Getting Things Done, unplugged
I while back I plugged TaskToy as a good way to start Getting Things Done. I still think it’s a cool tool, but yesterday I came across something that may replace TaskToy as my web browser’s start page: NextAction.
NextAction, like TaskToy, is free, runs in my web browser and is a way of organizing and running my life the GTD way. The difference is that NextAction is not a web application.
Yes, you did read that right: NextAction runs in a web browser but it isn’t a web application. It’s more of a web application unplugged. I don’t visit a web address to work with my GTD lists; NextAction is a single HTML file that lives on my computer and contains both the data I enter into it and also the program itself. Unfortunately this means that I have to click File > Save As … in my web browser in order to keep any changes I’ve made, and this does take some getting used to, but the upsides are:
- I don’t have to be connected to the Internet to work with my data
- I have control over the safety and confidentiality of my data
The other GTD-oriented single-page application out there that I know about (GTDTiddlyWiki) is not well designed for GTD. NextAction gets it right.
If you’re stressed out trying to remember and deliver on the commitments of your personal and professional lives, you owe it to yourself to give Getting Things Done a try. In a future entry I’ll show you how I’m using NextAction to tame some of the chaos of my life. 
