EasyTask Manager for getting things done
Ethan Schoonover’s KinklessGTD 
is probably the most comprehensive, flexible, elegant and powerful implementation of Dave Allen’s Getting Things Done task management philosophy for Mac users. Others swear by the various GTD wikis now available.
EasyTask Manager offers something less ambitious that will appeal to many. It is a task manager based around the GTD schema which offers two-way syncing of to-dos and calendars with iCal.
The interface is nice and clean:
It is easy to create new tasks and projects, and assign contexts and priorities.
Syncing with iCal appears smooth and trouble-free with the 15 tasks to which the demo is limited (UPDATE: although see the comments for some bugs and niggles). Tasks can be marked as completed in either iCal or EasyTask Manager.
A Preferences pane allows you set a number of options for its interaction with iCal:
EasyTask Manager 1.5.5 was released yesterday, fixing a bug in the process of completing or deleting tasks and introducing an internal update facility for registered users.
It doesn’t have the power of some of the other implementations, but what is does offer, it does well. And it is cheaper. At USD 19.99 it costs less to run than kGTD, which requires you to own a full copy of OmniOutliner Pro (USD 69.95).
EasyTask Manager is available from the developer’s web site .
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May 18th, 2006 at 12:28 pm
I tried the demo, mostly because I’m having trouble with the Kinkless GTD system.
Sadly for EasyTask, the second and subsequent syncs with iCal reset the due & calendar dates to 2020. There appeared to be no way around this. It’s therefore quite unuseable for me.
Also, there didn’t seem to be any functional difference between the due & calendar dates. I’d be glad if anyone could enlighten me though.
Go well!
David
May 18th, 2006 at 1:11 pm
Hmmm…. I’m not seeing anything like that. The only bug that I have experienced is with date formats.
It uses the American system, so displays a to-do on 5 June as 06/05/2006. That comes through into iCal which is set for UK/Australian dates as due on 6 May 2006.
May 18th, 2006 at 1:57 pm
Sigh, tried again. Similar results.
This time, tasks created in EasyTask always sync across to iCal with Today as the due date, regardless of the due date set in the new task dialogue box.
I did notice the date in the main window was American, whereas the dates in the More Info drawer and the Task window/s were International.
Syncing a second time changes the Due date in the Main and Edit task windows to July 2020, but does not change the Drawer. The Calendar date is unaffected.
Notes made in iCal are not brought back either…
In summary, just not workable yet.
May 18th, 2006 at 2:58 pm
Yes, I see both things too,
(i) today as due date regardless of due date set in EasyTask itself, and
(ii) Notes not brought back.
I think you are right. Although the developer seems keen to improve the product.
I did notice that there is a Google discussion group
for EasyTask. Oddly, these problems are not raised there.
May 18th, 2006 at 11:03 pm
All,
I’m aware of the problem with Due Dates and Non-US formats. EasyTask will not play nice with iCal unless you are using US date formats. I’m sorry for this inconvenience. I’m currently working on a fix.
As for the difference between Due Date and Calendar Date:
Due Date: This is the Date that you _must_ complete the task.
Calendar Date: This is the date when you want/plan to complete the task. This date controls the Calendar section on the Outline.
For example on Sunday I setup all the tasks I want to complete that week using the Calendar date. So on Tuesday morning all I have to do is click on Tuesday and all the tasks that I setup for myself for that day will be there. That’s what the Calendar date is used for.
Thank,
Jose
May 19th, 2006 at 3:13 am
I’m amazed that Frictionless isn’t getting more hype. It has what I think is the most important thing in a GTD system: dependencies!
http://www.twinforces.com/Frictionless/Frictionless.html
http://blog.johnjosephbachir.org/288
I can’t wait to check out EasyTask Manager though, I’d never seen it before.
May 19th, 2006 at 8:28 am
JJB, it doesn’t get any attention from me because I didn’t know about it!
I’ve looking forward to checking out your links. Thanks.
May 19th, 2006 at 9:02 am
Cool. It seems to be completely off 43 folder’s radar. I submitted it to them but no response. [shrug]
May 23rd, 2006 at 3:50 am
The problem with non-US dates have been fixed. Now there is a new option in the Preferences panel to switch the date format.
May 23rd, 2006 at 8:23 am
It’s all true. I’ve tried out the revised version and it now syncs nicely for non-US date formats. Excellent.
July 27th, 2006 at 12:10 pm
I like what I see of this, but it definitely needs more polish. It feels a little rough to me.
July 27th, 2006 at 12:55 pm
A updated version was released today:
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/20880
October 5th, 2006 at 1:58 am
[...] He has just posted a second part on twelve desktop GTD apps, which is worth reading too. Easy Task Manager wins the GTD app shoot-out for him. [...]