I wanted to try out some GTD-oriented tools as part of my "get back on the GTD wagon" goal. A few appeared frequently in my searches:
Each one supports a varying degree of GTD-ness, but FacileThings stood out as the most GTD-oriented. I've been using it for a few weeks now and have some initial thoughts on it. Overall I've been very happy with it.
What I like
- It's heavily designed around GTD. The full process of capturing, clarifying, organizing and doing is built right into the software.
- It supports the more high-level parts of organization, such as goals and "areas of responsibility". Tasks can be assigned to a goal and/or area, and can then be filtered appropriately.
- The weekly review tool is a huge time saver. Each step has instructions, along with the tools required to complete them. For example, the "review your projects" step lists all projects, and each one can be checked quickly from the same page.
- There are integrations for Evernote, Twitter and several cloud storage providers. Reference material can also be stored in Evernote and accessed from projects.
- The dashboard lists reminders, calendar items for the day and all appropriate next actions. It can be filtered by tag (e.g. `work` or `personal`), along with time, energy and urgency. It also has a graph of tasks completed for the current week. It will remind you if items have been sat in the inbox for too long without being clarified.
- There are keyboard shortcuts for accessing each part of the app.
- Projects can have sub-projects. Projects can also be put into "waiting for" status, which is very helpful when working on client projects. Projects are highlighted when they are missing a next action.
- Has a tickler file.
- Has an "analytics" section that contains a lot of statistics. Things like how much is being collected, how much is being processed and how much is being done. It's a good way to find stuck projects and things that may be better suited to the "someday/maybe" pile.
- The "Focus On" button in the top right can be used to quickly filter everything to goals and areas of responsiblities. So you can say "I want to work on goal X right now" and it will filter tasks and projects accordingly.
- Can send emails have them go straight into the inbox.
- Can be set up to email daily and weekly reports.
- Shows you estimated time to complete projects and lists. So you can get a rough idea of how much time is needed to clear your entire next actions list (assuming you set estimated times).
What I don't like
- Overall appearance isn't quite as polished as other tools out there.
- Jumping to projects is done via dropdown menu, rather than a dedicated button, which isn't as smooth as I'd like. However, there is a keyboard shortcut to jump to the projects page.
- It's not as keyboard-friendly as other tools. For example, Nirvana has keyboard shortcuts for adding projects and next actions from any page.
- There isn't a way to import data from other platforms or via CSV/Text file
- It's very expensive compared to other platforms. The current price is $84 a year (if paid in one go) and there is no lifetime option. For comparison, Nirvana is $50 for a lifetime subscription.
- It's a little sluggish in places. Closing a task can sometimes take 5-10 seconds.
- There's a Ruby API client, but there's very little documentation. I'd love a more complete API, and would especially like some webhooks for when tasks/projects are completed and weekly reviews are finished.
- Not free/libre. I like to own my data and prefer self-hosted solutions.