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Comment by bls | Hacker News Reader

Did you see Nozbe.com? That is the most GTD-centric TODO list I have seen. I also found it to have some good user interface ideas, like drag-and-drop reordering of lists.

But, there is also RememberTheMilk.com, toodledo.com, and many others. Toodledo.com has a nice comparison table of the biggest names in this space.

IMO, the biggest problem with most of the entrants in this area (Backpack being the exception) was UI clutter.

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You're very right, the UIs look cluttered. It might be a good idea for me to continue working on this then :)

What is GTD (Getting Things Done), does it stand for a specific work technique? Which one? Does it work?

I just started using GTD-like techniques. The basics of it are this: (1) write everything down as you think of it, so you don't forget anything. (2) very often, go through the list of random items; do the small (two minute) tasks immediately, and organize the rest of them into into (groups of) "next actions." (3) spend all the rest of your time eliminating items from the "next actions" list.

I think it is effective. There were many times when I let a lot of email pile up in my inbox. Now, I very deliberately go through my email and respond to everything ASAP; everything that I can't do immediately gets filed away in a TODO list so I don't forget it. My inbox is thus ALWAYS empty. I don't know why but that makes me happy. It also makes other people happy because they are getting their responses faster. And, I get more done because having a list of "the next thing I need to do" makes me want to do things to get them off the list.

The other thing I found to be helpful is to schedule all my distractions. Now, I have a reminder that tells me "hey, check your email" and even "hey, check your feed reader." This seems silly, but it is really helpful; I know that I will get the "check your feed reader" reminder soon, so I just keep working until it comes. Sometimes, I get annoyed and refuse (!) to check my email because I'm busy; in fact, I had started with scheduling them hourly but I am slowly reducing it down to three times per day. As a result, I check my email and weblogs WAY less frequently than I did before (even with an hourly reminder), because before I would check my email basically in between each item on my TODO list or even in the middle of something.

I also want to point out that it is easy to waste a lot of time looking for the absolute best productivity solution. The reason I picked GTD is because it seemed reasonable and other people claimed success with it; I didn't want to waste a ton of time evaluating methodologies. Similarly, there are a lot of productivity tools (especially software); I spent WAY too much time evaluating them, but only because each of them suck in their own special way. I think now I'm simply going to use Outlook 2003; I can't access it from the internet but I can sync with my phone which in many ways is even better.

What would make those tools suck less?

(1) Less UI clutter, (2) instant response time, (3) automatic Bluetooth sync with my phone, (4) offline ability (I live in Thailand and my internet connection is not 100% reliable), (5) an easy way to get stuff from my email to my TODO list, and (6) instantly-responding UI.

I like a lot of things about Nozbe.com but it is too slow and I cannot do anything with it using my phone. Also, the fact that you will have to pay according to how many "projects" you have is crazy.

Paying per project does seem crazy.

I'm trying very hard to make sure there's no UI clutter. I'll show my results by April 30th.

#3 and #4 mean a desktop app. I may consider that in the future but right now, web only. Sorry.

By #2/6 do you mean using AJAX?

But what is GTD? Do you have an URL that explains it?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GTD

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