Getting things done on an iPhone and iPod Touch
If you’re working out how to Get Things Done (GTD) on an iPod Touch, here’s how I’m doing it. In the next post I’ll explain how I moved my data off my Palm Vx onto the Touch. But for now, here’s how I’ve managed to implement GTD on an iPod Touch. And, of course, an iPhone.
This looks simple, and it is, but it took me while to find applications that are usable, sync or backup, and are generally (almost) as good a Palm Pilot, which is second to none at enabling all this, even if it’s not as sexy. I’ve been very fussy about functionality and ease of use (trans: few actions needed to achieve an end goal).
Calendar. I use SaiSuke for my calendar, and sync it with my Google Calendars. I avoid the built-in iPhone/iPod Touch calendar primarily because I want to be able to add an event on my handheld that, say, repeats every third Wednesday of the month. The built-in calendar doesn’t allow that flexibility (although it accepts such events if you’ve entered them into your desktop calendar). Also, I’m on a PC and don’t have Outlook. SaiSuke syncs directly with Google Calendar. The paid-for version, which I use, allows more flexible sync’ing with several Google Calendars and is £5.99 from the UK iTunes Music Store.
Contacts. I use the built-in Contacts database, but with the following additions:
- I sync it with Google Contacts (part of Google Mail) using a free account on NuevaSync.
- Contact Tool [link opens iTunes] by Alessandro Levi Montalcini allows better searching than the built-in app. It’s £1.19 in the UK.
A very useful additional hack is the ability to go to your Google Contacts directly in your desktop web browser, without going through mail. Use this link: http://mail.google.com/mail/contacts/ui/ContactManager
To-do list. I use Remember The Milk online and its iPhone/iPod Touch application. The app is very intuitive and tends to require reasonably few actions (but not minimal) for you to do what you want. You need to be an RTM Pro member for the app: $25/year. I tried Toodledo, but found it required too many clicks and took up too much screen real estate when used online.
That’s it. And suddenly my iPod Touch is almost as useful as my old Palm Pilot. Next: how I moved from a Palm Vx.
