Michael Baierl » gtd

This must be a dream….

Michael — Tue, 31 May 2011 21:22:33 +0000

It’s really hard to believe, but The Hit List has been released to the public after 2 years (!!!) of “development”. When I first wrote about it I really thought this is going to be a great application… last years update was depressing already, but there was still hope in the Google Group.

Now that Poition Factory finally announced The Hit List 1.0 (not really announced, the only developer just put it online) I really wonder

if it will take another 2 years until an iPhone or even iPad application are released?
what the upgrade policy will be? How fast will bugs be fixed?

Do people still believe in such a company, with such a bad track record? How could anyone pay for the sync service? I personally would rather invest into Appigio Todo, which has released many many updates and a Web interface – and they had some time to fix bugs and improve the application.

…just my 2 cents regarding this 2 year saga….

Update:

Not even to mention all the features that the competition has and that should be the standard in todays productivity apps:

Importing and exporting tasks. At least from basic text files. My data belongs to me, not to your proprietary database format.
Adding tasks via E-Mail. Most times this is the application in front of me, so why not mail a task to myself?
Documented API’s and interfaces, so others can modify the data easily – think about Evernote or Dropbox, how well they integrate with tons of apps.

So yes, the user interface of THL is still charming, simple and because of the keyboard shortcuts very very powerful…. but again, the competition is way ahead….. about 2 years to be exact.

What’s so wunderbar about wunderlist?

Michael — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 20:05:10 +0000

Recently a new startup in Germany released a task manager, called wunderlist. As I already did some reviews about GTD applications for the iPhone and because wunderlist is free I checked it out on day one. Not so impressive in my opinion. Good application, but requires some work to be really useful.

Today the iPad application called wunderlist HD has been released, again with great buzz around it. Downloaded it. Again not so impressive. Decided to write about it.

Don’t get me wrong, wunderlist and wunderlist HD look beautiful. They are developed using the Appcelerator platform which makes development for multiple platforms (Windows, Mac, iOS, Android….) relatively easy. Wunderlist offers cloud syncing. And it is actually a real, released product.

But in the end I think there are other alternatives (ToDo, 2Do, Toodledo to name a few) that are around way longer, offer more features and work faster (wunderlist sometimes reacts slowly). Also faster in terms of task entry and efficiency for me, the user. Furthermore others have proven over years to work and sync reliable and they improved their features over time…

So I really wonder what’s so wunderbar about wunderlist? To me it solves an already solved problem with more buzz, that’s it…

Why work doesn’t happen at work

Michael — Thu, 23 Dec 2010 18:53:02 +0000

Mainly because of M&Ms… Managers & Meetings are the real problem to productivity. Check out the whole TED video if you are interested why work does not happen at work:

So where do you work?

(via ted.com)

Abhakeln

Michael — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 08:32:23 +0000

Papa, wir müssen noch ins Kaffeehaus gehen. Dann ist das mit dem Lutscher endlich abgehakelt.

Früh übt sich…

This is definitely not going to be a hit!

Michael — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 07:28:08 +0000

Long long time ago I wrote about The Hit List – that it is going to be the best GTD software on earth.

A little after that I wrote about how to not write software and especially about how to not communicate with users.

Finally it is time to say that The Hit List is not going to be a hit…. let me quote some statistics from CAS:

Last tweet: December, 2009
Last forum post: December, 2009
Last blog post: September, 2009
Last significant (non-fix) upgrade to THL: May, 2009

To me this looks like THL is finally dead…. too bad, would have had a great future!

RIP, The Hit List!

But what have you shipped?

Michael — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 12:03:40 +0000

What have you done with your connection skills that has been worthy of criticism, that moved the dial and that changed the world?

Go, do that.

5 simple steps

Michael — Wed, 26 May 2010 11:22:28 +0000

If just everyone @work would follow these 5 steps….:

1. Go, make something happen.
2. Do work you’re proud of.
3. Treat people with respect.
4. Make big promises and keep them.
5. Ship it out the door.
When in doubt, see #1.

Source

GTD solves all your problems

Michael — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 08:44:48 +0000

(from JoyOfTech)

How to not develop software

Michael — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 07:33:25 +0000

A while ago I wrote about The Hit List – a clean, powerful GTD application for the Mac. Over a year passed since that posting so I’d love to give an updated about The Hit List and the development of that particular application.

So, what happened in the last year? Well, not a lot:

THL is still beta

The Hit List lets you plan, forget, then act when the time is right. (source)

That’s what they write on their homepage, but obviously the time is not right yet – THL is still beta. Over year ago I wrote that the developer reads the forums and listens to his users…. this is not the case anymore – there are no frequent updates and the developer (Potion Factory seems to be a single-person company) does not respond to mails. The forums are full of complaints and issues….

THL for the iPhone is vaporware

All the developer released so far is a screenshot, that can be created in Photoshop or using Interface Builder in a few minutes… until now there is no sign of an real, existing iPhone application, something that is really needed for a fully-operational GTD system.

The competition….

Enough complaining about THL itself, what I really wanted to write about is why I think that THL is not going to survive with the current development model… in the last year the competition did actually develop and improve their products, there have been releases and they learned from their mistakes. For example my favorite iPhone GTD application “ToDo” had a few releases and improved the application over time. Toodledo also improved their Web interface and added quite a lot of features.

It is unrealistic to think that Potion Factory will release a working, reliable and proven iPhone application from the beginning… there will be bugs and flaws which have to be fixed after the release. No app is perfect when released.

Also the competition is really really strong and feature rich. For example 2do or even Toodledo‘s own iPhone app. Both are shiny, stable and actively maintained. On the desktop Omnifocus and Things are way ahead THL right now – THL was great a year ago, it is old fashioned today.

My recommendation

While THL for the Mac is still one of the best GTD apps out there (it’s focus on shortcuts is great!) I do not recommend it anymore. There does not seem to be any development and without an iPhone counterpart (or an open API so independent developers can fill that gap) it is not useable as GTD system. All sync options are hacks and do not work reliable (check the forums for details). Do not invest your money right now… but maybe next year?

This is going to be a hit (list)!

Michael — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 10:57:00 +0000

As a GTD advocate I already tested Things vs. Todo and also compared it to Remember The Milk. Now a new (star?) application is under development by the PotionFactory – named “The Hit List“.

What makes the new application (which is in beta mode right now) a real hit is its focus on the keyboard – adding tasks, moving them around, starting timers, editing, tagging, all can be done with a few simple keystrokes. Simple – just f, x, space, enter. No Cmd+Command+Shift+# kind of “short”cuts. This makes handling tasks the GTD way a lot faster than using the mouse to manage hundreds of tasks in various projects.
Also the developer really listens to the Google Group to get early feedback of the users – a really agile way of developing such an application!

What would be reasons for me to switch over from Todo/Toodledo? Well, while Toodledo is a Web application and therefore platform independent it is not as efficient to use as the optimized THL application (I’m Mac only now, so who cares about other platforms?). On the other side I fear that THL only does Wireless syncing and cannot sync via a server (MobileMe?) which would be a show stopper – I want to sync any time, independend of the network and not be restricted by a running computer or network issues*. Also the iPhone part of THL was not released yet, it has to be at least as efficient and fast as Todo (which does a pretty good job on the iPhone!).

But hey, The Hit List is in beta mode right now and PotionFactory is working hard on finishing the implementation, lets see how the final product looks like…. if syncing works, the iPhone app is useable and the whole package is not too pricy I’ll consider switching over…

(Image source)

*) I wonder why various apps (1Password, Things, …) do not just sync their data on any https protected WebDAV location, like the iDisk or others. This would work between any PC, Mac and iPhone, not require any additional server component, be secure and free the user from having a desktop application running on the same network. Firewalls would not be a problem as well…