Moleskine Revisited

I’ve now been using the Moleskine for a few months. I wasn’t exactly sure how I would incorporate it into my life but knew I wanted an easy way to capture tasks on the run. Of course in the mean time, a few things have changed for me in terms of productivity. First, I bought an iPhone. That has had very little impact on the way I capture tasks. Why … do you ask? Because the iPhone doesn’t have a built in task list!? There is a bit of a hack but I’ll discuss that below. This post is supposed to be about Moleskines.

Anyway, I don’t keep a “journal” in my Moleskine and rarely draw a diagram. It is, primarily, a list. For instance, I’m on the phone with someone and he says, “Hey Dave … I got a new job making roadrunner traps. My new email address is Joe@ACME.com”. I’ll write a line in my Moleskine “Joe@ACME.com” As I go through the day I’ll accumulate these small entries and at some point I’ll sit down in front of my Mac and input these items. They can be OmniFocus entries, address book entries, or maybe a simple task that I’ll just do. Either way, very quickly they get processed and crossed off in the Moleskine. Like I said, nothing fancy but it gets the job done.

While I really like the pocket sized Moleskine it still is kind of bulky in my pocket so that one stays at my desk at work. I picked up a three pack of the thin softcover Moleskines that are perfect for putting in my pocket. I keep one in the car, one on me, and one in the briefcase and that works just fine. So at the end of the day I could have several Moleskine’s I am processing. It sounds confusing but actually it works quite well.

I’m thinking I may start taking meeting notes in a bigger one and process them the same way. We’ll see.

The iPhone Wrinkle

I have faith that Apple will eventually get around to putting a task list on the iPhone but I’m not all that certain I’d actually use it. If I had OmniFocus on it maybe. The current Omni solution that would require me to turn my laptop into a server is useless to me. But for now, such pipe dreams along with about ten bucks will buy you a cup of coffee. There is one slight hack. I have a “Ta-Da List” account which is great. I mainly keep shopping lists on it. For instance, I have a “Target” , “Grocery List” and a few other. I also put an “OmniFocus” list on it that allows me when not near a Moleskine, to put a task in there for later input.

I’m getting plenty of emails from readers with good ideas. Don’t be afraid to place comments with your tricks so everyone can benefit.

Details of iGTD Pro Released

 

Bartek has released the details of his plans for upgraded versions of his excellent iGTD. Specifically there will continue to be the free version (basic) but he will be adding “iGTD Home and Office” that allows you to sync between Macs and “iGTD Pro” which allows you sync with the web. While I am continuing to use OmniFocus, iGTD is really tempting me. Since I have a windows box at the office it would be really nice to log in to my iGTD data from it. Omni has been quiet about syncing features but I do understand they are racing to finish the 1.0 version. If Omni could just get a reliable iPhone sync that doesn’t require me to turn my MacBook into a server, that would probably be enough for me. Still and all, I’ll have to keep my eye on iGTD.

You can read about the different versions of iGTD right here.

OmniFocus Check In

I’ve been using the Sneaky Peak of OmniFocus exclusively now for several weeks for task management and I’m very pleased with the progress Omni is making with this program.  If you have any interest in it, get yourself over to the Omni Group web site and get your name on the list.   It is “different” from what I was doing in iGTD, but generally better for my workflow with a few small (hopefully temporary) annoyances.  It is still just Alpha after all.   

Moving to OmniFocus

While I’ve been a member of the OmniFocus “Sneaky Peek” for some time now I hadn’t really embraced it yet. This is a result of the fact that things have been very busy lately and I’ve got such a smooth workflow with iGTD that I, frankly, wasn’t all that motivated. I then began a series of email correspondence with Robin Trew, who is, by they way, much smarter than I. Rob put together an amazing apple script that yanked about 250 tasks out of iGTD and dropped them into OmniFocus in as much time as it took me to brew and consume a cup of green tea.

Rob having saved me the tedium of transferring data, I began playing in earnest with OmniFocus a few days ago and it looks like I’m not going back to iGTD. I’m not taking anything away from iGTD which is a very good application (and free!). Indeed, with Quicksilver triggers and other features I think iGTD is, in several ways, superior to the current OmniFocus alpha I’m working on. However, after a few days usage I can already see the writing on the wall. Frankly I’m willing to have a little less efficient input in exchange for other benefits in OmniFocus. Specifically, I find the ease of use in moving and copying task groups, the better data management, the ease of use in designating projects with concurrent or subsequent tasks and the general fit and finish of the program have me hooked. Rob also explained the data security in OmniFocus is better. Being that I was an arts major and I still leave cheese out at nights just in case there IS a little mouse inside my Mac on a wheel, I’m simply going to paste Rob’s explanation here.

“The iGTD approach of storing everything in a single binary (SQLite) file does introduce a slight vulnerability – a binary file can be quite hard to retrieve things from if it gets corrupted. Omnifocus also uses SQL internally, but it stores everything on disk as a cloud of (gzipped) XML files – one for each transaction, which is inherently rather robust. (Regular backups are streamed out as single XML files, which, like the small transaction files, become human-readable as soon as you gunzip them in the Terminal).

There is a more lucid and authoritative account here.”

So it looks like I’ll be talking more about OmniFocus and less about iGTD. Unless, of course, OmniFocus is not up to the task and then you will hear all the gory details right here. For those iGTD faithful I say stick with it. If it weren’t for OmniFocus, I certainly would. I don’t think questions as to which tool you use to accomplish your productivity is really, at the end of the day, all that important. The question is whether you actually are productive.

iGTD .. it just keeps getting better

Today iGTD released another update. I don’t know if Bartek has help or is just superhuman but this program just gets more and more polished with every update. I am using it for all of my task management and there are currently about 250 tasks being tracked in oodles of projects.

Granted I am a HUGE fan of the OmniGroup applications, OmniFocus really has a contender here. As an aside I’m now officially on the inside of the “sneaky peak” for OmniFocus but I don’t have time to really give it a look-see until this weekend.

Waiting for OmniFocus …

Its been a few weeks now since the Omni Group announced the beta of its quasi GTD product, OmniFocus. I know I’m on the list and must admit I’m curious to give it a try. Depending on how well it works I’ll have to decide if I’ll run it as a sandbox application or actually re-enter my roughly 200 iGTD entries. I’ll keep you posted.