the Pleb

OmniFocus and Things, Followup

So maybe you read my last piece on my dilemma in selecting a project organization app from the app store. Maybe you even commented on it, or gave your two cents in answer to my question. Well for me, the question has been solved, and I thought that I should let you know, and give the matter a few final thoughts.

OmniFocus and Things were the two major competitors for my app store dollars. OmniFocus weighs in with a price tag of $40, while Things comes in at a relatively inexpensive $20. Neither of these apps are for casual use really, if you want casual, look at my old post for some ideas. What I ended up doing was going with OmniFocus, here is why.

OmniFocus

Basically, it boils down to the ecosystem. For me, OmniFocus had already been purchased on both my iPhone and desktop. I decided not to abandon those dollars quite yet, and I knew OmniFocus would be a great product. What I did not know at the time, was that the purchase of OmniFocus for the iPad got me into a private beta of a wireless syncing system, which works between all my devices. It is great, in fact, it is better than Frosted Flakes. Although it doesn’t auto sync at the end of my tasking session, as long as I remember to tap that sync button before I close it, the syncing is flawless. Way to go, OmniGroup. I may have contemplated leaving, but you really earned your place on my dock.

Things

Ah, the runner-up. It is really a tough place to be in. Especially when the product is as good as Things is. Believe me, Things is good. Great feature set, thoughtful design, useful organization. Things has all of these, er, things. It also has an iPhone as well as a desktop client, if you are looking for the complete ecosystem. The only problem for me was that I already owned 2/3 of the other ecosystem. Sorry Things.

So in the final analysis, I did go with OmniFocus. If you already own pieces of the OmniFocus puzzle, or if cloud based syncing gives you goosebumps just thinking about it, I might suggest that you do the same as me. However, if you are new to the game, looking for an iPad only task manager, or just need to save some sponduli, Things is your pony. I can heartily recommend it.

Focusing on Things

I do not know if you subscribe to the Get Things Done (GTD) philosophy or not. My personal point of view is that some people make the system more important than the actual doing of the tasks, and it can lead to procrastination. It doesn’t help to have a system if you spend more time curating the system than you do getting actual work done. With that being said, I say do what works for you. I certainly have over the years, using notecards, a handy little moleskin, writing a text document. I have tried lots and lots of programs on my computer in an attempt to keep myself organized as well. TaskMate, ToDoist, Today (which is actually really cool), the Hit List, etc. So my history is long and varied with these types of things.

I have begun a new semester at school, and so my life has become very busy once again. I do full time school on top of my full time job, and the now I am a daddy at the same time! So, I am very busy, and if I don’t think about something, it can fall through the cracks so quickly, it is frankly ridiculous. I had been lackadaisically tracking a few tasks in TaskMate on my work laptop, but this wasn’t going to cut it. I needed to do some comprehensive task and project management. Since I have used a GTD system before, I knew that I needed one place, always accessible to store my tasks. I liked that. I always have my iPad with me, so I began to look into some of the task management suites available. Some, like Next Thing were to simple. Taska worked, but I could never get it to sync to Toodledo correctly: the iPhone version could never pull my tasks. It also seemed a little complex when doing a simple brain dump scenario, a common use case for me. I disliked the kitsch of ToDo, so that one was out. Finally I narrowed the list to 2 candidates, Things and OmniFocus. Now I need to figure out which one to buy.

Things is a great program. I have used it before on the iPad, and I loved the ability to dump tasks, and tag them. Contexts is also wonderful. I can also tell that they have put lots of thought into the interface. It tries to be as unobtrusive as possible, and yet still manages to provide deep functionality. This is the secret of really good, thoughtful design. It was also fast, and fully functional, the hallmarks of good coding. In short, I really like this one. The price tag is $20 for the iPad app. However, an ecosystem does exist, the companion iPhone app is $10 and a desktop client is available for $50. Of course I could simply use the iPad app as a standalone. Attractive thought, because I would not have to worry about syncing, which is the true bane of anyone seeking to keep all the lists current. The desktop client seems very attractive and thoughtful, just as the iPad app does.

The other option is OmniFocus. This requires a rather large layout on the get go; it is $40. I have not used it before, but it seems very clean and functional, with lots of added functionality like maps of contexts and special features that would be unavailable to to-do lists on other platforms. Also in favor of OmniFocus is this, a long time ago I shelled out for OmniFocus for OSX ($80), as well as OmniFocus for iPhone ($20). I already have an ecosystem in place. That is actually pretty handy. The desktop client is starting to show its age, but I hear that they are working on OmniFocus 2 soon, they stopped working on it to turn out the iPad application. Of course, that means to stay current I will have to shell out for a new desktop client in the near future. It is not problem that it feels a little stale though, because for the most part I would be managing tasks on my iPad, using my iPhone for universal capture, and then using my desktop client to keep it all synced together and current. Not bad, not bad.

So these are my two options. I could be relatively cheap now and only shell out for Things, but I then run the risk of wanting to buy into the ecosystem later for much more dinero. Alternatively, I could drop the dough on OmniFocus now, and enjoy the advanced features (which I will probably rarely use, honestly) and the existing ecosystem (which I will use all the time). Of course, I might end up spending some extra cash (ha!) down the line on that too, if the new desktop version comes out. It is something of a quandary. I am sure that I will figure something out soon, I really need something like this, the sooner the better. While I mull it over, what are your thoughts?

Note Taking Nirvana

What I want is simple. I want to be able to take notes on any of my devices, and then have them instantly accessible on any other of my devices instantly, and without me having to do anything. Impossible you say? Not so. I have just entered Note Taking Nirvana, and best of all, the price was free! Well, for the software anyway. This is my setup. 

On my Macs I use Notational Velocity. It has fantastic keyboard shortcuts, and super simple, fast searching. I can find the note I am looking for usually with a few keystrokes. This little desktop gem syncs with the Simplenote service, ensuring that my notes propagate across all my Notational Velocity enabled computers. That would be my iMac at home, my main Macbook Pro, and even my old Macbook Pro that my wife mainly uses.

Of course, what matters here is ubiquitous capture, I need to capture the note, thought, or idea wherever I am with whatever I have. For that I have the newly updated Simplenote app [iTunes link!]. It is a free Universal Binary for my iPhone and iPad. Just in time for me to start taking notes in class, they even updated these excellent little apps with the one feature that I wanted most, full screen entry. Yes! So yesterday, when I wanted to remember a license plate number, I just punched it into my phone. When I was sitting in class, I typed all my notes into my iPad comfortably in fullscreen. It is much much lighter than lugging a computer around campus. When I got home from work and sat down in front of my computer all my class notes, as well as the license plate number of the car and an idea I jotted down on the bus, were available at the tips of my fingers. No manual syncing needed. I can go about my day in full confidence that the things I write down will be available to me anywhere. My wife’s preferred order at Firehouse subs that I took down months ago? If I need it, I can just pull it up on my phone.

In short, I am in true note taking nirvana. All my note taking is now focused on the notes themselves, I don’t have to worry about availability or formatting. Do you want to know perhaps the best part about all this note taking? Not a Marker Felt typefaced word in sight. Now that is saying something.

Elements for iPad

Elements, the much anticipated (by me) writing app for iPad/iPhone was recently released by Second Gear Software. What it proposes to be is an excellent writing platform for the iPad, and it is one that I can heartily recommend. It has a clarity of purpose that I appreciate; it is all about the writing here, no fancy shmancy hoopla. The design decisions were clearly all made with this fact firmly mind. Let’s go over some of the things that I enjoy most about this excellent app.

First, the setup. Upon starting up the app, you are presented with a login screen requesting your Dropbox details. More on that later. You enter your credentials and then are presented with an attractive and helpful document explaining how things work. I glanced through it, and created a new document. Effortless. I certainly enjoy the fact that there is no ugly left hand split screen nonsense when in landscape mode, distracting from the writing, just a clean pinboard of all your documents, and once you select one, you move into the attractive fullscreen editor. Now that it is setup, it is literally two taps from iPad homescreen to full on text editing bliss. That tells me that they really thought about this. 

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Times for iPad

The problem I have with John Gruber saying that Times for the iPad is ‘very competitive’ with Flipboard is that Flipboard is free, and Times will set me back $8. I don’t mind paying for quality software, but if I am already getting it for free…