GTD App Review – Producteev
Posted under: 
Producteev for Mac is a beautifully designed task list app, that’s a pure joy to use. You can’t help but feel that every little piece has been well thought out and designed. It uses contrast and colour to good effect, adding to its looks and helping the user to interact with and visualise tasks.
Adding new tasks is easy. Called up with a hotkey from within any app. It allows extra options (labelling, deadlines, starring etc) to be set too without it being an unwieldy dialog.
Task organisation is easy too, by clicking on the obvious icons to pop-up simple focused dialogs for each property of a task you wish to set (see Setting a Deadline screenshot).
Astrid would be the Android client in this trusted system but if their soon to be released Android app is anywhere as good as its Mac app, then I can’t wait to see that.
How it Scored
This is how it scored against the criteria for a great GTD app.
| Criteria | Result |
|---|---|
| Quick add | Yes. There’s an inbox but I think tasks that people asign to you land in here. |
| Projects/Sub-tasks | Yes, labels |
| Contexts/tags | No |
| Order tasks | No |
| Notes | Yes, multiple notes |
| Highlight/star | Yes, importance stars 1-5 |
| Search | Yes |
| Deadline | Yes |
| Reminder | Yes |
| Recurring tasks | Yes |
| Sync with Google Calendar | Yes |
| User Experience | 5/5 |
I put no for contexts/tags but you can assign multiple labels to task, so labels could be used for both projects and contexts. Not as nice as separate but a workaround. Another approach is to use Workspaces as projects and labels as contexts. The problem with this is labels belong to a workspace, so it wouldn’t be possible to see all tasks for a certain context. Also Google Calendar integration is per workspace, so for each workspace you’d get a separate calendar and need to connect this to Google. I’d be interested to here from anyone who’s using/tried either approach and the pros/cons of each.
Downsides
Labels not having the option to span Workspaces.
Having to manually connect each workspace to Google Calendar, thus creating a calendar in Google Calendar per workspace.
Puzzling
After 5 labels, you need to expand to see the rest of them (see ‘Moving House’ in the Main Screen screenshot). Shame it just doesn’t show them all or allow you to choose how many to show, there’s space.
Update 12/9/2012 – You can actually manually order the lists, by dragging and dropping them into the top half (above the more). So this puzzler goes away.
Dock badges just seem to be for tasks that you’ve assigned to others or have has assigned to you (I didn’t get to verify this with someone, so this is I’m assuming where dock badges come in). I was expecting to get badges for overdue tasks.
Useful Extras
- Import tasks from Remember the Milk.
- Multiple notes per task.
- Attach a file with each note. Multiple notes mean you can attach multiple files. 100mb file storage limit for free accounts.
- Workspaces for top level partitioning of tasks. Eg Work, Home etc.
- Enhanced for OSX Lion.
- Global hot key to bring up new task box.
- Audit trail. So you can see the history of what’s happened to a task.
- Assign tasks to other people.
- Collaborate on Workspaces.
- You can create your own filters using quite an extensive criteria and remove the default ones to.
- Smart task entry. Eg ** walk the dog tomorrow, adds a task with 2 stars and a deadline of tomorrow
- All items (labels and Filters) in the left menu can be dragged and dropped to re-order them.
How it Looks
-
- Main Screen
-
- Empty Workspace
-
- Task Entry
-
- Setting a Deadline
-
- Multiple Notes
-
- History
Platforms
Web, iPhone, Mac and Windows (coming soon).
Support
They have a good support setup and are listening to customers, with a support site and feedback forum.
Price
Free for up to 2 users in any Workspace plus 100MB limit. Unlimited Workspaces. Then tiered pricing for more users, storage and others.
Subscribe to the feed to follow the rest of the GTD App Review series.
20 Comments + Add Comment
Got anything to say? Go ahead and leave a comment!
My Other Sites
- Great Boxee Boxee developer tips and apps
- Laters Do stuff later on Android
- Life Tuned Your musical memory box
- Pik Pak Discover, create and share packing lists
- Postboxed Find postboxes nearby on Android
I see from their blog that there is a windows version in the works http://blog.producteev.com/exclusive-sneak-peek-at-producteev-for-window
It seems to take some visual inspiration from Evernote
I didn’t notice that! I will add it to the post. Thanks
I reached out to them on twitter tonight and got in on the beta programme – unfortunately I have to use Windows at work so it will be interesting to see how it works.
As part of the beta I’m sworn to secrecy so I’ll not be able report here I’m afraid.
I can sympathise, I used to use Windows all the time when I work for clients. I use it occasionaly now but I’m sure I’ll be back on it, so useful to know it’s coming soon.
Does it have offline support?
Yes. All the apps I’m reviewing have offline support. It’s a prerequisite for them and something I need for speed and for the times I’m not online.
Might want to update your review since they just released new versions and the Android app is now available.
The Mac app is the same but I’ll probably add another review for the Android app. I was using Astrid for the Android access to Producteev. Which is a great app by itself but if the Producteev Android app is anything like the Mac one, then I’ll very happy. It helps when both apps are look and work the same too.
Finally rounded of the reviews and chose my trusted GTD system. http://tomphilip.me/index.php/best-gtd-app/ Phew, wasn’t easy.
I can’t find a way to sync with Google Calendar. Am I missing something or has the functionality disappeared? I am using web based and iphone apps. Thanks.
It appears that the collapsing of more than 5 labels only applies if you have them automatically sorted. If you select Manual sorting it shows all of the labels.
Oh yeh, how odd. If you drag and drop them into the top half of the list, they’re no longer collapsed! Thanks for the tip.
Workspace is like a context – not sure why you put no for context.
Workspace are more like having completely separate working areas. They’re like Areas of Focus Like ‘Home Life’, ‘Work Life’. Contexts need to be more granular, so they can be applied to tasks at a lower level, a bit like tags. There’s some great discussion on contexts on the final post – http://tomphilip.me/index.php/best-gtd-app/
Dose it sync with ical?
I suppose in a round about way it does. It syncs with Google Calendar that iCal then syncs with. I don’t use iCal so I’m not too sure.
How do you sync with Google Calendar? I can’t find a way to do it using the web based version. Thanks.
Looks like they might have dropped support http://support.producteev.com/forums/145383-producteev-current-version-post-your-idea-here/suggestions/2540049-integrated-with-google-calendars I’m sure they had it when I revieved it
Are you still using this Tom? The update removed the personal filtering early this year, and I haven’t been able to make a case for going back to it since. Terrible decision to get rid of them. They were the best thing about the old version. The company’s been acquired now too (by Jive)
I found the syncing wasn’t very accurate and I’d end up with duplicates. I’ve been using Astrid Web from my Mac and Producteev less and less.