Tools for Thought

Cloud-based apps aren’t everyone’s cup of tea, but they’re convenient for anyone juggling work between multiple computers. If you have a task, but aren’t sure if you’re going to get it done at home, at work, or on the go, web-based task lists are ideal. They’re inherently cross-platform, making them idea for those who have to use an operating system at work that’s different from their personal machines. Gtdagenda aspires to be the personal organizing equivalent of Gmail.

Despite the name, Gtdagenda is flexible enough to support different productivity canons. The site has instructions for configuring the app for Steven Covey’s 7 Habits (more accurately, First Things First), David Allen’s Getting Things Done, or Leo Babauta’s Zen to Done. Other instructions illustrate how to configure for the gym, for school, or for software development.

Organization of Gtdagenda

Like Outlook, Gtdagenda provides an integrated view of your lists and calendar entries, with Next Actions by default taking up the most space. The default view can be modified to make Calendar or some other entry type the prominent pane.

The framework of Gtdagenda is made up two sections. One section clusters Goals, Projects, Tasks, and Next Actions. The other section clusters Checklists, Schedules and Calendar. Larger outcomes of individual projects get entered in the Goals section. Tasks and Next Actions can be assigned to Projects from a dropdown menu. I’d like to see an “Add New Project” option within this menu — currently, a Project has to exist before it can be assigned to a task.

Being a GTD-ready tool, Gtdagenda organizes action items (tasks and next actions) by context, unless you delete them. Action items can be marked for deletion, completion, archiving, or moving to Someday/Maybe. By default, they’re grouped by priority assignment (1-5), but can also be grouped by project.

Some users might find the distinction between Tasks and Next Actions arbitrary. A Task gets turned a Next Action by checking the star icon; otherwise they’re the same. But having the two labels has two advantages: (1) the Tasks category provides an optional bucket for subprojects, and (2) users who don’t follow GTD or follow it less literally might prefer ignoring Next Actions and just use Tasks.

The Checklists feature very cool. In Gtdagenda, checklists aren’t  general purpose lists of considerations, as it would be understood in GTD parlance. Gtdadenga’s checklists are Seinfeld Chains. Each “list” consist of only a label and checkboxes for ticking off daily for a weekly checklist, weekly for a monthly checkist, or monthly for a yearly checklist. Like Joe’s Goals or Sciral Consistency, the purpose of these checklists are to confirm repetitive or cyclical actions — you do your workout for the day, and tick that day’s box. Each checklists displays a line graph that stays flat when all boxes are check, or dips where the corresponding box is unchecked (i.e. where you’ve broken the chain).

Calendar and Schedules are largely two views of the same information. The Calendar tool displays a thumbnail calendar that brings up day-specific tasks when you click on a specific date. Entries can be assigned projects and contexts. When you click on Contexts, the lists will show their corresponding calendar entries separately. Schedules displays the days tasks in block view, adding time information. You can assign projects to these entries but not contexts.

Email updates and mobile access

Each Gtdagenda account has a two mail addresses for adding action items: one for Tasks and one for Next Actions. For some reason, there aren’t any email addresses for Projects, Goals or Calendar. Users with a web-enabled cell phone can access Gtdagenda at gtdagenda.mobi, so if you aren’t at a computer and not in the subway, you always have a way to get to your lists.

Signing up

Like many commercial web apps, Gtdagenda is based on the “freemium” service model, with Free, Basic ($4.45/mo) and Premium (9.95/mo) tiers. The feature grid is a little too complex to generalize here, but you can see the plan differences on this page.

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