KnobsLeversButtons » GTD

Will Mcast.fm become the Dutch Jott?

Ronald Pulleman — Thu, 22 May 2008 20:49:00 +0000

Mcast.fm as a GTD capture tool.
Recently Mcast.fm went beta. Mcast.fm is a service which enables podcasts over your phone. When you call a number, podcasts are streamed to you.
Perhaps great for some people, but not for me. I’m happy with my iTunes, iPod and ice>Link plus setup.

But a feature which you cannot easily find on the site is a dictation like feature. Call the number, press #0 , start talking, and close with #.
And auto-magically an MP3 is added to your personal feeds on Mcast.fm.

You can also see these memo’s on a RSS reader like iGoogle.

In my love for GTD, I have the Moleskine inbox when walking around, which I later transfer to a Omnifocus inbox. But I’m still missing the feature to put something in my inbox when driving my car. Or anyplace where I cannot easily write.
I wrote about Jott in GTD with your phone. This service is unavailable where I live.

Can Mcast.fm become this service? It will need speech recognition and some more.
If they will add this they will have a paying customer in me, when they charge for this. For now I will use Mcast.fm as a dictation service, which is a bit better than using your own voicemail….

I really hope they will explore this potential..

Farewell iGTD, welcome OmniFocus

Ronald Pulleman — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 21:43:27 +0000

I recently pre-ordered OmniFocus and started using it for actions, projects, contexts and other stuff . An actvity which I previously tackled with iGTD.

I was sort of happy with iGTD, but I had always issues with syncing. Regularly I had to interfere in task and calendar conflicts. More on Leopard than on Tiger. I was never certain why I had those conflicts. Additionally iGTD always felt a bit crude. So I decided to actively switch to OmniFocus. I had played a bit with OmniFocus already the last five months, but not used it actively.

I have used OmniFocus for two full weeks now.
I don’t regret it! Syncing with iCal, Mail (without MailTags) and my Palm is faultless, a much better experience than with iGTD.
The OmniFocus user-experience is also much better. The sidebar in project mode can contain folders and I really appreciate that extra structuring option.

Task notes and calendars were always taking way to much screen estate in iGTD. They are not visible in OmniFocus unless you want them to.
And I am really getting used to typing friday, tomorrow, today or next week in the Action field. I don’t need no stinking calendar!

Outline in planning mode is a nice overview of your projects, a feature which I haven’t found in iGTD and which I deemed unnecessary. But I started to use it for the big picture progress overview. Not GTD I guess, but still damn handy.

Leopard coolness: Attachments in actions can be opened with Quicklook!!

Eye candy in my opinion, but nice nonetheless.

One thing I miss from iGTD is the automatic syncing. As far as I know OmniFocus can only do this manually, a thing which I often forget.

iGTD was a nice application, but I haven’t really missed it since embracing OmniFocus.

iGTD and OmniFocus again

Ronald Pulleman — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 20:49:51 +0000

I read in the MacSparky Blog about a nifty Applescript script. It transfers my iGTD stuff to OmniFocus.

It did not transfer everything. It had some issues. However I was able to play a bit with OmniFocus with some real data, which was nice.

Somehow I missed my due dates in the main window. However you can clearly see Merlin Mann’s influence in the un-distract-ifying way of life. It is there, you just have to enable it. If you look at the date in the Action you wonder how to change it. Hovering over it and a small calendar icon appears. Also a project does not seem to have a date. However hovering over it it is there.

But I’m not sure. Un-distract-ifying is all nice and dandy. But do I need it, if I decided to activate my OmniFocus window on my Mac? I already decide to have a look at is. So it may distract me. Actually hiding is more distracting to me. Perhaps I get used to it. For now I’m still leaning towards iGTD.

And OmniFocus needs a QuickSilver plugin. I don’t want another hot key, which does not add anything. I know you can immediately assign a project and context to it, but I don’t want that, since the inbox is fine by me. I can review it later.

to be continued…

GTD with your phone

Ronald Pulleman — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 20:33:36 +0000

Currently I’m digging GTD a lot. I see this working for me. Just noticed the Circle Six Design application Jott2iGTD How handy is that? Wow!
Great when your in your car. Call Jott. Speak note to yourself and hoopla. So I decided to give it a spin. Jott2IGTD needs a Jott account….

Bummer. US and Canada only.

Can’t wait for Jott to enter Europe…. I’ll be the first to sign up.

OmniFocus and iGTD

Ronald Pulleman — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 20:47:10 +0000

I said in a blog entry that OmniFocus was not released so I could not try that. However a couple of weeks ago I signed up for the OmniFocus beta. Yesterday I got a mail that I could download the Alpha.

Reading the reviews it seems most people like it. Some are missing priorities. I’m not using that right now in iGTD so that’s fine by me.

What I immediately noticed is the uncluttered and simple interface OmniFocus presented. Just like OmniGraffle it feels natural. With inspectors you can manipulate the Actions, projects or context. But without the inspectors it presents such a simple interface. Only when doing the review step you will need the inspectors I guess.

See the difference?

I’m going to play a bit with it and see if it is really better than iGTD.