The Search for My Ideal GTD App

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been looking for an online service to help me stay organized. My system at the moment is a patchwork of paper, desktop apps, and willpower that has worked well enough in the past but has begun to come apart at the seams as I take on a growing number of responsibilities. Since I work at several different locations, I need to be able to access a single source where I can access tasks, files, and reference information — from wherever I happen to be.

I’ve yet to find the system that works best for me, although there are plenty of slick apps that look promising until I actually get down to working with them. After a few days of excitement, I find myself coming up against barriers to productivity — some of them because of poor design, some because of differences in philosophy between myself and the programmers, most because I’m simply not the target client — and find myself spending time looking for workarounds to make the system work rather than actually getting stuff done.

Looking at and evaluating all these applications has forced me to consider what exactly it is that I’m looking for in an ideal GTD app. Here are a few of the features I think are important:

• Supporting materials should be bound to projects: Most of my projects involve the creation of documents, and many of them have associated reference materials as well. I would like to be able to look at a project, or a task under a project, and with a click create or open an associated document. For instance, I’m working on a long academic article for a book; I’d like to have all of my notes, PDFs of research materials, drafts, and other materials available whenever I open that project. Foldera does this in a way, but I’ve found it difficult to work with, and it is geared more towards business collaboration than towards individual task management.
• Document editing: I want to be able to create and edit documents from within the same interface that I use to look at my projects and tasks. Whether this uses an internal document editor or a link to a third-party service like google Docs or Zoho doesn’t matter, as long as the document is saved back to the project it belongs to. So using the above example, if I am working on a draft of my article, I want to be able to open the document, write, and save the document back into the project it belongs to.
• Bulk upload: Why on earth do so many online apps allow you to upload documents only one at a time? What I’d really like to see is a desktop app that would allow me to synchronize files, perhaps by flagging them on the desktop in some way, and then upload them in the background — but I’d settle for a file manager that either allowed me to drag and drop multiple files or ctrl-select them to upload all at once.
• Integration with desktop tools like Outlook: I’d like to be able to work in Outlook or other desktop apps and have the work appear in my online space — and vice versa. So when I check a todo list item “done” online, it’s also marked “done” in Outlook. Several online apps do one-way imports from Outlook, and a few do manual syncs — I don’t see why this couldn’t be automated.
• Integration with mobile tools: For me, like many others, a PC isn’t the only tool I work with. I use a Treo, and others use iPhones, Blackberries, and even Windows Mobile devices (it’s true!) when a PC isn’t handy. Yet few online apps try very hard to integrate with them. Even if access can’t be “live”, it would be nice to have work show up at least when the device is synchronized. What I’d really like, though, is integration with my smartphone’s apps, or third-party apps like Google’s — Google has shown that it’s possible to make sophisticated online apps that work on a variety of mobile devices.
• Automatic promotion of future tasks: When I develop a project outline, I generally write down a list of tasks that need to be done to complete the project. But when I look at my todo list, I just want to know what to do now. Most of the apps I’ve seen dump all the todos from all my projects into one master list, which is useless to me — how can I revise the first draft of an article when I haven’t even been to the library to check out the books I need to research it yet? I want my GTD app to promote the very next action to my todo list whenever I mark the item right before it as finished.
• Links to other services: I’d really like to see a way to pass data back and forth between online services, but barring that I’d like at least to add links into the interface to other online services. It’s surprising to me how many GTD apps don’t have anywhere to put links.
• No-nag tasks: I like to schedule time or set reminders for things that I only need to be reminded about once. For example, driving time — I schedule my regular commute in my calendar, and sometimes I do need a reminder (”hey, you gotta get going, buddy!”) but if I miss the reminder, that’s because I’m probably already driving. I’d like to be able to create a category of reminders that go off once and if I’m not there to respond to them, they just disappear.
• An exit strategy How I get my data out of an online app is at least as important as how I get it in. My needs are bound to change in the future, or the programmers may decide to change something in a way that no longer meets my unchanged needs — or the company that hosts the service may go out of business or cancel the service. If my data is trapped in their system, I’m screwed. I need a way to bulk download everything in their original formats (for documents, files, etc.) or in documented web standards (xml, RSS) that can be ported to a new system, or at least opened on my desktop so I can transfer information over manually.

What about you? What features are you looking for in a GTD app? What services do you use, and what would you change to make them suit your needs better? Is there a great out-of-the-box service out there that I’m missing? If you could design your own perfect online service, what would it do?

Let me know your thoughts in the comments.

15 Tips to Make Today the Day You Finish Your To-Do List

You’ve seen it before. Every checkmark only leaves two more unfinished tasks. Your to-do list has become an living organism, spawning more and more work while leaving you less and less time to finish. Is it possible to stop your to-do list, or will it just become an unstoppable blob of extra work?

Your best weapon against the rising tide of to-do is dedicating a day to destroying that list. Instead of wandering around, attacking various projects before putting them down, you go for the kill. Set up a massive to-do list and wipe it clean.

Few things are more satisfying than after a day of ending your to-do list. Here are a few tips to get you started:

• Clear your schedule. It’s amazing how much you can accomplish if you give yourself a large chunk of time. A to-do ending day can’t be filled with all the regular errands of your life. The entire day needs to be focused on killing that list, so pick a day where you can have complete control over your time.
• Wake up early. Building momentum is critical. Even if waking up at 5 am isn’t a usual event for you, it can be helpful here. Which do you think will give you the right start: dragging yourself out of bed at ten o’clock, or forcing yourself to start moving at six?
• Collect your to-do list. If you have tasks and projects scattered over different parts of your life, you need to collect them into one list. One list detailing everything you want to have accomplished, on one piece of paper you can hold in front of you.
• Know the end. What does being finished look like? Every task should have a clear goal and purpose beyond just getting done. You can spend an entire day attacking your to-do list and accomplishing nothing if you aren’t clear on the final picture.
• Put hard tasks first. Pick your biggest and most difficult tasks and start on them first. Putting off the hard work is a sure sign it won’t get done. By putting the difficult tasks first, you also build a momentum that allows you to focus easily.
• Isolate yourself. Lock yourself in a room, unplug your phone and internet if you have to. Anything to ensure that interruptions won’t break your focus. A few hours of complete focus can accomplish what would take several days of multitasking.
• Set your rest breaks. Working continuously for several hours can be difficult to do with mentally straining work, especially if you aren’t used to it. My suggestion is to set short, but meaningful breaks in advance so you won’t be tempted to procrastinate.
• Match breaks with tasks, not time. Your breaks should match up with the large to-do chunks on your list, not at a specific time. If you plan to finish a report you expect to take ninety minutes, finish it in one chunk. Taking a break while working on a major task will only break your flow.
• Be patient when accelerating. It can take time to build up speed. When I write an article, it can take me up to fifteen minutes to get a clear idea on what I want to write. During this build-up time, the temptation is to quit or move on to something easier. Avoid that temptation and be patient.
• Give yourself meaningful rewards. If you finish your to-do list, take a break. Go out and have fun, watch a television show, meet up with friends or just stare blankly at a wall. Feeling the urge to be completely productive 24/7 is an easy way to ensure you never do.
• Does it need to be done? Cross off any items that lack long-term importance. Purify your to-do list so it only contains tasks that will be significant months and years from now. If your to-do list doesn’t seem important, it probably isn’t.
• Energize your diet. Engineer your food and exercise routine to give you the energy you need throughout the day. Eat lighter foods and avoid simple carbohydrates (which spike your blood glucose and then drop it). Drink plenty of water and eat smaller meals more frequently. Your goal is to create a diet that will keep your fuel levels even throughout the day.
• To exercise or not to exercise? Exercise is definitely a good idea. But whether you should bother heading to the gym on an intense project attacking day depends. I would say that a quick run can give you enough added energy to make up for the time loss. But if your exercise is long and prescheduled, you might want to leave it out to focus completely on your to-do list.
• Collect resources ahead of time. The night before you plan your epic battle against your to-do, prepare. Make sure you have all the right tools, information and resources to get the job done. Nothing feels worse than a half-finished list because you needed to wait on information from a third party.
• Chunk, don’t spread. Don’t spread tasks over all your waking hours like butter on toast. Intensity trumps time-management. Get as much done as possible and give yourself large chunks for both work and play. Spreading yourself too thin results in only a half day.

A half-day is often enough. The surprising thing about creating a to-do list day is, that if you do it right, it takes far less time than you expected. I’m usually impressed that I can accomplish
my entire list by the late afternoon when I follow these suggestions.