GTD WebApp: Hiveminder (Runner-Up)

The first webapp I'll be writing about is Hiveminder.

Hiveminder and I had a three month relationship in late 2007. There are a lot of things it does better than any of the other options out there, but there are some things that it just does not do as well as the competition. This eventually led to our break up, but fret not Hiveminder is a good choice.

The Interface
I like the interface, but I don't love it. Its best feature by far is its ability to chain tasks and make them interdependent. The lack of this feature with other webapps was a deal breaker for a while and I hated having to artificially play with filters and tasks to achieve what Hiveminder had built in.

It also has things such as the braindump feature that allows you to enter a large number of tasks at one time in the Hiverminder markup language for tasks. It makes it very easy to put tasks into the system and it becomes second nature as time passes.

Once tasks are in the system, you are supposed to do them. But tasks that do slip will then be brought back up by the Task Review function which is pretty neat to rearrange priorities of tasks as your needs change. Truly a useful tool. No longer need to call Ozzie at OzzieCorp? Been ignoring the tasks so it pops back up? Kick the task to the curb in the review.

But here are problems. The inferface, in my opion, is ugly and it clutters the tasks. It does not intuitively use tags to make task views easier. This in the end was a major reason Hiveminder and I were only a fling.

GTD Integration
My personal version of GTD is a bit bastardized from what the actual system is but that is alright a lot of people have their own quirks. One thing that is very important for my implentation are tags and 'duration tags' and more importantly the way that my brain handles these. My brain does not work very well with the Hiveminder tags implentation. I'm sure some people love it, but my brain just doesn't think like Hiveminder does. This prevents me from using my GTD version with Hiveminder.

Pros:

• Braindump
• Task Chains/Dependent Tasks
• Good feature set

Cons:

• Ugly Interface
• Task list and tags that are not intuitive
• Does not integrate with the rest of my work flow
• Not that GTD friendly
  

Summary

Hiverminder is a good choice for your goto productivity webapp. I used it for a while but it just didn't stick. It didn't feel natural in my work flow and it did not integrate with me as well as some of the other implentations out there. Their dependent task system should be copied by all other Webapps. It's not only a good idea but I don't understand why it isn't a standard in all GTD apps?