Scrybe goes multinational, and other GTD thoughts
I still don't "get" (or like) Scrybe, am trying out iGTD, not using it much, but am actually using plain text, at least a little bit. And then I've been promised Things for Christmas …
Posted on 2007-11-21 21:25 by Jørn Støylen [permalink]
What is 'GTD'?
GTD stands for "Getting Things Done", and is a "work-life management system" and a book by David Allen.
Get the book here, while also helping me out (affiliate link)
Other GTD resources
43 Folders: Getting started with ‘Getting Things Done’
Tracks is a free GTD web app written in Ruby on Rails.
So back in August, I finally got the invitation to open a Scrybe, another GTD application contender that I’ve previously blogged about.
Aside from the fact that I neither understood the organization of nor liked the looks of user interface at all, I was immediately turned off from the whole thing because they didn’t accept Norwegian characters (æøåÆØÅ).
And it really boggles my mind that anyone in this day and age can develop a web application without catering for international characters. It’s pretty simple, really: Just do it in UTF-8 from the start, guys!
Well, it seems like they’ve fixed that part. I’m able to enter stuff in my native tongue now. Yay. The only trouble is, I still think the whole thing sucks big time.
TaskPaper
And anyway, it seems that I have a really hard time getting to use any GTD system. For a few work-related tasks I’ve been using the Tasks bundle for TextMate, and I sort of wish it had full support for the whole TaskPaper format, because then it would really be a strong contender.
Yes, there is a TaskPaper module for BBEdit too, but I don’t want to live in BBEdit. I use it every now and then for a few unique things it does (TextFactories, mainly), but it’s so un-Mac-like.
iGTD
I worked on a solution for using iGTD and syncing to a USB drive on every Mac I use (work stationary, home stationary and home laptop). I found out that Synk Standard would be perfect in conjunction with Do Something When, which runs Synk as a background script (with Growl notifications) when I plug it in and also when I run an AppleScript to eject it. This way I only work against the synced folder on my hard drive, while the USB drive is always up to date when I’m not at the computer.
Still, I’m not able to use iGTD daily. I wonder why I seem to be unable to get into that habit. But I think it’s because iGTD is just too complex. It’s better than Scrybe, there are still things happening that I don’t quite understand.
Things
Today I got an email from Cultured Code, the developers of Things, saying an invitation to try out their contender in the GTD application race is going to come my way by Christmas.
I’ve watched their demo screencast and must say that it seems to have just about all the simplicity and elegance of a plain text alternative, but with the added benefit of filtering by tags with total flexibility.
I just hope they make sure I can use keyboard shortcuts for just about everything. That’s one of the key lacking features that’s put me off several other applications.
We’ll wait and see, and get some things done with iGTD in the mean time. Hm, maybe I should plug in that USB drive now …
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