ActiveInbox
So, I haven't been using Nirvana much for several months. To be honest I didn't use it extensively to begin with as I never used any such task management tool extensively for any length of time. Most of my time spent initially wrapping my head around the ideal methods around using the app within the context of GTD, and in the most efficient and optimal way. This was true of RTM and Toodledo. Nirvana is much, much better than the other two, but there's still enough flexibility that it makes it too easy (for me) to obsess about details that probably aren't important.
Anyway, I've also been using ActiveInbox for at least a year I think, which is a Chrome/Firefox plugin to Gmail. It's gotten progressively better over the months and they just came out with a new release which makes things even better.
There are of course downsides: this is for gmail users - if you don't use gmail or google apps as your email client, it's pointless; since it works with email, it's based around tasks that are email driven. As such, if you want to create a task that isn't email driven, you're basically forced to send a message to yourself with the task info. Finally, some important features are only available via the pro version, which is reasonably priced right now, but eventually will be up there with others including Nirvana.
The big strength for me is that it's both task manager and email manager rolled into one, and since it is so tightly integrated with gmail (which is where I spend a siginificant amount of my online time anyway), I end up using it just as a process of reading/replying/processing email. IE, I don't have to go to a separate app (or two or three). If you go pro, it has the ability to post events to your calendar, and specify deadline dates. Unfortunately, items don't show up your Google Calendar automatically, you have to export them, not a huge deal, but an extra step. But by doing so you can take advantage of the email and sms alerts that GCal offers.
In some ways it's harder to get started and set up because the entire thing is a big hack of gmail and so even though they've automated a lot of the setup, there are still pieces of it which are either not precisely GTD or simply aren't needed (at least from my standpoint). So it's far from perfect. The other piece is that there's no mobile app and it doesn't look like they have any real plans to make one. And of course they are running at the mercy of Google. If Google decides to switch it's architecture, the whole thing could break and then you're basically SOL I guess. So maybe not the best long term strategy for most people but despite all the downsides, for better or for worse, it seems to be the system that I've been able to commit to the longest because it's embedded in something I use every day regardless, and it's very easy to tag emails as next action or waiting for and file them away and out of your inbox.
I still may end up coming back to Nirvana, but for at least for the moment I'm going to be mostly doing task management with ActiveInbox I think...
2 Posted by djohnson on 23 Feb, 2012 02:30 AM
@levi....out of curiosity, how were you handling your email tasks when you were using Nirvana? Were you using Nirvana only for non-email tasks?
I ask because Nirvana works very well with gmail (for me anyway) by creating notes in Nirvana tasks with the gmail links. Since the link in gmail stays the same it is always easy to access whether it's been assigned a label, archived, etc.
When I process my gmail inbox I use the Chrome extension "Email this page" to send any actionable emails to my Nirvana inbox and then immediately archive them to get them out of my face. I then process them through Nirvana like any other task and add them to Scheduled, Waiting For, etc. I find this works much better than forwarding the actual email to Nirvana because when I click the link in the notes it pulls up the email in gmail and I can directly reply or forward as necessary.
Dan
3 Posted by levi on 23 Feb, 2012 03:00 AM
Dan, I didn't do a whole lot with email and Nirvana. I would forward an email to Nirvana to create a task occasionally, but that's about it. I didn't realize I could link back to a specific email, which does make things more connected, but of course you're still dealing with two separate systems, so it's never going to be quite as close as using a unified one. Then again, Nirvana doesn't take as much work up front to configure since most of it is set up for you. And of course you don't have to do hacky stuff like send yourself an email to create a task. The other thing that is missing from ActiveInbox is recurring tasks. For some people that is a big thing, and it's probably a pretty core feature that would cause many to not even look at ActiveInbox. I'm not sure they will ever solve that problem, but who knows. I guess my other option is to use some tool out there JUST for recurring tasks. As long as that's all it's for, it doesn't have to be too sophisticated, it just needs to provide some form of notification. Heck I could just create recurring events in GCal that would spew email reminders a few days in advance and then just tag those with various statuses, contexts, due dates, etc It ads an additional piece to it, but gmail and gcal are intertwined enough and I use both enough where I think it might work ok...
Levi
4 Posted by Proximo on 24 Feb, 2012 04:55 AM
I use the right tool for the right job.
Gmail for email
Nirvana for GTD
I can easily forward any email to my Nirvana inbox so they work great together. Nirvana as an email client would be horrible and Gmail as a GTD solution would also be horrible.
Using each for their designed strength makes them both great and they work in perfect harmony for my GTD System.