Nitch is another implementation of GTD on the Newton.

Concepts

Nitch is based on the concepts of projects and associated actions. Actions can be marked as next actions to be done. Nitch makes use of the built-in Notepad application, but offers a custom view to view all next actions.

Projects

Projects are maintained in Notes, using the Project Stationery (this stationery is different than the one used by the Project Stationery package to avoid confusion). A new project is created using the "New" button in Notes. Projects are simple checklists, and they can be stored in any folder in Notes.

Actions

Nitch considers a checked item in a project as the next action. It is possible to mark multiple items in a project checklist as next actions. Using hierarchical checklists is usually not practical though since the checked state of a parent checklist depends on the status of the child items.

A project which has a checked item (and thus a next action) is marked in the Notes overview with a small circle icon to easily spot projects without actions.

Goals

GTD uses no priorities for actions. Each next action is as important as the other, and the choice which action to start depends on multiple factors. GTD also uses the concept of a hard landscape, which includes actions due on a specific day.

Nitch provides a simple, optional way to facilitate the selection process for next actions. The method is based on roles and goals described in Stephen Covey's Seven Habits and First things first. Goals are collection of projects, grouped by role. Actions for projects which are set as a goal will have a priority above regular actions, and below the hard landscape actions.

Nitch Application

While projects are viewed in Notes, the usual way to work on actions is via the Nitch application itself. It lists all actions (i.e. marked items) in all project stationery notes, and allows sorting by action name or project name.

Nitch has two main views, the actions and the goals views. They are selected via the folder tab in the top right hand corner of the application.

Actions View

Nitch.gif

The actions view shows all next actions as marked in the project notes in the Notes application. It also shows all items from the ToDo application which have priority 1.

Actions can be marked as done in the action list, after which they will be removed from the project note. A preference setting controls whether to open the project of a completed action, to quickly mark the next action. Tapping an action opens the Notepad with the corresponding project note.

Actions can have different highlights depending on their importance. If an action is a ToDo item for the current day, or if the action ends with a date, it has a solid border. If the action is for a project which is marked as a goal in the goals view, it will have a grey border. Other actions are not decorated.

The actions view has four buttons which have the following functionality:


Goals View

Nitch-goals.gif

Goals can be defined in the goals view. It shows a list of roles, each of which can be associated with a list of projects. Those projects represent the goals for that specific role.

Before entering goals, the roles list has to be filled first. Tapping the "New" button will prompt for a role name, and will add the role to the list. Expanding a role by tapping on it shows the goals (or projects) defined already for the role. If a goal project has a next action, it is indicated via a small icon left to the project name. Two buttons are used to manipulate the roles:

The "Reset" button is not used yet.


Preferences

The preferences view allows control over the folder where project notes are located. In case where many Notes are in Notepad, this can speed up operations, e.g. by storing all GTD notes in one folder "Projects".

The preferences view can also be used to enable or disable opening of a project note after completing an action.

Since Nitch patches the Notes application for some enhancements, a conflict may show up when using Standalone's SuperNotepad. It is visible as a garbled shortcut bar in Notes. To prevent this from happening, it is possible to let Nitch delay its patching of the Notes application by twenty seconds, to let SNP hook into the application first.

Finally, the view shows a history of the number of completed actions for the past 14 days.

Workflow

Goals and Roles

In the setup phase, roles are defined in the goals view. Those roles are populated weekly with projects. The usage of roles and goals is optional, if they are not used, actions will only have two priorities: Regular next actions, and actions for the current day (hard landscape).

Regular Flow

The typical workflow daily using Nitch follows the GTD flow:

Changes

Bugs and To Do List