Everyhipster has heard of Getting Things Done by now, David Allen’s task organization and workflow system. I tried implementing it last year, but fell off the wagon quickly, not finding good software to centralize everything, especially on a Mac. Like the sweet Melissa Gira once told me, Getting Things Done became another thing to get done!

Resolving that became the first thing I got done this year.

My requirements were straight forward.

• The software should be Mac compatible.
• Have minimal of fuss to get going.
• Stable (who would have thunk it>)
• Synchronizes with iCal, as my calendar and phone all do

That last requirement was a personally major one, and surprisingly where so many of them failed.

I first tried iGTD. It has a following and honestly, GTD was right in the name, how could I go wrong? Setup was fine, and it seemed to sync with no problems … most of the time. And I could easily enter data … most of time. Sadly, with increased frequency, iGTD would forget a whack of tasks I had just entered when I clicked onto another project. That and quirkiness with Leopard literally bugged me.

I should have stopped using it when the beauty-outmatched-only-by-her-brains Micki Krimmel abandoned it. She moved on to kinkless and other systems for a while before developing her own with OmniOutlinerPro. I, however, am “Teh Lazy” and can not maintain the discipline over a free form system. My hunt continued.

I settled on Inbox for a couple of days and fell utterly in love with it. Hence, the rest of this post will now use the metaphor of software as women I am seeing. Inbox looked like an elegant hottie, with the GTD workflow as the central navigation. The idea of automated collections that pull in items to process from folders, queries, mail, etc is sexy, and SEEMED to answer the synchronization question. It also has the nice touch of allowing tasks to have subtasks, and to mark those task groups as serial or parallel.

The romance died over three major flaws. First, like iGTD it was not stable though it would not crash as consistently as that program. And I need to be in a stable relationship when it comes to my data. Secondly, while the idea of automated collections is solid, the choice is limited to services on your Mac, which is really disappointing. Why not speak to Gmail, or an RSS feed? If you don’t like my friends, we can’t be together.

But what really killed it for me was the supremely flawed synchronization. Here is the scenario. An automated collection grabs your to-dos from iCal. Ooooh, we can do it anywhere! You then act on them, assigning them to projects or scope, or archive and delegate. Work it baby! You can sync it back to iCal, completing the circle. 69, dude!

But wait! The next time your automated collection runs, all those processed to-dos you just added? They come right BACK in as NEW items to process!

Baby, I am afraid this is not going to work out.

I spent too much time trashing duplicates. Inbox is fail.

I decided to fool around with smaller applications next, thinking looking for something completely different would help me find one true love. There was Anxiety which floats your iCal to-dos on your desktop. Very pretty, but I couldn’t use it for the same reason I couldn’t follow Micki’s solution; relies too much on myself, and I need discipline.

Ghost Action was my next try, and I was very close to settling with it. While not as flashy as some of the others, it forgoes the pretty for ACTUALLY WORKING. Two-way synchronization was perfect, to-dos could be brought into projects, and contexts mapped to iCal calendars. Small footprint, small price point, yet big results. Why did I not stick it out? Sadly, my hot love affair with Inbox ruined me, so I had come to love subtasks and parallel grouping. And to be perfectly truthful, yes, looks do matter. Thinking I could do better, I moved on.

I stopped at the Things website … and moved on. Sorry, no iCal synchronization, no play.

Finally, I took a look at OmniFocus, from the creator’s of OmniOutliner and built with the input of leading GTD advocates. And love bloomed anew! Literally it does everything perfectly for me. I can view tasks by project or context. It has a clear processing mechanism. Tasks can have subtasks and be marked as serial or parallel. And the synchronization is perfect; I can control whether I bring in all or just the next items in each context, and it marks the iCal to-dos with the project name. Again, perfect.

Mind you, at $80, this lady is an expensive broad to get with. But you don’t need to buy the rock right away, as you can try it out for a couple of weeks. But at this point, I am ready to commit to a long-term relationship!