Using Mac “Things” Task Software and MYN

I used to use the Things Mac program (from Cultured Code) a long time ago, when I was struggling to implement pure GTD as a task management system.  I never really got it to work satisfactorily. In retrospect not surprising, as I was never able to make pure GTD work for me, regardless of the software platform.  When I got my first smartphone (Android), I dropped Things since they only have an app for iPhone.  I switched to Toodledo, and used a variety of Android apps, ultimately settling on Pocket Informant.  Shortly thereafter, I discovered Michael’s MYN system and began to use that (the Pocket Informant Android + Toodledo combo is “officially supported” for MYN).   After switching to an iPhone, Pocket Informant did not work so well as its iPhone interface is different than on Android.  I didn’t like the iPhone Toodledo app, and had never really liked the web app for Toodledo either — t realised my Things license still worked, I decided to give that another go.

To summarise the basic principles of MYN as I understand them:

– you have three focus areas: critical now, opportunity now, and over-the-horizon.

– you use start dates to help sort your list by priority.  A item created today has a start date of today (or in the future) … the longer the item remains undone, the less important it probably is, and by sorting in reverse order of start date, your most recent to-dos show up at the top of the list.

This system worked very well for me on Android + Toodledo.  When I was looking around for a replacement for Toodledo, the thing that made it very hard was the support for start dates, and the ability to be able to sort on start dates in inverse order.

Things has a couple of properties in how it orders tasks that make it almost equivalent to what is being done with start dates in MYN.

1. When you create a new task, it shows up at the top of whatever list you create it in.  You can move it manually further down the list if you like, but the default is at the top.  This is just like “start date of newly created tasks is today” … they hence also show up at the top of the list.

2. Things allows you to “schedule” a task which is equivalent to setting a start date in the future.   A scheduled task remains out of the way until the date on which it is scheduled, at which point it shows up in a sort of “daily review” section when you start the app … then you can decide how to file it from this screen.

3. Things allows you to re-order the task order manually.  Instead of adjusting the start date of the task, as you would do in MYN, you simply drag the task to the new position.   The effect is the same.

The MYN focus areas are also reflected in Things.  There are areas for “Today” (which I use for “Critical Now”), “Next” (Opportunity Now), and “Someday” (Over the Horizon).  Next behaves a bit differently than Opportunity Now, in that you can also see the “Today” items from within next, although there is a colour difference in the items.  There is also an alarm clock icon you can click on in those screens, the function of this is to filter the task list to show only those items with a firm due date.  I should have mentioned, due dates in Things adhere to the MYN method: the default is no due date.

While outside the MYN scope, Things has support for Projects, Tags, and Areas of Responsibility.  I don’t use tags, but the other two I do find useful; especially the Areas.  I can for example select the “work” area and all my “personal” tasks will be filtered away, so I can concentrate on the tasks I need to do at work.  The Things idea behind these areas are that “Projects” are things that have an end, you can complete it (Paint Bedroom, Write Funding Proposal).  “Areas” don’t have an “end”.  Right now I have three areas: Personal, Work, and Groceries.  A Project can belong to an Area, so that you don’t see your Work projects when you select the Personal area.

Is lightweight, fast, and has for me the right balance between functionality and ease of use; on the iPhone, the most important features are quick entry, a very easy filtering function (e.g. show only my grocery list), and being able to check off tasks.  the iPhone app does these well, and it looks nice too.

The app and desktop program are linked to together by “things cloud”, which keeps your iPhone app in sync with your desktop and laptop computers.  I routinely use Things on two desktop machines and one laptop, as well as the iPhone, and have never had a sync problem.

One thing I do miss compared to Toodledo is email integration.  It’s not a big deal, I can just copy the contents of a mail, and using a keyboard shortcut provided by the app, enter that directly into Things.

I hope this review helps others who are implementing MYN on the Mac/iPhone combination.