Implementing GTD with Novell's Evolution

[Stelian Iancu]

Hi all,

I hope that in a short period of time (change of job) I will be able to
switch to Linux on my laptop and I would like to use Novell's Evolution for
managing my e-mail, calendar and tasks.

So I was wondering if somebody is using Evolution to implement GTD and if
you are willing to share your experience regarding this matter. I am also
new to GTD itself, so I have to take it all step by step.

Now I am using the GTD Add-In from David Allen on Microsoft Outlook 2003.

Regards,
--
Stelian Iancu

[dvdsweeney]

I made the complete switch from Win to Linux about 6mos ago. I tried to
use Evolution but I couldn't seem to get categories to sync with my
Palm - kind of an essential thing for GTD. I'm using the KDE desktop /
Kontact / KPilot and everything runs fine.

If you can do it get a laptop that you can test the environment in
first. That way you can keep using Outlook on your main machine until
you're confident you can make the complete switch over. You can take
your time tweaking everything - not feeling the pressure to get it done
in a weekend.

If you still want to use MS Outlook install CrossOver Office by a
company called Code Weavers http://www.codeweavers.com. You can run a
suite of fairly popular Windows apps in the Gnome / KDE desktops.

Good Luck!

[Evan Edwards]

On Monday 17 October 2005 09:45, dvdsweeney wrote:
> I'm using the KDE desktop /
> Kontact / KPilot and everything runs fine.

I've thought about writing up my method, but it involves KDE (and paper),
so I figured nobody would benefit. Maybe I should reconsider. I have loads
of KOffice HPDA templates for both 3x5 and Pocket Moleskine sizes.

BTW - I don't use it, but I'm keeping an eye on kFocus... looks
interesting, although it crashed once on me, which is a immediate dealbreaker
for any software I use. I'll give it another try in six months or so.

http://kfocus.sourceforge.net/


--
Evan "JabberWokky" Edwards
http://www.cheshirehall.org/

[CraigM]

Hi Stelian! Welcome to the group.

I'm currently using GTD with Evolution. I'm currently using an older
version of Evolution (1.4.6) but the later versions of Evolution should
work just fine.

Currently I use my Palm as my method for syncing my work between home
and
work. This allows me to keep my tasks synchronized with both places
while
it also keeps me in sync when I'm out and about. As another poster
mentioned, there is an issue with evolution syncing categories with the
Palm, but there is a patch in place for handling this. The bug was bug
1167, and the patches are available from here:

http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=201167

I've set up the development environment for applying these patches
using
Redhat 9 and yum, so if you need help, please contact me off-list and
we
can take it from there.

It is possible, though, to set up an environment with GTD without
category
syncing on Evolution. For that, you'll need a trick. One that I used
was
by prepending a tag in front of the task. My tags were:

@C: At Computer/Home
@E: Errands
@H: At Home
@O: At Office
@W: Waiting For
@Y: Calls list
P: Projects
S: Someday / Maybe

I also determined that when I sync the palm between home and work, that
I
needed to select "Copy from Pilot" on the first sync at the new
location
for my datebook, address, and todo list. This helps prevent duplicate
records from showing up.

I've also set up several sort orders from the GTD outlook paper. Under
the
tasks view, I have the following fields showing:

Type, Complete, Due Date, Summary, Categories

No grouping

Sort order: Due Date (Ascending), Categories (Ascending) and Summary
(Ascending).

I've done away with priorities under this setup, as I found I didn't
need
them, and they added extra steps to creating a task.

If this all sounds complicated, trust me, it's not. If you need any
help
setting this up, let me know, and I'll do my best to help out.

Hope this helps out!

[teri.p...@gmail.com]

I tried it and it looks like a nice app. I can't get it to sync Tasks
with my Zire 71 (which has the todo database instead of tasks). I use
it for my email and went to jpilot instead. Everything works on jpilot
and I'm really pleased with it. I can even sync my pedit 32k databases.
I'm running Gnome desktop in Ubuntu on a Mac G3, and couldn't be
happier with the switch.

[TheOldGuy]

[TheOldGuy]

I would be interested in hearing more about your Linux GTD system.

Thanks

[TheOldGuy]

Are your HPDA templates posted anywhere? I am SLOWLY making the switch
to Linux.

[Diego Zamboni]

I use Evolution to implement GTD for my email. I posted a description
of how I use it in this thread: http://tinyurl.com/9auor
Evolution is very nice for its virtual folders implementation, which
make it very easy to implement GTD. See my message at the URL above for
the full details.

Currently I use Evolution only for Email, because of the category
synchronization problem it has with the Palm (I'll have to try the
patch pointed to by CraigM). The other components of my setup are
JPilot (http://jpilot.org/) for keeping my calendar and todos, a
physical tickler file, that I have found extremely useful, and an A-Z
filing system straight out of the GTD book.