Scheduling, planning and follow-through. Some questions

Posted by Hugh
May 26, 2014 at 08:51 AM

Alexander Deliyannis wrote:
Hugh wrote:
>>Interesting! Several Mac task managers seem to be going or have
>recently
>>gone in the direction of graphically representing on a calendar when
>>you’re planning to carry out your tasks, including the Granddaddy,
>>Omnifocus. Not exactly GTD as I remember it originally recommended by
>>David Allen, but still a useful development.
> >Others interested in this kind of feature may want to take a look at
>Pagico (mentioned here years ago I believe): http://www.pagico.com/

Precisely yes, Pagico was one of the applications I had in mind when I wrote the paragraph above.

>Planning beforehand _when_ non time-determined tasks are to be
>implemented is indeed not classic GTD and possibly reduces flexibility.
>On the other hand, I find that scheduling blocks of hours to work on
>major tasks requiring concecutively focused work—i.e. tasks that
>cannot be meaningfully advanced within 1-2 pomodoros—is critical for
>such undertakings.

My thinking too.

>It has been mentioned before that the GTD methodology is fine for people
>required to do many minor tasks during their workday. It is far from
>ideal for, say, writers, who need to ‘get into the flow’ and whose work
>cannot be broken into small independently implemented tasks.

I’m beginning to think that I need two separate ways of managing my tasks - one like Pagico a halfway-house between a task manager and a full-blown project manager, for longer-term projects that demand that you ‘get into the flow’, and one like, say, Omnifocus for everything else. (Incidentally, Pagico seems to have improved its act since this forum considered it a couple of years ago. It’s still quirky, but appears more reliable in use and slightly less obscure in its UI, and it also now has an iOS application. The Omni Group has just released Omnifocus 2, with numerous improvements; for me its new UI lacks contrast and therefore, to a certain extent, impact, but as a GTD application, close to the David Allen vision but not obsessively so, unlike some others, I expect it will remain the market leader on the Mac.)

>BTW, I have found this topic extremely interesting and appreciate the
>valuable personal contributions and insights beyond software and tools.
>I hope to add more of my own—when I find the time.