Scott Cheatham’s Weblog

Screen Shot from GTDagenda

A few weeks back I received an email from Dan Baluta, creator of the online “Getting Things Done” application “GTDagenda”.  I was asked to try out the software and give it a review.  I wanted to be as thorough as I could so I asked Dan for a few weeks to actually use it on a daily basis as it’s designed to be utilized.  For the past month or so, I’ve used GTDagenda and gradually added my work to its various features.  I’m pretty comfortable navigating through it now so as I completed my re-reading of “Getting Things Done” this past week, I wanted to let you know about this software and see if you think it’s for you.

To begin with, GTDagenda is an online application.  This means you can access your task lists anywhere and even on your mobile phone.  I’m not an iPhone user but there’s an iPhone application you can add to your phone to use GTDagenda or you use one of its other mobile applications depending on your phone service.  I’ve gradually been moving all of my data to Web 2.0 applications where possible so this was a natural progression for me.

The screen shot at right is a good look at the “summary” of what GTDagenda provides.  Your goals in the top left are based on your levels of focus, the primary subject of Allen’s latest book, Making it All Work. As you identify your various goals, you will then begin to think about the outcomes of what you want to achieve and that will begin the process of “Project” lists.  Each project can then have any number of “Tasks” associated with it.  GTD fans are well aware of this process.  Each night, you review your various projects and their associated task lists and you then can mark certain tasks as “Next Actions”.  You can also add loose tasks that have no reference point as well.  You can then review your “Next Actions” list, print it, or write them down to add to a supplementary paper system.

Of course, you can use any number of context tags to add to your tasks so you can review by @call, @home, @errands, etc.  Again, these tags are familiar with Allen fans but they simply just divide the tasks so you do what needs doing depending on where you are and how much time you have.

GTDagenda is the first system I’ve used that gently nudges you to think about your various tasks and to what ends you are doing them.  If you define your goals ahead of time and strive to focus on things that will move you forward towards them, it does cause you to pause as you add a task to see if this task fits a project and ultimately, a goal.  The system incorporates all of Allen’s main points in GTD so fans of the system looking for an application that can manage everything from the most mundane tasks to their career and personal goals will like this.

Another addition that I enjoy is the “checklist” feature.  For repetitive daily and weekly tasks, you can set up your “checklist” area on GTDagenda and review them daily.  For me, I include such things as taking out the trash, working out, my daily devotional time, and routine weekly tasks associated with the church I pastor.  You can find numerous applications for this feature I’m sure.

One other thing I want to point out is that the system is customizable.  If you use other systems like Stephen Covey’s “7 Habits” or Leo Babauta’s “Zen to Done”, Baluta includes instructions on how to customize the various modules to work within these systems.  If you read my early morning post on developing a system, this site is pretty self-explanatory and you can devise something that works for you I’m sure.

GTDagenda has several levels of membership from free on up so it’s affordable, easy to use, and I think it works well for what I do to manage all of the inputs coming at me each day.  I will give it a solid recommendation for you and your productivity friends to try and see if it will work for you.  Let me know what you think when you try it out.  I think you will like GTDagenda!

On the web: https://www.gtdagenda.com/

On Friday I posted a review of the best selling productivity book “Getting Things Done” by David Allen.  In the review, I promised to review for you a new Web 2.0 application I’ve been experimenting with to manage my goals, projects, and task lists.  That review is coming later today so check back in a bit for that post!

For now, I wanted to share a post with you that’s a few months old to get you thinking about adopting SOME system to help you get more productive and feel at peace with your commitments.  Dustin Wax at the Lifehack blog had a great post in January on the need for a system…

Some read a lot of productivity books and sites like Lifehack and feel like they can take a little bit from here and a little bit from there and call it a day. Others hate the idea that someone like Stephen Covey or David Allen could know their own needs better than they do, and so reject the idea of using “someone else’s” system.

You can read the rest of his post here..

I’ll see you back here a bit later today!