Get More Done With Android

My quest to configure my Nexus One as a productivity tool continued this past weekend as I experimented with two applications, Nozbe and Got To Do. Nozbe is a web application that does not have a native Android app, and Got To Do is an Android app that synchronizes with the web application Toodledo. The reason I am interested in Nozbe is its integration with Evernote, but I prefer a native Android app such as Got To Do. Nozbe does have an iPhone app and I have read that they intend to develop an Android app, but for now Android users will have to use either the iPhone web app, which works well in the Android browser, or the mobile browser app. I use Evernote to store my information, and I use it as my electronic file folder in the spirit of Getting Things Done (GTD). The problem is that Evernote is not a task processing system, so it is difficult to use as my sole tool for Getting Things Done. I have experimented with just using Evernote as my sole tool by creating a variety of tags and saved searches, which is a nice way of viewing information that matches to my workflow, but I have not found it to be the best for managing tasks. David Allen recommends using one tool, but so far I am finding that two tools used on one computer or smartphone is the best solution. When I learned about Nozbe from Evernote's blog, I had to try it out. Nozbe is a very nice web application designed specifically for the GTD method. It uses the Evernote api to interface with your Evernote account. You associate Nozbe projects and contexts with tags in Evernote. For example if you have a context in Nozbe called home, all Evernote notes, regardless of which notebook they are stored in, that have a tag of home will be listed in the Evernote Notes section of the context view. The same occurs with projects, Evernote notes with tags matching the names of Nozbe projects appear in the project view. Nozbe's context and project views show all of the asscociated actions, notes, files, and Evernote notes. (Notes is Nozbe's internal note taking function.) The Nozbe iPhone web app, called iNozbe, is very straight forward, and you can use it to see project and context lists where you can edit actions and mark them complete. Unfortunately, you do not see Evernote notes. You can also create new actions, projects, and contexts in the web app. The downside of iNozbe is like all web apps, you must have an Internet connection to use it and none of the smartphone web apps have all of the functionality of native applications. Got To Do is a native Android application specifically designed for the GTD method, like Shuffle, which I have tried and written about previously. I prefer Got To Do over Shuffle because it has a more appealing interface, includes a widget, and works with a more robust web application, Toodledo. Shuffle works with a open source web application called Tracks and an implementation of Tracks, GTDify. While GTDify is completely free, Toodledo appears to be more robust and implements a freemium model with reasonable annual subscriptions of $14.95 per year or $29.95 per year depending on what additonal features you want. Got To Do also follows a fremium model, and you will find both the free Lite version, which has advertisements, and the Pro version, which costs about $3. Picking one of the two solutions boils down to choosing between Nozbe and Toodledo. Nozbe is more visually appealing, more optimized for Getting Things Done, and integrates with Evernote, but is significantly more expensive at $60 per year versus Toodledo's $14.95 yearly cost. Even when you factor in the cost of buying Got To Do, the total cost of Toodledo is much cheaper. If you don't use Evernote, you won't miss the lack of Evernote integration in Toodledo, but I would personally like it if the integration were added to Toodledo. (While I am at it, I would like to plea for an integration between Microsoft Outlook and Evernote.) I plan to use the Got To Do/Toodledo combo for a while and see how it works, though I am fickle and will check out other solutions as I learn about them.

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Get More Done With Android

Frank McPherson

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Frank McPherson