11/9/2019 Gtd Software Things Vs Nirvana For Mac
Feb 2, 2010 - A review of Nirvana, a beautiful GTD web application that aims at. For Mac and iPhone actually) some weeks ago, and let's face it: Things is just great. You can create a new to-do by either hitting the New Task button. Beautiful GTD™ software for Getting Things Done. Thousands of people get things done with zendone every day +10 Million. Actions +28 Million. Processed Evernote notes +2 Million. Google Calendar Events. Getting Things Done, anytime, anywhere. Web app Mac app iOS app.
Moved from OmniFocus to Things. Reasons why:. My life isn’t as complicated as it once was and I wanted something simpler.
On the other hand, I miss a lot of the control OmniFocus offers such as defer dates, sub tasks, and project types (sequential vs parallel etc). Things has built in functionality for planning. I can plan tasks for certain days without messing with defer dates or due dates. The closest thing in OmniFocus would be flags and some combination of defer dates. OmniFocus does an okay job integrating with my calendar but Things does an amazing job.
The Today list shows me all my tasks for a day (due + planned) and my calendar events. The upcoming view is also an awesome way to get a sense of how busy you’re going to be. Most people don’t even bother with the built in OmniFocus forecast. OmniFocus perspectives are more flexible than the various views in Things, but I don’t actually need that extra flexibility. Things has the idea of checklists built in and distinguishes it from a regular list of tasks. This is pretty awesome because I complete around 20 separate checklists every week.
This is way better than an action with a note containing a bulleted list, or a project containing a bunch of minutia. It sounds like it works for you, and I’m glad. It didn’t work for me when I evaluated the options. Toodledo doesn’t have projects, it has folders, and does not allow sub-projects.
As I recall, the folders themselves don’t get contexts or due dates. The other thing missing was a “review” function. That wasn’t a dealbreaker, just a nice to have. The Mac app is a pretty lazy web wrapper, as opposed to a true native app, but the iOS app is good. Note that I checked it out half a year ago - these issues I had may have changed.
The issue I have with Nirvanahq is their lack of integrations. Quick capture on my phone is critical, and I cannot share anything from another app to nirvana. The only way to get data into it is via email, or by copy pasting into nirvana app. No integration with external references apps like evernote, or external calendaring etc. No notifications; daily focus email can be pushed as a notification with ifttt or pushbullet though. No way to integrate with zapier or ifttt (except via email), so I can't even build my own integrations/notifications I still need to use todoist, so that I can get time-based reminders for certain TODOs. The critical feature that Nirvana has though, that nobody else does, is that it distinguishes scheduled tasks from due dates.
This is why I use Nirvana for gtd instead of todoist (because, frankly, you can implement most of nirvana with todoist projects, labels, and filters). I have a certain set of tasks that I focus on each week, and a different set each weekend, and I dont want that to be confused with those things that are actually due on a given date.
It's my biggest beef with todoist, that my daily 'Today' notifications contain crap that I only intend to work on today, in adition to those things that absolutely ave to be done today. I love tinkering with my GTD software tools; my current setup is:. Todoist (capture + lists + checklists). Google Calendar (time-specific & day-specific next-actions). Google Drive (reference data + project management) I was previously using Evernote, then switched to Onenote, then switched to Google Drive. I like Google Drive a lot better for several reasons: (some of this overlaps Evernote/Onenote functionality). It can google-search your files.
You can easily share a folder or file directly via email. I can structure the folders my way, just like in Windows (folders, sub-folders, etc.). It is very easy to dump ALL reference data into a sub-folder: photos, screenshots, PDF files, Word files, Excel files, videos, etc. Nice iOS app integration There's other things as well, but those are the basics. I have Todoist setup in a similar way - with 'folders' & 'sub-folders' that contain lists & checklists. I like having all of my digital stuff super-accessible so that there's no friction to capturing stuff or looking up a list/checklist/reference information (or adding stuff to those things). What kind of additional functionality are you looking for?
Also I was assigned a new Coca-Cola corporate e-mail that means working with Exchange so I’m tied to Outlook for Mac to make the most of it (like being able to share my availability and check the availability of others before setting up meetings). I love Office in general: nothing comes close to it if you need to be completely compatible with everyone else’s docs and honestly Excel and Word are both great products. Keynote vs PowerPoint could be more tied but then again ppt is widespread so converting back and forth will always eventually lead to trouble and PowerPoint is very good product on its own. All of them fairly powerful in their latest Mac incarnation too, except for Outlook. I miss folder rules and macros so my solution to automate workflows as much as I can has been to rely on macros.
KM is a great value for money on a Mac, and you can use it with other tools such as Automator and AppleScript to get real automation power. I have KM macros plus Outlook general account rules to earmark messages or make sure they are in the right folders / with the right tags.
Evernote for Mac is great and still my main note-taking and info warehouse solution. And being on a Mac opens the temptation to switch to Things or Omnifocus as GTD apps. I’m sticking with Nirvana for now because of best pricing and because I hope the promised Mac desktop app will add offline working support and AppleScript. All this would counter the most obvious advantages than native Mac programs such as Things or Omnifocus offer.
But if you are on a Mac, make no mistake, those two should be on your shortlist: a breeze to use, good design, solid features for your flow. If you don’t know what it is, AppleScript is a native OS scripting language. It’s main advantage is that it’s pretty simple to learn and read — it’s a pseudo-code-like language, think python and it’s pretty powerful to automate pretty much everything on your Mac applications. This pretty much depends on the extent of Applescript support that each app wants to include, but many include at least a ‘good enough’ one so you can effectively control your programs through coding. Which is great in combination with other Mac programs such as Automator (free with OS) and the excellent Keyboard Maestro — a program that would automate most interface and menu selections in any program, and it can also run an Applescript as part of a flow, or through a hotkey combination or at a given time. Problems I solved with Applescript (sometimes in combination with Keyboard Maestro and IFTTT):.
I want to send all Evernote unchecked to-dos to my task manager as tasks. I want to auto see my personal Google Calendar a part of my Outlook calendar, so at least anything added to my personal Google Calendar shows as a private appointment in my Outlook calendar. I want to send all my Outlook e-mails that are actions to my task manager as tasks. I want to share my calendar availability with 3rd parties without manually spotting “empty slots” and collecting them in an e-mail.
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For real freaks out there I’ll cover some of that in next posts. But to finish this post, let me recommend one last automation software for Mac that pays for itself: There are Windows alternatives (such as Phrase Express) so a text expansion software should be part of your life anyway.
Transform basically most repetitive words and even sentences into short abbreviations and save time and keystrokes every day. Good for your productivity and for the health of your wrists.
You’ll also notice you get work done faster whenever you need to type. One of the great things about Text Expander is that it coaches you: it will suggest you to add a new abbreviation when it detects you’re typing the same thing over and over again. And if you did create an abbreviation and are not using it, it will remind you of it so you make the most effective use of the tool.
So next steps if you find yourself on a Mac: get Keyboard Maestro and Text Expander And get some time to learn the basis of AppleScript in pages such as It will pay off.
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