GTD-Free: task management program

Description: GTD-Free is a multiplatform, free task management program that is based on the "Getting Things Done" (GTD) methodology. It aims to be lightweight and simple while offering a wide range of features such as editable lists, projects, priorities, etc.

This program will appeal to both (a) users who are knowledgeable about and/or use GTD to get organized, as well as (b) users who do not know much about GTD but are looking for a good task-management tool to help them get better organized. I would classify myself as being more the latter than the former or perhaps somewhere in the middle. For the purposes of this review I will pitch GTD-Free as an organizing tool for everyone and explain some of the GTD principles employed in it.

More notes on this program:

• GTD-Free in practice: I would actually say that as far as task-management programs go GTD concepts make it easier to interact with and use this program as compared with other to-do programs. The reason for this, I think, is that GTD seems to really be a note-taking or idea-recording method that then expands on these thoughts and notes in order to create actions out of them; which is to say it "eases" you into creating actions while encouraging you to put everything down in writing as a precursor, making it more likely that you will actually use the program.
• The learning curve: is much shorter than you would expect even if you are new to GTD. I would advise on importing the example template and starting there (and it includes a list of GTD related tips and info). Also looking at the descriptions of the various pre-defined lists will give you a very good idea as to what these are and why they are there. The program also employs tooltips that appear whenever you hover over an element that tell you what it is.
• Installation: GTD-Free is a single executable that you can place anywhere and run. It is not really portable as it creates and writes data into a ".gtd-free" folder on your root drive. It also requires JAVA 1.6.
• The user interface: is brilliantly conceived, IMHO. GTD-Free is structured around five tabs (Overview, Collect, Process, Organize/Review, and Execute), which both represents GTD very well but also in my opinion is a very practical structure from a user's point of view.

Here are more notes on each of these five aforementioned tabs:

The "Overview" tab: this tab (pictured in the screenshot above) is just an index or starting point where you can take some quick actions and/or jump to any of the other 4 tabs. It also offers some pertinent info such as number of items in the in-basked list or in the "next action" list.

The "Collect" tab: one of the main objectives of GTD is to have the user dump all tasks, ideas, and thoughts, etc, out of their head and put it down in writing. The "Collect" tab is where this happens, and what is interesting here is that there is nothing to do here except add tasks or ideas; you do not need to categorize them, add them to lists, assign priority, or do anything except jot them down; which is exactly the point: get them out of your mind and worry about any further action or follow up later.

The "Process" tab: now that you have your tasks/items/ideas written down, it's time to move them into "lists", and this is the main function of the "Process" tab (you can also do this in the "Organize/Review" tab if you wish, but the process tab display your items prominently on top and allow you to scroll through them). There are three categories of lists: (1) Actions, (2) Someday/Maybe, and (3) References, and their titles reflect their function precisely, the "Actions" category being the one where all actionable items are to be placed).

You cannot add or change categories; they are permanent fixtures of the GTD method, but these categories contain various "lists" (folders) that you can add to or delete as you wish depending on what works best for you. Moreover, each one of your tasks or items can only belong to one of the categories and one of the lists within it. My advice: import the example file and consider using the pre-defined lists that it will create initially to see how these work for you; each list of has a description that can be viewed in the "Organize/Review" tab (but should have also been displayed in the "Process" tab IMHO). Afterwards you can then eliminate and add lists as you see fit.

from: http://www.freewaregenius.com/2008/10/17/gtd-free-a-simple-yet-powerful-gtd-based-task-manager/