Cultured Code recently posted to their site about a new app they are working on called Things, it is a GTD application, but is very different then all the other GTD apps. The moment I saw the interface, and organization structure, I knew that it would be an amazing application to help me get more organized! So I quickly sent them an email. Right away I got a reply by Jürgen, the lead developer and founder, who ever so kindly added me to the alpha list. At that point I was so happy, and I couldn’t wait to try it out. So I went ahead and downloaded Things. After a few minutes of conversation with Jürgen, and some questions, I began to love the application. I created projects, for all my various projects I am working on, I made some team members, and I began to write out tasks I need to do.
So, What is GTD?
Getting Things Done™ (commonly abbreviated as GTD) is an action management method of The David Allen Company, and the title of the book which describes the method by David Allen.
GTD rests on the principle that a person needs to move tasks out of the mind by recording them somewhere. That way, the mind is freed from the job of remembering everything that needs to be done, and can concentrate on actually performing those tasks. What distinguishes GTD from other time- or action-management systems is the idea of grouping tasks by the context (defined as a place or set of available resources) in which they are to be performed.
What is different about Things than other GTD apps?
First of all, Things is not just a GTD app. In fact, users don’t even have to know what GTD is. First and foremost, Things is a task management application with a very gentle learning curve that nonetheless scales very well when entering hundreds of to-dos. I believe that the scalability of Things is a direct consequence of us trying to follow the spirit of Allen’s book instead of the cult. There is an interesting trend in today’s GTD apps where contexts are presented as dual to projects, forcing unintuitive changes of view modes upon the user. We don’t do that. The way Things helps in making best action choices is actually closer to the book than to the current interpretation on the web. But the beautiful thing is, users who know little to nothing about GTD will just see familiar interface metaphors.
As you can tell, Things is not your ordinary GTD app. It combines an amazing interface, tons of unique features, and a dedicated development team. I continued to ask the Things team about the app, here is another one of my questions;
What is your favorite feature of things so far?
Some time ago we were joking that the most important features of Things are those it doesn’t need. So my answer would be “Simplicity”. We worked incredibly hard to make it simple. I cannot remember how often we revised it significantly, even completely starting all over again. Often we made features obsolete by changing the fundamental approach. And we are not finished yet. There will be more powerful stuff coming, but not at the expense of simplicity.
So there you have it, Things, an amazing, simple, and beautiful GTD app for Mac. I can not wait to see the development of Things continue, and I congratulate the Things development team on their amazing progress. And make sure to check out the Cultured Code website, and signup for their mailing list to get some exclusive looks and betas of Things.
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