Getting Things Done
This weekend I started searching for software that will help me manage my growing list of things I have to do. My life used to be simple enough that I could manage it in my head, but after going through the wedding process, picking up some new projects at work, and now I’m buying a house and moving, some things were starting to fall through. And after talking to a house inspector who gave me a list of regular maintenance and checks that I’m going to have to make with my new house, I realized that I had to do something now. During my searches for a solution, I came across a concept called “Getting Things Done,” (GTD) a life-organization philosophy created by David Allen.
I don’t know much about the philosophy itself, except that it seems like it is built on dumping all of the things you have to do from your head into a set of organized list. Once you have a system of managing those actions that you can rely on, you can take all of the energy you’d spend managing your to-do list and focus on clearing out one thing at a time. There is more to it, but the basics seem to fall in line with the “crow epistemology” concept in Objectivism. You can only hold so many units in your head at one time, and using a system that manages your to-do list in a way that keeps things you don’t need to think out-of-sight and gives you a simple list of tasks that you can tackle one-at-a-time.
But the philosophy doesn’t matter to me as much as the software it generated does. I looked around for software built on the GTD ideas. I started with php-gtd software, thinking I could host it myself, but after deleting one project half of the screens were broken. I took a look at the code, and I decided that the software just wasn’t ready for real use yet. I moved next to Remember the Milk and thought it looked promising, but it seemed to be missing some features that I could find in my eventual favorite: Vitalist. Vitalist not only lets you manage your to-do lists, but it also offers RSS and iCal feeds. Now my to-do list is integrated with my Google Calendar, and it’s great. I’ve only been using it for a couple days now so I may grow to hate it, but so far it looks like Vitalist is really going to make my life easier.
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you know, i can still keep it all in my head…