information (yes, I am Canadian).

First, some definitions:

MS Office OneNote 2007 is a digital notebook that provides people one place to gather their notes and information, powerful search to find what they are looking for quickly, and easy-to-use shared notebooks so that they can manage information overload and work together more effectively.

ActiveWords is a Windows application that relates words and actions, giving you instant access to what you want, making you more productive, and improving the quality of your work.  (Editors note: ActiveWords was also featured in a podcast by David Allen.)

For quick access to all your stuff, OneNote allows you to organize things really well into Books, Sections, Pages, and Sub-pages and they provide a nifty search box and tagging capabilities.  But those are like driving a Honda Civic – good, reliable, and gets you from A-B – but what I really want is a Ferrari – fast, exciting, and the envy of all my colleagues (OK, that last one is a bit of a stretch).

Enter ActiveWords (I’ll wait while you head back up to the ActiveWords definition).  OK. Still don’t really understand what ActiveWords does?  Maybe this will help…

ActiveWords allows me to do Ferrari like things.  (Keep in mind that ActiveWords works on top of windows so I can do any of the following while working in any program):

• Open software such as Google Earth by typing “Earth” F8,
• Open the GTD Times website by typing “GTDT” F8,
• Ditto for “Gmail” F8 (yes, ActiveWords has replaced marking favourites for websites)
• “Cal” F8 to open up Outlook Calendar
• “T” F8 to create a new outlook task (even if Outlook isn’t open!)
• “Projects” F8 to open up my projects folder buried deep in windows explorer
• “CFS” F8 to open up an excel file buried even deeper in windows explorer

In a nutshell, it moves me away from my mouse and using menu’s and allows me to use shortcuts on the keyboard with words that are intuitive rather than having to memorize things like “ctrl-shift-y” (No, I don’t know what that shortcut does – if anything)

So here’s how you can use ActiveWords to transform OneNote from a Honda Civic to a Ferrari.

Let’s say you’ve got a OneNote page that you access quite frequently.  In my case, and in this example, it’s my GTD Weekly Review page:

My goal is to access this page in less than 2 seconds no matter where I may be working in Windows (aka I want to be Ferrari fast).  To achieve this, we’ll need to create an ActiveWord.  So buckle up and we’ll get started.

1. Go to the page in OneNote where you want lighting speed access – “My GTD Weekly Review”, in this example.
2. Right-click on the page and select “Copy Hyperlink to this Page” (see screen capture below) – Note that hyperlinks can be created in OneNote for books, sections, pages, sub-pages and even text or objects on a page.
3. Move your cursor to somewhere (anywhere) on the OneNote page. Right-click and select “paste”.
4. Right-click on this newly created hyperlink and select “copy hyperlink” (see screen capture below)
5. Type “Add” then F8 to start the ActiveWords “Add” wizard, select “Open a Document”, and then click “Next”. (See screen capture below)
6. Right-click and paste the hyperlink into the top dialogue box.  Good habit to get into is to add a quick description while you’ve got the chance – e.g. “Open – My GTD Weekly Review OneNote page”.  It helps you search for the ActiveWord if you ever forget it.  Then click “Next”. (See screen capture below)
7. Now determine your ActiveWord for this task – could be “GTDWR”, or “Weekly Review”, or something simple like “WR”.  Then select “Finish”. (see screen capture below)
8. Now whenever you want to get to that Weekly Review page in OneNote, just type “WR” F8 and you will be there in less than 2 seconds – even if OneNote isn’t open (but why wouldn’t it be??)

Use ActiveWords in all your “often accessed” OneNote info and become — Ferrari Fast.

This is Ryan Oakley’s second Community Contributor post to GTD Times.  His first article on GTD & OneNote was so popular, he asked if he could contribute another.  Look for more from Ryan in the coming months on his personal use of OneNote.

• Where do you keep your lists? Your calendar?
• Do you sync to a handheld? If so, what is that?
• Your favorite collection tools?
• Killer desk supplies?
• Project planning, brainstorming and creative mapping tools?
• What else??

[Small request:   If you are commenting about an app, please disclose if you are the developer and/or involved with it in some way. Thanks.]

Too Much to Do

In April of this year, I left my full time job to “go freelance.” My schedule has been all over the place as a result. Between writing and doing web development for my fiancé’s graphic design firm,  managing my coworking office space in downtown Tacoma, operating my small theater production company, presiding over my condo association,  trying to get a novel published, and last – but most certainly not least  – getting married at the end of the year; you could say I’m a pretty busy guy.  While no single one of these activities takes up a full work week, the number and variety of things I needed to do made me feel like I was dropping the ball on all of them.

No More Dropped Balls

David Allen’s Getting Things Done changed all that. I’m actually making some headway on all these fronts. I first implemented his system with long lists in Microsoft Word. That was until I discovered “Things” to manage my things.

Things is a GTD system designed for Mac computers with mobile applications for the iPhone and iTouch. To any user of David Allen’s productivity system, Things should look very familiar. Hot keys (or mouse clicking) will bring up a task window for easy entry. To each task, you can add notes, due dates, links to files, and customizable tags, which serve as “contexts.”

I appreciate that the tags are easy to use and customize. I kept many of the preset tags-phone, read/review, errand, home-but (following GTD) I created a “Waiting For” tag, which allows me to keep track of shipments, emails, and phone calls I’m expecting. I also created a “pack” tag, which I use in the weeks before a trip.

Things offers a feature called “teammates” which helps with collaboration. This pulls from your Mac’s address book and allows you to add a contact’s name to the program. Have something to talk over with a coworker? Drag the item under their name and it’s waiting for you when you see them next.

I can also set up scheduled and repeating tasks very quickly. A new task to post on my blog shows up daily. A task to review my projects list shows up every weekend. The “today” toggle lets me quickly see my scheduled items, items due in the next couple days, and any overdue tasks.

“Things” Everywhere

As David Allen said, the key to the system is that it’s with you all the time. Because of the iPhone sync, if my phone is with me (and it always is) my system is with me. The quick entry field lets me jot down a note in less than a minute if I’m at a restaurant, in a meeting, or otherwise away from the computer. Later, when the phone and computer are on the same wireless network, they sync. (One current drawback to the iPhone app is that is does not allow for my context tags, although Things developers have indicated the next update will have tags enabled.)

A Few Things that Would Improve “Things”

There are some features I’d really like to see added. Currently, the drag-and-drop feature lets you place action items inside project folders for easy sorting. Handy, normally, especially during my weekly review when I check that I have a next action item for each project. But, if you spend most of your time in the next action window as I do-and as Allen would probably recommend-the feature becomes cumbersome. I don’t need to know that “Call parents for carpet cleaning recommendations” is under the “home care” project. I just need a list of calls to make. But I can’t turn it off, which means that I lose a lot of screen real estate and can only see a fraction of the calls I need to make on a single screen. I’ve opted for more items on a page, so I don’t use the projects tab the way I should.

The projects list and the someday/maybe list don’t play well together yet, either. I can’t add a project directly into the Someday list, I have to add it in projects and then drag it into the list.

And I have yet to touch the “inbox” feature. For the life of me I cannot figure out what to put in there that I can’t do with the next action list. Putting items in this folder doesn’t make sense. If I’ve taken the time to type out my action note, it’s safe to say I’ve already processed it from one of my real inboxes-mail, email, voicemail, etc.

There was one debilitating bug. A few months after use, the program slowed to a crawl as a result of some flaw in the XML database to the point I could barely open it. Browsing the support forums, I couldn’t find anyone else who had the problem, so I think it was an isolated incident. Getting it running again took a couple hours, and illustrated to me how much I’ve come to rely on the program.

Things is still in beta testing for the Mac, and will be officially released January 6, 2009 at MacWorld. It is currently free and will be $39 when it’s released (if you sign up for their newsletter before its launch) and $49 after that. The iPhone program is $9.99.

Final Thoughts on “Things”

Things has been intuitive, helpful, and even fun. My minor quibbles are nothing compared to the benefits I’ve gotten from the program. The Mac-iPhone sync gives me a quick-entry capability to get my thoughts out of my head and into a program that is always with me. It has become invaluable to getting things done.