Comments on: Offline Task Handling Application

By: Thomas Drakengren

Thomas Drakengren — Fri, 18 Nov 2005 19:40:30 +0000

Ha, you might have a point there! But you forgot to include the messiness of your “next action” lists, your reference filing system, and not to forget, the project support files. Of course, you just move the chaos there. *But*, then the general entropy has been refactored into those different categories, so the complexity actually decreases somewhat.

So, if you start with less-than-infinite entropy, there’s some margin for improvement.

By: Pontus Gagge

Pontus Gagge — Fri, 18 Nov 2005 17:25:35 +0000

Sorry, I had to postpone answering that question…

The messiness of your desk is inversely proportional to the organization of your mental state (I desperately hope!).

By: Thomas Drakengren

Thomas Drakengren — Thu, 10 Nov 2005 11:18:03 +0000

I’m not *into* that stuff, I’m just using it!
And whether you keep your tasks on paper or in some task handling application, it’s good to have some structure on it.
But don’t underestimate the psychologically nice properties of the GTD “next actions”! But perhaps you’ve never had a problem with procrastination?

By: Pontus Gagge

Pontus Gagge — Wed, 09 Nov 2005 14:31:38 +0000

GTD, time management, personal efficiency — I didn’t know you were into that stuff! Who needs to be efficient…?

Actually, I’ve run across GTD: there’s also a freeware Lotus Notes template which I think does the same thing. http://www.freedownloadscenter.com/Information_Management/Personal_Information_Managers/Getting_Things_Done__GTD__for_Lotus_Notes.html
After all, Notes/Domino has rather more impressive antecedents in the offline capable groupware space, even if the Exchange server line has been cleaned up extensively, and the N/D implementation is too monolithic for effective information integration. Hence IBM’s emphasis on Workplace in the long term…

Haven’t tried it very much myself — I tend to prefer the PDA form factor. On which I have yet to see a truly usable todo-list.