Mike Davidson is a Mac user and he really likes his 700p. Of notable interest is that he's using it with his mac without any additional sync software.

this comment where he says he needs no sync app to do it.

I've really been thinking about using the 700p in my kGTD workflow, as long as the 700p syncs with ical it seems it could work. I'm a little leary though, I dont want it to take a ton of work that really ends up just being meta work (it's about the coffee, not the cup eh?). I'd love to read others replies on this. Especially if they're using it.

I was attempting to do kGTD with my Palm Tungsten T3 + Missing Sync. However, there's a bug in the current version of Missing Sync so that it fails to update the time stamp of iCal To Do's when syncing from the Palm to the Mac. If I check an item as complete on the Palm, iCal correctly shows the item as complete. However, the time stamp for that task isn't updated so kGTD doesn't recognize that the task has been checked off as complete. I hope that made sense...if not, check out this discussion over at the Kinkless site. I found this pretty frustrating and it pretty much made the system unusable for me. If it's ever fixed, I might go back and give it another try.

I have tried, lo these many moons, to have an adequate experience using kGTD with my Treo 650 and the Missing Sync 5. This is mainly due to the legacy limitations of the treo.

Lemme 'splain.

First of all, you need Missing Sync. Shut up. You do. iSync doesn't transfer the calendar as the category in the Palm, so you'll get 200 "Unfiled" next actions to sort through in your treo, which sucks. Missing Sync fixes that.

Except, oops! You can only have 15 categories in the Palm! Merlin, I'm looking at your iCal, and you have more than 15 contexts. And so did I, and so will most people.

What happens when you have 17 categories? Well, all the next actions in one of your calendars gets recategorized as "Unfiled," and then when synced back, it's added to the Unfiled calendar. Hooray! You have duplicate next actions to track down and delete! Or, sometimes, they're all changed to Unfiled, which means they can get deleted in kGTD when you sync. Gee!

Don't even get me started on what happens when you've got subscribed calendars. I have 40 copies of some events through 2008 that I'm tracking down and deleting.

Also, there's sync problems with kGTD and the treo, where when you tick something off on the treo, it's not synced back to kGTD, which defeats the purpose, just a little.

Okay, so you've chosen a set of contexts to sync, and it's syncing back to kGTD, and you're ready to keep kGTD and your treo to sync. Ready?

Ideally, this is what happens:

1. "Sync" kGTD, to update your iCal.

2. Hotsync treo.

Does it happen this way? Ha, I say. Ha, and ha again.

Here's what happens.

You bring your treo home, and you've marked off some calls and some errands and stuff at work, so you want to update that. So, you sync it to iCal.

Now you sync kGTD. Which changes stuff in your iCal, because now there are some waiting fors that you've marked off, and oh yeah, you wanted to fix this other thing, and add some more NA's.... okay, sync kGTD again.

Now you need to sync your treo again.

This is the ideal model. Lots of stuff can go wrong. For example, if you sync your kGTD before first syncing your treo, then the iCal actions are newer than the ones in your treo, so they're overwritten. That's always fun.

And when you create a task in the treo? Whee, oh joy. My fingers curl at the thought.

After a very long time of fighting it, I have given up: I print the kGTD todos to index cards.

Nobody should be surprised about that, anyway. :)

In sum: The treo is a nifty phone, but it is far from the ideal GTD experience.

Cheers.

joshd, you really nailed the unfortunate reality that synchronizing with a PDA is a pain. I once had a lot of success using a Treo 600 for GTD, but I lived in that device, using it for all data entry and reference. I only synced with my laptop to back it up because it seemed that every time I tried to go both ways, I'd end up with duplicate entries, unexplained deletions, etc and I spent more time trying to hash out those problems than I did using the damn thing.

Merlin, knowing that you are a heavy kGTD + iCal user, I don't think you'd be happy adding a Treo to the mix. It's not even about the device itself, but adding any PDA means you have not one, but two sync steps (kGTD to iCal to PDA) and one more chance for things to go wrong. Believe me, I've tried it: I have a smartphone now and I tried out MissingSync, but the sheer time alone it took to get one to-do from kGTD to the device was maddening, not to mention the quirky mis-mapping along the way.

I've resorted to using the phone for its real strength, its networking, to do email, texting, web browsing, posting snapshots, etc, and do the rest on my computer. If I really need to take a list of NAs with me, I print it out or scribble it on an index card. For those purposes, I think you'd still like the Treo if you have the budget. It is a good all-in-one device and the form factor is great for banging out quick messages or even as a mobile inbox. But syncing? Bad news.

Prior to moving to kGTD, I was using my Palm Tx in the following manner with my Mac:

I installed Shadowplan (a Palm outliner), which has a mac conduit, and also third party set of applescripts which allows it to be "synced" with OmniOutliner (You can also sync kGTD to Shadowplan on the Palm using the scripts, but syncing back to the mac destroys the kGTD file).

I set up my categories (limited to the number of available on the Palm). The Palm Calendar (agenda view) was set to show only dated to-dos.

I used Shadowplan as a repository for projects only. I am a lawyer, so I put each of my cases in shadowplan with children for each action item I wanted to track for that particular case. I used the Palm Tasks app. to hold non-project (or "singleton") next actions. The value of using Shadowplan for projects is that you can automatically add and link an item from Shadowplan to the Palm to-do database. So, I would review my projects in Shadowplan and link only the next "next action" from the Shadowplan held project to the Palm to-do database. This way, the Palm to-do database did not get cluttered with non next "next actions" from my projects.

I would then work from the Palm Tasks app. to decide what my next actions for the day would be. Because I had set the Palm Calendar app. to show only dated to-dos, I would add today's date to the next actions I wanted to work on next. These would show up in the Palm Calendar agenda view, giving me an uncluttered view of the few next actions I wanted to work on next.

This worked well for me, and I may decide to go back to it. I am a little worried about the lack of communication from Ethan at kinkless.com. He does not seem to have responded to any of the posts on his site since some time in April. Hope he is okay. I also liked having everything portable, and manipulable from my Palm.

Merlin,

First, I've just got a Verison 700p at the beginning of June. For me its a great device. The phone, especially, has vastly improved reception over my previous phone. Verizon has the best coverage going for my area, but my apartment has always been poor. With my previous phone, I had a signal in my apartment about 3 percent of the time. With the Treo, it's at least 75 percent of the time. There are plenty of critiques about the 700p that can be found at treocentral.com.

Second, It's absolutely true -- the 15 category limit on palm tasks absolutely sucks. For anyone who has to have a lot more categories than 15, synching with a palmOS PDA is not going to work.

That said, based on my tests so far, I am very optomistic that kGTD / Treo will work for me. Here's what I'm doing to work around the biggest problems I've seen:

#1. Set MissingSync's conduit settings so that iCal overwrites the Tasks on the Treo. This eliminates all the problems with syncing, double entries, etc. I'm perfectly happy to cross off items directly in kGTD. Anyone using index cards has to do the same thing. (By the way, If you do persist and choose to synch in both directions, in the event that a synching problem does occur (resulting in double entires, huge numbers of unfiled actions, or whatever), the simplest fix is to do a one-time Hot Synch overriding the Palm. )

#2. Another problem with syncing to a palm device is that when they are synced to the Palm, action items become divorced from their project. So, for example, in kGTD I might have two projects named 'Smith' and 'Jones.' I'm very likely to have to discuss both with my boss. If I simply add actions 'Discuss with boss', then what I get on the Treo is two identical entries called 'Discuss with boss' and I have no way to tell which is for Smith and which is for Jone. My workaround for this problem is to adopt a protocol to write the action items for all Agenda Items like this: 'Boss discuss Smith.' & 'Boss discuss Jones'. Within kGTD adding the Project name is redundant, but it's necessary to get enough information out to the Treo. (I put 'Boss' first for Agenda items because I want to be able to sort them by person. )

#3. I also set MissingSync's preferences to sync only specific (and not all) categories. And I have exactly 15 categories checked. As other posters have noted, if you have action items in more than 15 categories, the excess will get dumped into the unfiled category, which creates a mess.

#4. I do have more than 15 context categories, it's just that I don't synch all of them. I choose the non-syncing categories to be the ones' I'd least likely need to think about when I'm cruising around with just my palm. So, for example, I do have a category 'Home' and a category 'Home Kitchen.' I synch the category 'Home' , but not 'Home Kitchen'.

#5. I also have a kGTD category 'Unfiled', which is in the MS preferences to sync with the Treo. This gives me a 16th category, which I use as a catchall. So if I have an action Item in the Kitchen context that I absolutely want to synch, I'll change it's category to unfiled. For example, perhaps it's bake an apple pie for Jim's birthday. Then my action item would read 'HomeKitchen Bake pie for Jim's birthday'. And I'd set the category to 'Unfiled'. 'HomeKitchen' gets added at the beginning so this item can be sorted out from other categories that also have to be put in the catch-all, say 'HomeWorkshop' and 'HomeGarage'.

#6. The above is hardly optimal, but it works well enough. Especially since as noted in Item 2, I've already developed the habit of coding my entries according to protocols already.

#7. I should also add that I'm totally new to kGTD, been using it for only 3 weeks, (and have only used the current version) so I am still very much in the experimentation phase. Any suggestions for improvements are definitely welcome.

- Arthur C.

I'm using a Treo 650 with kGTD and Missing Sync, and every component of this system is new to me. I recently bought the 650. Previously I synced text files to a Treo 600 using MacNoteTaker, but since that conduit is incompatible with the 650, and I couldnt' find a workable .txt sync alternative for the 650, I decided to try kGTD and Missing Sync.

This is a very recent change (ie, late June) so, jury is still out; in other words, my short answer, for what it's worth, is that I'm in the process of finding out. I will come back to this thread after a time. It usually seems to take a month or so *at least* for me to have confidence in a system, and that's if I actually stick with it (a personal defect unrelated to the system!).

My intial impression, since using OmniOutliner, KGTD, Missing Sync, and the Treo are all new to me, is that if there is any weak link in the chain it is NOT the Treo. The Treo is a great phone. I used a 600 for more than a year before this, and all the great things about it are multiplied. While it may be a factor for others, I'm not syncing more than 15 contexts/categories to the Treo.

In fact, unless you really need the broadband that the 700 offers, you might be perfectly happy with the 650, and save $300.

(The caveat is that the Treo is the only cellphone I've really used for any extended period of time; essentially its the only phone gadget that feels right for me. )

The weak link in the chain in *my* system so far seem to be:

1 - the sync between kGTD and iCal, and my impression is that you already have that worked out. More specifically, my main issue seems to be that iCal will barf if I try to display the Todos/Actions from kGTD. When I uncheck those kGTD calendars and don't display Todos onscreen, iCal works fine as a "task conduit" to the Treo; Missing Snyc will add them as categories in the Tasks app on the Treo.

Using iCal as the conduit for tasks seems to be working for the moment; Once I'd given up on viewing them there and began working directly from the kGTD document in OO, things became unstuck.

2 - the sync does not flow from the palm back to kgtd. so far, it appears that checking an item complete in the palm doesn't do it in kinkless, and this thread at kinkless seems to bear that out. but since I seem to be working in a way that doesn't depend on that, it's still workable for me. if you find you need to be able to process your tasks away from your mac, this might not be workable for you. it isn't the ideal, but then, in practice, i'm reviewing and processing in kgtd enough that i don't need to process them on my palm. i just need to be able to see what i have to DO.

More as things progress.

FYI:

[CardTXT](http://www.freewarepalm.com/docs/cardtxt.shtml) combines nicely with Missing Sync's "Folder Sync" feature. I have all my text files synced to my treo, and searchable.

Also, otter: Glad to hear you're working to make kGTD work with Missing Sync. I went through pretty much exactly what you're doing, and gave up for the following reasons.

1. No Dashboard - the next actions I take with me should be a full dashboard of everything I need to do. Limiting categories made me feel like I was missing something, and maybe the thing I was working on wasn't the most important thing I could do.

2. Manual Sync - yes, I have to sync to kGTD manually with printed index cards, but I can just spread them out on my desk and quickly run through them in my action view. With the treo, you can only see a few actions at a time, and so you have to constantly scroll and change modes, between controlling the palm, using the keyboard, controlling the palm, using the keyboard, using the mouse, etc.

The combination of both of these factors was enough friction to make me stop using the tool.

Also, the screwups caused by too many categories can't always be fixed by an overwrite from iCal, because the extra stuff gets saved _in_ iCal. E.g., I have 32 separate "all day events" listed for each US Holiday from now until 2008, which must be manually purged, because an errant setting dumped them into my main "Appointments" calendar.

You may have a higher tolerance for this stuff than I do. That's a personal thing; I have a thin skin when it comes to misbehavior of my tools, which is hardly a virtue on my part.

Otherwise, I'm happy with the Treo, except for the fact that you can't use semacode, but that's another story.

Cheers,
Josh

This is why I use a nice elegant S60 smartphone for my communications and media, and index cards for everything else.

The Treo is a nice theory but Palm OS just hasn't matured enough to accomodate people who work for a living on more than a handful of projects. Period. Its likely that the Windows Mobile devices will work better. No shit.

But then you'd be carrying Windows Mobile in your pocket. And that may make you sterile. The scientists haven't gotten back to us on that yet.