An Overview and A Realization:
Back in October, I wrote about how I manage tasks on a daily basis:
After puttering around with Notes on the iPhone, OmniFocus, Evernote and a few more, I just gave up… until a friend showed me Remember The Milk (RTM), an on-line task management system that is easy to use, and has an iPhone-friendly web version (for a fee).
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Then, I read about a iPhone app called (simply) Todo, by a company named Appigo. (Here’s the iTunes link.) It’s a simple, powerful GTD application that syncs with RTM.
After some heavy usage today, I’m impressed with Todo. It syncs back to RTM very quickly, and lets me add things on the go, or copy and paste large chunks into my GTD world via the RTM website from any Mac or PC. I can categorize things by list and/or tags, or leave them in the “Inbox” for later.
A few things have changed since then. First of all, the RTM team has built and released its own iPhone app that leaves others in the dust. Other factors include that life has become more hectic (babies have a way of doing that, we’re finding out), and I’m on my iPhone far more than ever before throughout the day.
So as I considered how I was staying organized, I came to the conclusion that I have two types of information: Tasks and Notes. Here’s how I define them:
Task: A single action that is taken one time and is completed.
Note: A piece of information that will need to be referenced again in the future, but doesn’t necessarily require any action.
Breaking the Mold:
RTM is all about tasks. The website and the iPhone app are centered around single actions that can be checked off a list. Add the fact that RTM supports tagging, categorizing and adding due dates to tasks, it’s the list-maker’s dream come true.
But RTM doesn’t do a single thing with Notes – all entries into the system follow the same form. To get around this, I setup a list called “Notes” and was simply making tasks look like notes – giving them a title and using the description field for my information – and leaving off any due dates or tags.
I love RTM on the iPhone, but there’s not a native Mac application that syncs with the service. They’re a few Adobe Air-based apps, and a couple of Dashboard widgets, but these just offer a fraction of what their website offers. Sadly, RTM’s site can be tricky to use – the way the sidebar (where a task’s details can be edited) is tied to the main content is troublesome. It’s hard to explain, but the sidebar is dependent on what task is selected, and if another one is hovered over by the mouse on the way to the sidebar, that task is selected. It’s not intuitive.
Trying Something New:
I had grown frustrated with this setup, and decided to try Evernote – a system much like RTM, but based around (as you’ve guessed) notes. Evernote’s entries are more like emails then lists – I can put screenshots (the service can even covert images to text), links and more into the system. Tagging and categories (called notebooks) are present, just like in RTM, and the info can be synced between Macs, PCs, iPhones and the web easily.
Like RTM, however, Evernote is somewhat a one-trick pony: it does notes really well, but sucks when it comes to tasks. The Mac version of the software allows notes to have checkboxes in them (notes faking as tasks), but those don’t seem to work in the iPhone app. Not to mention the application is slow and clunky – especially compared to RTM’s iPhone app.
Old Dog, Old Tricks:
Even though Evernote’s ability to hold images and covert those images to text is handy, most of what I do is task-based – and Evernote simply doesn’t handle tasks well. So after experimenting and branching out, I’m still an RTM guy. My notes live masked as tasks, but I can do everything I need to from my iPhone easily and quickly or my Macs (almost as easily and quickly) – and that’s the point, isn’t it?