Nov 15, 02:11 pm: iSwitch: Hog Bay Software

I’m no longer using my workhorse, sticker covered Dell. A bandwagon is never to full for me to jump on. I’m carrying around a white piece of plastic with a stylized apple on the front. Or, rather, Apple.

I’d like to write about some of the software that I’m finding particularly useful as I make the transition.

I’ve been a heavy Outlook user on the PC. We have Exchange at work which has made calendaring a blessing. But I also use and share the tasks, manage items by assigned categories and even take meeting notes in the journal. I am that kind of Outlook user. I use the Journal.

Or, I was that kind of Outlook user.

When I moved to the Mac I fumbled on Entourage. More on that and I how use Mail and iCal with Exchange later. But I missed my tasks. I found the Entourage key commands to clumsy and many of the functioned that used took too much work to get to. I just couldn’t train my fingers to get a task out of my brain and into my list quickly and easily in Entourage. So I started hunting around for a new application.

Now I should say that I’m a GTD disciple. I really am. I have a stack of copies in my office to hand to anyone who seems to be angsting over their to-do list. That kind of disciple.

I downloaded a raft of applications for managing my list. And I thought I was happy with iGTD. I like the tight and nice integration with Quicksilver. I liked how easy it was to empty my head of my tasks while attaching them to a context (for you non-GTDers that means, basically, making sure that you have a phone list and an errands list so that it is quick and easy to find the next thing to do). But I didn’t like the weight of the app. It takes GTD seriously but I wanted something that managed my lists simply (I know, I used tasks on Outlook but this is a part of the change here). I’ve tried in the past to just use a text file as the ubber geeks do but my manipulation skills weren’t classy enough to make that workable for me.

And then I found Hog Bay Software’s Taskpaper. It is thisclosetobeingatextfile. I am able to use my two main organizing principles: contexts and projects. They built the search and manipulation tools into the application. And, thanks to a user created script I have a relatively neat integration with Quicksilver.

I can ask for a couple of more features (mainly and F-key or two so that I can put tasks in even easier) but if the application stayed exactly the way it is today, I’d continue to be very happy to use it

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Marnie Webb  |