Why I chose NOT to use Nozbe

I’ve been evaluating lots of ToDo / GTD solutions recently. My requirement was for an online service with sync to an offline Android app for those occasions where I don’t have a data signal. Data entry must be easy, preferably allowing me to set all the contexts, etc. immediately to ease review – unless I’m REALLY in a hurry. (At the current count, I have just over 200 actions recorded, and I know I still haven’t captured everything I need to.)

Nozbe was one of solutions I tried, and although I love the concept and the option for Evernote integration, here’s why it didn’t work for me.

1. The biggie. I have to use the mouse to a) select New Action, b) select options, c) click on each option in turn to choose Starred, Context, Time estimate, Due date (and a truly horrible pair of sliders if I want to set a time) and Repeat. I’m happiest using a keyboard, and all that mouse clicking slows me down to the point of completely getting in the way of productivity. I could work around it to some extent by using the iNozbe page, but there are a number of bugs with the date field, not all fields are available, and I need to switch between windows to get back to the standard Nozbe page for a decent view of my actions. So, to get me using Nozbe again, I’d need a comprehensive set of Keyboard Shortcuts to add and update tasks and projects, including auto-complete for all pre-existing info (contexts, projects, etc.), plain English dates (today, tomorrow, Monday, next month, etc.)

2. The second biggie. The price and the functionality available in the free version. Now I don’t object to paying for premium features, and I know this is going to be controversial, but to put it in context, as an Evernote user, the cheapest premium Nozbe service I can get (Nozbe Personal) will cost me £63.86 per year. Compare that with
Evernote Premium at £27.90 per year,
RTM Pro at £15.50 per year,
Toodledo Pro at £9.27 per year,
ToDoist Premium at £25.56 per year,
Action Complete at £15.48 for web+Android and even GTDAgenda at £50.22 per year
(all at the cheapest available annuals rate and recent exchange rates from the relevent currencies), and Nozbe is by far the most expensive of the options I considered. Also, the free version of Nozbe is far more restrictive than the free versions of almost all the above. I genuinely feel that if the free version allowed more projects and contexts (at least 10), and the paid version was priced more in line with Evernote, you’d actually get more revenue from more users.

3. There is no way (that I’ve found) to group projects into different areas of my life, such as Work, Home, Personal, etc. to help me focus on the stuff that is relevant to whatever role I’m performing at any given time. I guess I could work around this by using (Home), (Work), (Personal) tags that I would apply to every task, but this is not something I could try with the free version.

For the time-being, I’ve settled on superimposing GTD principles to RTM (by using various conventions for Project names as tasks, using tags for Contexts, and various Smart Lists to group together stuff that I need to do for work / for me (either tagged a Next, or with a due date in the next couple of days), tasks that don’t have projects or contexts (Inbox) and need more detail, Work-related Next Actions, Personal Next Actions, etc. It’s a bit messy, but once set up, adding an action to a Smart List automatically includes all the attributes associated with that list, and there are keyboard shortcuts for adding additional tags, locations, etc.

RTM’s web app is pretty awful (although there are firefox/chrome plugins that improve it a bit). The Android app is great though – within the limitations of what RTM will and won’t do, of course.

I’m not committed to RTM – it seems to me that there must be a better solution, especially as RTM repeatedly refuse to contemplate introducing the concept of Projects, but I’m afraid that Nozbe has a long way to go for it to be the right solution for me.

Julie
blog.juwlz.co.uk