What good alternatives do you know for Doit? | Groups

Folke (积分：2425)09/13/2013 13:01

1 floor

1. nirvanahq.com
Approximately same overall "power" as Doit, but with slightly different pros and cons:
http://forums.nirvanahq.com/discussion/926/should-i-hop-in

2. Toodledo
Not a "GTD" app, but sometimes I get so fed up with all these so-called "GTD" apps (that never move on further in the GTD direction and get it right.) Toodledo is a stable option. You can do GTD perfectly well with it, and it has tremendous "power". But you have to accept an ugly UI, no manual ordering and clunky menus. Basically the built-in menus are so useless that you have to set up "advanced filters" (saved searches) for everything (but very powerful advanced filters!) and live in those custom lists rather than the built-in ones.

2. asana.com, iqtell.com, zendone.com, facilethings,com are "GTD" apps that I have ruled out for various reasons for the time being, but which may be worth checking out.

joaquinmari (积分：635)09/13/2013 13:49

3 floor

Thanks @Folke

I've used many tools for organizing my tasks (Evernote, Wunderlist, Springpad, Facilethings etc... However I still haven't found the perfect one.

Regarding GTD, I think that the two best are Nirvana and Doit. I think that the Nirvana web version is even better than Doit's. But can't understand how a company nowadays dares to offer a premium option before having a decent Android App. Another worrying think is the poor feed back that their developers give in their forums.

I like very much Doit, and it's the one I'm using now with a pro version . The support is very quick and proactive. However, their lack of interest for developing crucial features like backups makes me be fell insecure. They always say that it's in their plans but, if you have a look at old posts, you'll realize that it's a promise they are making since 2 or more years. Do they really want to develop the feature or is it just a way of getting more customer "caught" with promises (with no possibility of leaving exporting if something goes wroing with Doit)?

One of the most trustable tools is Evernote. It's perfect for notes. However, fo GTD it's horrible. I've made many experiments, combining tax, hastags, etc.. but I never managed to do decent GTD with it. It's such a pity because if Evernote had some kind of GTD module, it would be perfect.

A merge between them someday would be nice don't you think so?

hntopper (积分：395)09/13/2013 14:41

4 floor

I've also checked out NoteSuite, but it's not a true GTD app. It has a lot of nice features, but again, not everything.

Anjum (积分：100)09/15/2013 13:41

5 floor

Gqueues was nice but their mobile apps are not of the standard required yet, and with it being a one man band, progress is very slow. Right now for me it's a toss up between Doit.im and Todoist. Todoist has a better android app and you can drag and drop tasks even in the smart lists which I haven't found in any other app. Doit.im has better context support and I really like dragging tasks to Tomorrow or Scheduled feature.

For pure GTD Wunderlist is pretty good. Very nice desktop and web apps as well as solid mobile apps which look good. You can't archive projects though so it's more of a list maker than a proper project tool. I have a few weeks left on Doit.im pro and will make my decision between it and Todoist then.

N1TeSH1FT (积分：130)09/17/2013 11:13

6 floor

I also tried and used Nozbe, wich is pretty good, but I love the UI doit.im offers.
Some things on Doit.IM still bother me and as joaquinmari said: they lack some crucial things, like backup and even small things like getting the ting with the timezones right.
I don't know exactly in which context but if I create a reminder on one platform it's 1 hour late on the other but all have the right timezone settings and so on.

Folke (积分：2425)09/19/2013 01:50

7 floor

I think most so-called GTD apps stop their GTD develpment at the point where they have made a left menu that contains the basic GTD buzz words. But they do not seem to even try to take the fundamental GTD approach (situational; with review based planning) particularly seriously at all. Instead, they all resort to time planning features as their main tool for keeping tasks in order.

I just wrote my longest post ever about this, with a few feature requests included: http://help.doit.im/topics/1617

Anjum (积分：100)09/19/2013 22:12

8 floor

Hi Folke, I addressed that post in the thread that you linked, some good ideas there for sure, and the time management aspect certainly rang a few bells for me. Coming back to Doit after a long absence I realised what drew me to it in the first place. I really do love the scheduling views which are similar to Google Calendar in that you can drag tasks easily to another date. if they can replicate to sync with Gcal the other way it will be a killer feature in itself.

Also the Review feature is not mentioned much here but if you could get into the habit of using it in conjunction with the priority feature, that would really make this into a powerful project management tool. The Doit interface is looking slightly tired on both web and mobile versions, but for functionality it's still pretty superb bar one or two annoyances. I am definitely leaning towards renewing my Pro membership.

ike9898 (积分：170)03/06/2014 20:01

9 floor

There are plenty of alternatives, but I'm not sure there are any good alternatives. I learned GTD first and then looked for software to help implement the system later. Most software misses at least one GTD aspect, often Ticklers.

I have 'moved into' and lived with:
-Zendone
-Nirvana
-The Secret Weapon (on Evernote)
-Before that, for several years I was very happy a TiddlyWiki-based application called mGSD. It has real GTD features such as Ticklers, and very good dependent actions. I wish I could keep using it, but it was pretty much one man's project and he's moved on to other things. So, no maintenance, no mobile version.

Folke (积分：2425)03/07/2014 08:50

10 floor

ike9898

I agree that ticklers is often a problem, one way or another. If I remember correctly, in Zendone, if you apply a date to a task, the date will not go away, and the task will keep showing up as overdue unless you manually delete the date. Not very practical. And if the task is repeating it gets even worse, because (if I remember correctly) in Zendone (and Toodledo) it is THE one and only "mother task" you are tampering with, not a "clone task" like in Nirvana and Doit.

In Nirvana and Doit you can use Scheduled, and it works quite well, especially in Nirvana, where the date is automatically "forgotten" when the task appears (and in Doit it disappears if you un-star the task). The main problem is that if you also want to schedule true calendar actions from your app, e.g. meetings that belong to a certain project, you cannot tell the difference between ticklers and calendar actions when you look at your "scheduled" tasks. The solution I use is to book meetings etc straight on the calendar only. (And my calendars are set up to send email reminders to my app.)

A solid, selective calendar sync of calendar actions only would have been very nice.

kmaustral (积分：255)10/31/2014 05:37

11 floor

Evernote integration brings Doit close to Zendone, but it only includes a link to the web version, rather than the desktop note which can be edited. This is a very limited integration.

What Zendone lacks compared to Doit are tags, goals and quick add on smartphone. But it does have manual sort in all views, whereas it appears limited to only certain fields in Doit.

But in Doit's favour, it does seem more regularly updated than others, and offers a forum such as this. So I expect it will continue to develop and eventually pull ahead of the others.

LongWork (积分：20)11/01/2014 04:49

12 floor

Anyone has an insight about GTDnext at the current state compares to Doit.im? I find it very promising.

kmaustral (积分：255)11/01/2014 23:54

13 floor

It's hard to compare GTDnext with Doit.im when it is restricted to web only. That is a big limitation.

Folke (积分：2425)11/05/2014 09:24

14 floor

I think GTDNext is promising. They started out well with unlimited hierarchies and allowing any mix of active and subsequent items in projects. I hope they continue on that path. But I agree it is not quite finished yet; mobile access is certainly one of the big things that are still entirely missing.

joaquinmari (积分：635)11/19/2014 21:17

15 floor

Hi, I finally came back to Evernote untill I find the "perfect app"

And why did a decide to leave my Doit pro account?

Simply because I consider the Doit attitude about export feature totally unacceptable).

I'll have a look at GTDNext and come back here to discuss about it.

Rds. J.

freddyjuliantoyap (积分：40)12/24/2014 03:56

16 floor

Hi, I'm new to GTD and doit.im. And struggling to find an app that's good for GTD with windows/web and android app.

I agree with Folke's writing about Time Planning vs GTD. I agree with most of your writing about GTD (found it at many forums), and I learn so much from you, thank you Folke.

I'm curious.. has anyone here tried IQTELL and MYLIFEORGANIZED ?

Regards,
Freddy

Folke (积分：2425)12/28/2014 13:22

17 floor

Hi Freddy,

Maybe Doit will suit you. It is certainly not perfect, but neither is any other app I have tried.

Yes, I have tried both IQTell and MLO. I tried to set them up but found it difficult to find convenient workarounds and gave up after a couple of days. Unfortunately I cannot quite remember what the problem was, so maybe for you there will be no problem with them. Many people like them.

freddyjuliantoyap (积分：40)12/29/2014 09:10

19 floor

Hi Folke,

Thank you for your reply.

I just tried IQTell and didn't like that the app focus so much on email integration and also the evernote integration makes IQTell so complicated with huge amount of imported Tags from Evernote. And also I don't like the UI of IQTell... so messy and confusing for me.

Doit has android, web, and windows app that sync like magic. But somethings bothered me:
1. No hierarchy for projects, just task and subtask; subtask can't be assigned deadline, context, or status as next action or whatever, it is basically just a checklist. Goal isn't a part of hierarchy, Goal is goal... another creature. Without deeper hierarchy level projects, the only workaround way to group projects is with Goal, but it will get mixed with True Goal.
2. Starred action goes to Today! And this isn't GTD at all. I've read your writings about this also, Folke. And it is already 1 year and they haven't change it yet (or don't have any plan to do so). This is just wrong!
3. Doit should have more status other than Next, Someday, & Waiting. Because to manage project action to have a TRUE NEXT action, tasks other than true next action should be made Someday. But then hey, it isn't really my Someday Tasks and are cluttering with my TRUE SOMEDAY action. The only workaround is to group by project, but then I cannot group my True Someday action based on Context for review.
(Note: today, tomorrow, and scheduled isn't true status in my opinion, they should be in different category... tickler?)

I'll try some workarounds that you (Folke) suggest in discussion for doit.

I also have tried DGT GTD (Android only). It is a GTD App with full features and build on GTD principles. Here's the positives and negatives:
+ Unlimited hierarchies of projects
+ Complete with Status, Context, Tags, Folders, Goals, Checklist, Notebooks
+ Great search function
+ Great filtering that you can custom your view with any Status (or multiple status), Context, Tags (or multiple tags), etc.
+ Great reminder (repeating / nagging if you wish)
+ Starred Action & Project can be viewed from Starred View for focusing
+ Integrated to your contact, so from the task / reminder you can click and go to Contact in your phone for call / sms / email.
+ Customized Hot List, so you can view your most urgent / important task with considering Next Action, star, priority, due date, started tasks.
+ Hide until ## days before start date / due date (I use it to hide tasks that isn't actionable until start date), so my task list will free from the tasks that I already make decision about (not a someday task) but isn't cluttering my next action. While in doit, it goes straight to scheduled tasks which work not as good as hide until, in my opinion.

But here's the deal breaker for me
- Weakly integrated with toodledo, because DGT GTD is much more powerful and feature rich than toodledo
- No web app (they are working on it, but haven't announced anything about it)
- Is an android app only. Workaround for use in PC is with Bluestack app to run android simulator and then manual sync with Dropbox. So I have to remember to sync everytime I switch from PC to android, vice versa. Which can turns out to be a burden having to remember to manual sync when things get busy. I don't have fixed work hour and use 2 PC (home & work), and this adds the complexity for manual sync. And the sync isn't perfect, so I have to double check whether the task I've just add is synced to other device and whether the task/project I edit have successfully synced. So... It's a deal breaker for me right now.

When DGT GTD Beta & web app is coming out, it is really worth to check it out... if you're android user.

And now my choice is between Doit (workaround) or MLO. I'm really curious with MLO because they have been around for a long time and is said the only one at the same level with the famous Omnifocus. But haven't really tried them myself, I can't say much about MLO. I'll report back once I've tried them.

freddyjuliantoyap (积分：40)12/29/2014 09:40

20 floor

Additional positives for DGT GTD (Android):
+ Inheritance from parent project (Folder, Context, Tags, Goal ... you choose which one to inherit by default in settings)

Folke (积分：2425)12/29/2014 18:38

21 floor

Yes Freddy, I agree with your observations 1, 2 and 3 about Doit's current shortcomings.

In particular I think # 2 is the most disturbing one. Not having a normal "attention star" and "starred list" like in most other apps is really annoying. As it is now in Doit, Today is just an unnecessary subset of scheduled. But we often need to star something for our attention without moving it from the list it belongs to.

As for #3 I agree that there should be a way to keep future project tasks in the app without having to see them on the currently active lists. Yet another status (e.g. "No Status") would indeed be a way to accommodate this, but I would prefer something more along the lines of the active-inactive differentiation we have for projects. This would allow us to predesignate actions as "will be Next", "will be Waiting" etc and would also allow the developers to automate the progression such that when there are no active tasks left in the project the first of the remaining inactive actions will be activated and put on the right list.

As for #1 I agree that unlimited hierarchies would be the natural way for every app to go (just like in Windows Explorer etc). Currently, the todo apps that allows this (e.g. Todoist, MLO, GTDNext ...) have certain weaknesses in other areas that make me prefer to stick with Doit. And I am so used to having to make do with just 2 or 3 levels that I do not find it a big problem. But it certainly would be nice and convenient.

kmaustral (积分：255)01/05/2015 01:45

22 floor

MLO is a wonderful task manager, but it has no web app.

I've put together a comparison of the main contenders in this table: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JSPtvrhyhJNqF_Q2uYLPMqlcBmubr7VGB54WTpzoLes/edit?usp=sharing (comments are enabled)

Doit is still the best for me, particularly their Android app. But there are contenders in the wings so let's hope for an active development cycle this year.

lisa_alway (积分：530)01/20/2015 07:19

23 floor

Hello all, I am looking at asana as I realized I need better project management, that not having proper subtasks and the clunkiness of scheduling is just too much. I have been a pro doit.im user for two years but am not so sure due to this. I get overwhelmed by trying to organize things so I can make it work in doit.im. I also have adhd so get distracted very easily so want to plan, then trust my plan without second guessing myself, so far, I cannot seem to do this, and it is because I don't have tasks setup as projects and want to move towards planning in projects more and more to help.

It seems like asana would be a good alternative for me for this, and have moved my bigger projects over, and thought I would leave buckets of to do's in doit. Of course the overlap there is the problem.

Has anyone explored this option? Thanks for your thoughts.

Folke (积分：2425)01/20/2015 13:07

24 floor

There's a lot to like about Asana. I wanted to make it work for me and tried it out quite thoroughly a year or two ago, but unfortunately could not quite make it work for me. I think the absence of tickler functionality (i.e. "scheduled", i.e. a "first possible date") was the main dealbreaker for me, but also the way I had to implement clunky workarounds for "areas" using "Teams" and "Organizations" (or whatever it was they were called) and not being able to view these together the simple way I wanted to.

Todoist is another app that allows you to organize things hierarchically, and I actually used this many years ago. Very neat in lots of ways, but I found the inflexibility of its listing capabilities annoying in the long run, and also the fact that Next, Waiting etc needs to be implemented as tags.

Another, newer, hierarchical (outliner type) app that you might want to try is GTDNext. Also has tickler functionality and flexible management of current vs upcoming actions, but still a bit too unpolished and inconsistent for my taste. I am watching it closely, though.

And you might want to try Zendone. It does not have unlimited task hierarchies like Todoist and GTDNext, but it does have flexible management of current vs upcoming actions (and powerful integration with Evernote, if that matters to you - nothing I care much for, though) .

kmaustral (积分：255)01/21/2015 00:37

25 floor

I still think that Doit is the best around for its task structure and format. But one area it definitely needs to improve is the desktop screen. It's quite tedious to have to drill down for task details. The keyboard shortcuts can help, but not all details are visible on the screen. One advantage that web apps like Asana have is the level of information that's already available and editable on one screen.
Thankfully, this would seem a relatively simple improvement. Let's hope they can keep ahead of the pack.

Folke (积分：2425)04/20/2015 13:56

26 floor

I have heard that RememberTheMilk is has a closed beta for a totally new app version with radically enhanced functionality, but I have not managed to find out what these alleged improvements are about - whether it is something that will be truly useful or of it is just more "boys' toys" kind of crap (cool features of little real value).

Does anyone here know more about that closed beta?

RTM is very stable and advanced in some ways, so if they decide to enhance it in the right direction it could become a real killer app. Among other things, RTM would need to add:

- a distinction between Next, Waiting and Someday (just as we have in Doit, Nirvana and others)
- a today list that is not date-driven but "star driven" (manual focus)
- a "not before" feature (called "tickler" in GTD, often also called start date or "scheduled" date)
- preferably also a built-in distinction between "current" tasks (now visible on the the aforementioned GTD lists) and future, dependent tasks which are not possible until some other actions have first been completed (which in core, paper GTD are kept totally outside of the lists, among other "project support" material, but which I and many of us like to keep within the app, visible when you visit that project). Unfortunately most apps do not have this (but some do have a clumsy, rigid "sequential" feature)

kmaustral (积分：255)04/26/2015 21:53

27 floor

@Folke It will be interesting to see what RTM come up with. MLO already have a dependency feature, though they do not yet have a web app. Of course, the ideal would be if DoIt were able to develop their product further. But it seems worryingly quiet.

tomerun (积分：70)06/08/2015 14:59

28 floor

"the ideal would be if DoIt were able to develop their product further. But it seems worryingly quiet"

Totally...

I'm sick of the waiting game for Doit.im to address the core users' requests and issues, but it's also a waiting game with Zendone v2, NirvanaHQ, Toodledo updating their interface, MLO introducing calendar integration, FacileThings finishing their new mobile apps, IQtell brining some order to their modular approach, Nozbe smoothing out many rough edges etc etc etc.
If I wasn't a windows user I would have long gone though to either OmniFocus (which is expensive, but I've used it before on mobile and it tick all the boxes) or PocketInformant, which has an awesome app.

So I'm with @Folke on that - as of this moment in time, Doit.im is still the most GTD friendly app I know that somehow similar to my logic of how GTD should be implemented (along with A LOT of things that could be better)

mmilia01 (积分：50)06/09/2015 20:32

29 floor

@joaquinmari I agree with your comment. If Do.It had the capability of storing web snippets as in Evernote, it would be perfect! I know of the feature to link a task in Do.It do an Evernote note but it is double work.

woutercox (积分：90)06/12/2015 09:56

30 floor

Similar to many of you, I am checking out GTD apps on a regular basis.
At least for my purposes, none of them are as a good as Doit.Im. Which is why I just renewed my membership for a year.

The closest match I found is ticktick.com .
* The positive:
- Web as well as android versions, with sync between the two
- You can e-mail tasks
- You can add attachments to tasks, and it also saves attachments sent by mail
- You can add notes to tasks (which you can also convert into lists)
- You can easily share send a task/list to people
- It has location-based warnings

* The negative
- less features for organizing, only "lists" and "tags"
- doesn't have default 'Someday / Next / Scheduled" - you have to create them yourself. Uses "Inbox", "Today" and "Next 7 days" instead
- This is very subjective, but I personally don't like the task detail to be in the right-pane

I can understand the frustration of people though. It seems to take forever to develop certain features, and some features that seem like a no-brainer do not get developped at all.

If the issue is money for developers, I think most of us would gladly pay more for their Pro accounts.

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