WARNING

Sorry to say that it's been a while since I've had a chance to work on kGTD... so long that it's not Leopard (Mac OS X 10.5) compatible.

But wait! There's hope!

I've joined the Omni Group and worked with them to develop the successor to kGTD: OmniFocus. It's got everything that kGTD had and more, and it's a native, speedy, full-featured Cocoa application. It's even got an iPhone version ready to roll soon. So take a look at it now!

kGTD content follows, but again, please take a look at OmniFocus if you're looking for a modern, hip and stylish task management application.

kGTD
Kinkless GTD is a free set of Applescripts that work with OmniOutliner Pro to create a framework for implementing David Allen’s Getting Things Done task-management methodology. If that doesn’t make sense right away, don’t worry. I made a movie:

Click here to view kGTD intro video

Merlin Mann has posted a review of kGTD here.

Installation

Requirements

  • Omni Outliner Pro 3.6 or above
  • Tiger 10.4.5 or above (if you are already on Tiger, a regular “software update” should keep you in good stead on this point
  • Tolerance for software which is in serious beta ;)

Basic Installation:

  1. Check to make sure you are running OmniOutliner Pro 3.6 (beta or final). If not, download and install it first.
  2. Quit OmniOutliner Pro.
  3. Quit Quicksilver (Perish thought… but it must be done. will be over in a moment, honest).
  4. Quit that dead end job that’s hold you down. (well, that’s optional, and there is income to consider, so maybe you should just silently resent the societal structures that compel you to such drudgery while quietly rebelling and sabotaging the machine from within. power to the people, yo.)
  5. Run the kGTD installer.
  6. If you plan on using the QS action, you should probably cover your bases by recompiling it. Open the Quicksilver action: ~/Library/Application Support/Quicksilver/Actions/Send to kGTD.scpt in script editor (just double clicking on it should do the trick, hit “compile” and then save.
  7. Launch Quicksilver.
  8. Launch OmniOutliner Pro.

Then, if starting “from scratch” with kGTD:

  1. Open a new, blank OmniOutliner Pro document
  2. Open up OmniOutliner Pro’s document-inspector by pressing Command-4. Click the gear icon in it. Check “Document-Specific toolbar”. Add the kGTD icons to the now-mostly-blank toolbar. Add any other icons you want.
  3. Click Sync. The document will be built. Save it anyplace.
  4. Turn off automatic level styles from OmniOutliner Pro’s format menu.
  5. Open up the utility drawer for this document by pressing Control-Command-T.
  6. Save once more.

If upgrading an older kGTD document:

  1. Open your old kGTD document
  2. Reset your icons to remove the kGTD icons (yes, remove!) by control-clicking (or right clicking) on the toolbar of your document and choosing “customize toolbar” and then dragging up the “default set” of icons from the drop down. This resets the toolbar for all your non-kGTD documents.
  3. Open up OmniOutliner Pro’s document-inspector by pressing Command-4. Click the gear icon in it. Check “Document-Specific toolbar”. Add the kGTD icons to the now-mostly-blank toolbar. Add any other icons you want.
  4. Click Sync. The document will be upgraded. I recommend using the kGTD default styles when prompted.
  5. Make sure automatic level styles are turned off in OmniOutliner Pro’s format menu.
  6. You can now delete several “old” top level sections, including:
    • About KGTD
    • Reviews
    • Trigger-Lists

Using the Quicksilver Action

Using the Action

To use the Quicksilver action, just enter text-entry mode in Quicksilver by
* Activating QS using your shortcut (Control-Space or Command-Space for most of you)
* Hit the dot/period key to bring up text entry

Then enter some text (see the “task shorthand” options below) and tab to the action pane in QS. Start typing “kGTD” (no quotes) and you should see the action pop up. You can always set it to a default on “k” or whatever works for you.

Task Shorthand Syntax

The syntax works as follows:

  • Task Summary > Project Name @ Context

You can leave out any of those items, but the need to be in that order for now. So you could enter:

  • Task Summary > Project Name (will go to a project, but will be inactive as it has no context)
    or
  • Task Summary @ Context (will go to your “default new task” location as set in kGTD Settings… “Inbox” by default, but can be “!Single Tasks” or any project name)
    or
  • Task Summary (goes to the default task location and has no context set)

It’s insensitive

  • The task shorthand is case insenstive ( task @ Context == task @ CONTEXT == task @ context )
  • The task shorthand is white space insenstive ( task@context = task @ context )

Project names

The task shorthand also tries to be clever about guessing parts of projects and contexts. You can type just the beginning of a project name and the task will go to the first project kGTD finds that starts with that. Thus, if you have a project named “Clean up Office” you could use:
* File papers > Clean @ work
I tend to prepend my projects with little shorthand codes that allow me to send tasks to them easily.

Context names

Finally, the task shorthand can also guess the context if you just enter part of it. So if you have 5 contexts that all start with mac, you can enter just the last “unique” bit of the context. Thus, if your contexts include:

  • mac-design
  • mac-write
  • mac-research

You could use a task shorthand entry like this:

  • Design new logo @ design

That task would be set to the “mac-design” context unless you had an entirely separate context named “design” as well.