Everyone has their own needs when it comes to software. I found that OmniFocus offered more features than I needed, which would have been okay, if the interface wasn’t so bad. I’m not the only one who feels this way, just as you’re not the only one who likes it. We’re all entitled to our own opinion, aren’t we?

Fortunately, OmniFocus is sold as try-before-you-buy software. So users can give it a good evaluation before forking over the money to buy it. I personally think it’s overpriced and might have stuck with it if it remained at its original evaluation price. However, I’m glad I did not, as I know now that I never would have used it regularly.

I found OmniFocus to be near the perfect solution. I found it very easy to understand, perhaps because I had the chance to learn about David Allen’s Getting Things Done system before I had a look at the app.

Using the supplied documentation I have no doubt you would find it a lot easier since its release.

I loved iGTD at one point, but found it too unstable. There’s little that’s more frustrating than having an app crash while you’re in the middle of your Weekly Review – and having to start over.

As for color coding, gray tasks are actions you can’t complete (they are blocked in a project until something else gets done, or or part of a “Waiting” context), purple tasks are the “very next physical thing” to do in a project, and blue tasks are things that you can get done at any moment.

I’ve found perspectives very useful in helping me focus on what I can do right now and keeping things I have no control over (like someone giving me information/equipment, tasks I’ve determined that I can’t do until a certain day of the week, etc) out of my current work view.

Now that the beta is over and OmniFocus documentation is available, I hope that you take a look at it again, especially if you’ve already paid for it.

I’ll be keeping an eye on iGTD 2 as it goes through Alpha and beta. I need that iCal syncing and apparently, version 1 doesn’t support it yet. But thanks for this tip!

Thanks for the review of OmniFocus. I installed it yesterday and was about embark on my own testing. Its great to have some of your thoughts in mind for this, hopefully allowing me to do a speedier eval. You are so very correct in lamenting the amount of time that is generally to be dedicated to getting these GTD apps up and running. Moreover, the integration with other apps remains largely lacking as of yet.

I really liked iGTD, especially the fact that its free. Its price, however was not reflective of its power. Under Tiger it fit right into my workflow and integrated relatively well into iCal and Mail among others. Unfortunately I ran into the Leopard issues that the author is now working through and have had to sideline it. I hope only temporarily. It’s the type of GTD app that did suit my needs.

Your earlier post on going simple to do GTD was a good corrective to the sense that one even needed a separate app to accomplish this.

However, I found two nice new friends on TaskPaper and Things:

http://hogbaysoftware.com/products/taskpaper

http://www.culturedcode.com/things/

TaskPaper is very simple and very intuitive to use. In fact, it is so simple that I mostly use it not as a classic GTD (to organize several projects), but to organize tasks *inside* one single project. (I have several TaskPaper databases, one for each project.) This means that I gather all my to-do’s on my thesis or on articles I’m writing.

Example: insert image x, citation y, mention reference z, etc.

Basically you insert something like:

- insert image 3 based on Smith 1993 @chapter3

( ‘@’ works as a tag and allows you to filter your tasks)

Besides simplicity, TaskPaper also saves in a format that is .txt on its core. That means you can open your database on any program that reads text.

As for Things — this one is much more a classic GTD app, ideal to work on day to day several projects (with contexts, colaborations, due dates, etc.). However, I found it much easier to work with than OF. Its basis, like TaskPaper, are tags, and since I really like tagging things it goes perfectly on my workflow. It’s still on its beta stage, so people are welcome to use it and make suggestions. (There are some capacities still on the works, like iCal integration, for instance.) Make sure you watch the screencast provided on Things website: it gives you a perfect view of how it works.

Both developers — TaskPaper and Things — are very friendly with their users community (as OmniGroup folks are) and that’s also a plus!

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