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43Folders.com is Merlin Mann’s website about finding the time and attention to do your best creative work.

Links to GTD Apps, Templates, & Scripts

I’d like to start collecting links to tools, applications, scripts, and templates that people have created for implementing Getting Things Done, and that they would like to share with folks on the web. If there’s something you’d like to see added here, leave a comment with a link and some background information (status, license, platform, etc.), and I’ll check it out. As with our OS X inventory collection, I’ll add the most useful-, novel-, and promising-looking submissions.

While I’m not against linking to modestly-priced shareware, preferential consideration goes to stuff that’s open source, free as in beer, and functionally uncrippled (no save-disabled, “bronze??? editions of your commercial package, please). The idea is to showcase the sweat and collaboration that people are throwing behind a shared interest in GTD.

Let’s help new folks start their year off with some cool tools and innovative solutions for getting started with Getting Things Done.

(N.B.: not to be a kerchief-dropping belle, but I’m going to hang back and wait to hear from a few folks before adding my own suggestions, so don’t be shy about nominating your or your pals’ projects)

Josh's picture

I've tried textfiles with TextMate,...

I've tried textfiles with TextMate, VoodooPad, and a bunch of other apps.

For all of them, I cannot beat the hack I put together with index cards, coin envelopes, and a big-ass homosote pin-up board. (People on the 43Folders group have seen the first half of this; I just recently added a few photographs showing my project plans and list.)

The only problem with this system is that right now it's in my basement studio, and it gets cold as hell down there in a New England winter. Pity me, and my electrical bill from the space heater. :) If it were warmer down there, I'd check my tickler file more often.

That being said, I use a few applications to help me along.

For example, I've Flickr to sling scans and cameraphone photos of index cards around (doodles and diagrams)... anything to avoid duplicating work. Of course, that requires legible handwriting.

For portability, I use a Tom Bihn Smart Alec backpack, with the Freudian Slip insert. The latter holds my "standard" package of 25-50 index cards, a bunch of coin envelopes, a set of full-size folders for supporting paper and CD's, a O'Reilly CSS pocket guide, my cell phone, pens, markers, and just about anything else I might want. The Smart Alec has an inner pocket that is perfectly fitted to a Brother label printer. Then there's room for anything else (like my powerbook).

When you flip between a PC to handle Solidworks, a powerbook for portability, and a few other computers depending on the day of the week and who you happen to be working for, the level of fuss and overhead involved in maintaining your system goes way up. The index cards have their own limitations (kind of impossible to do time management with them), but so far they've done wonders. And there's nothing to keep you focused quite like a grid of index cards sitting on your desk in front of your monitor. No blogging until those have been ripped up and dumped in the trash.

Not quite what you were asking for, Merlin, but oh, well... :)

Oh, yeah. Also, there is a Getting Things Done Flickr Group. It would be cool to see photos (or screenshots) of other people's setups.

 
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