Perhaps unsurprisingly, it transpires the ‘beta by Wednesday’ promise was a little optimistic. It’s been a long hard slog so far; and I’m still not 100% sure what’s to show for it 
While the wait goes on I’d love to point the spotlight on some functionality I’m really thrilled about - stuff to help improve stress free team-work.
Delegation
You can now delegate to others, and it’ll automatically be marked as “Waiting-On”. You can then review tasks you’re waiting for others to complete; generally, by project or by person.
Efficient Sharing of Project Names
You can now pre-label a message before you send it to another person (so long as they use GTDInbox). So, I can assign a project/status to a task and send it to a colleague, and they will receive with the correct project/status already applied. (And if they don’t have the labels, they’ll be given the chance to quickly add them - helping to sync terminology between people).
To temper expectation, I imagine the first release will be a bit rough & ready. There might be some usability pitfalls and a bit of scaffolding still showing; but the foundations are there for some great improvements!
So, the last question is, when?
There are still 2 or 3 bits of real complexity to overcome; and then it’s on to the (slightly) easier job of adding in the front-end UI.
I hope there will be something by the end of this week (15/11); but I have to go to London Thursday & Friday - which makes it a rather short week!
Fingers crossed 
Pham Nuwen Says:
November 10th, 2007 at 10:48 am
I’ve just read GTD, and just started using GTDInbox using the older gmail interface and your Extension. All I can say is this is great, I really like a lot of the stuff you have done here, and it is making my life with GTD amazingly easy. I can’t wait to see what you have done for version 2, but I will, because I’ve seen software development in action, and understand that invariably the result of rushing it, is failure. Take your time, and get it right, I’m sure we can all wait.
I really like what you did with the current version, and it has some amazing features, I would like to suggest a couple of features for v2.1 though.
a) make it so one or more ‘custom’ prefixes are available for use. With the mass of automated mail I sort through each day, a separate prefix would help, so it doesn’t clutter up R:Reference, yet still can be tracked in a nice collapsible label menu.
b) Can the 2 minute timer be made configurable? Two things I would like to see here is a) being able to adjust the time. Honest I really do need 3 minutes most times to GTD and b) a option for a audible alarm (beep) when you run out of time. c) what would be really nice is if this instead of a JavaScript was turned into a button that could be added to the firefox toolbar, that way I could use it while surfing or doing other things outside of gmail.
Once again thanks for the hard work and great software. I expect to be sending a donation in soon.
contentious.com - More Gmail space; still waiting for GTDinbox update Says:
November 11th, 2007 at 2:48 pm
[…] Also recently Google unveiled its new version of Gmail. The update hit my account Thursday. I haven’t had a chance to play with it yet, because I rely on the GTDinbox Firefox plugin for task management, which isn’t compatible with the new Gmail. The makers of that great plugin are working on a Gmail-happy upgrade. So for now I’m still using the older version of Gmail. A new version of GTDinbox may be out this week. […]
Amy Gahran Says:
November 14th, 2007 at 1:50 am
One thing I noticed about the Gmail update & GTDinbox, even if you revert to the old version of gmail for now, is that the saved searches aren’t there anymore.
Apparently, Gmail has removed the saved search function since searches now have their own URLs and can be bookmarked. I found that out here:
http://blog.persistent.info/2007/11/macros-for-new-version-of-gmail.html
I just recreated my GTDinbox saved searches as bookmarks. A little bit of drudgery, but not hard to do.
Looking forward to the new version!
- Amy Gahran
Pareen Says:
November 14th, 2007 at 2:02 am
It is not working with the new version. Is any update regarding compatibility about to come in GTD or we’ll have to use older gmail if we want to use gtd with it?
Andy Says:
November 14th, 2007 at 4:23 am
@Pareen,
V2 *is* the update to work with the new Gmail. The new Gmail is so different it requires a full rewrite to GTDInbox, so I decided now was a great time to improve the functionality too.
You’ll have to continue to use the older version for now… possibly for another week.
Jose Says:
November 15th, 2007 at 1:26 pm
This would be a great time to donate! Let’s keep the hamsters on the wheel!
Ed Pontius Says:
November 20th, 2007 at 7:21 am
I’ve really been impressed with your product, and I’ve just composed an ACTION message to myself:
Contribute via PayPal to GTDINBOX !
I’m excited to see the new features on GTDINBOX when ready-
In the WISH LIST Department-
As I’ve been trying to fit my worklife into GTD and GTDINBOX, I’m noticing that there is A LOT of stuff currently in my GMail Inbox that I’d likely be putting in to a Tickler file if it were on paper- and it occurred to me- Wouldn’t it be useful to have a Tickler label that could be attached to items? Ideally, a user could add a tickler label, preset a reactivating date, and then the labelled item could throw itself BACK INTO INBOX on the proper date. I’m sure that if I had the time, I could put together Labels for DAY1, DAY2, … DAY 31 and JAN, FEB, etc., and move items by hand, but I wonder how many of us would remember to do that every day- But if the labels were smart enough to know what day it was…
Thanks again for a great product- Keep up the great work!
Ed Pontius
Topsham, Maine
Andy Says:
November 20th, 2007 at 7:28 am
@Ed
Sssshhh… don’t tell anyone but tickler’s are being mused for a future release
Want to provide some examples of how you’d use it?!
Yuri Engelhardt Says:
November 20th, 2007 at 12:10 pm
Andy, thank you so much for helping to make my life manageable!
Concerning “ticklers”:
I am using GTDInbox to organize my life, striving for the “Empty Inbox” (I’ve decided that my Inbox should only contain stuff that needs to be taken care of within the next 36 hours - clean and manageable, I love it). (BTW, receiving notifications from my Google calendar in my Inbox works well for me.)
I organize my (not calendar-fixed) actionable items (both the actionable mail I receive and my many self-written “[possibly] do” actions) by labels that are abbreviations for “review this in about 3 days from now”, “…a week from now”, “…a month from now”, “…half a year from now”.
I have reminders set up to regularly check under these labels (respectively every 3 days, every week, every month, and every half year).
This works really well for me, for managing all my priorities concerning my mail, to-do’s, and to-consider’s.
Now… if everything would automatically throw itself back into my Inbox around the time I wanted to review it… magical perfection!
Andy Says:
November 20th, 2007 at 12:21 pm
@Yuri,
That’s a smart solution - this is why I need to pull my finger out and setup a new forum so we can share these things more easily!
It seems both of you (and me too) would like the ability to set a call-back reminder. I’d been thinking about this; and it makes sense; although it’s relatively (technically) tricky. It may come a bit later!
Just for the record, ticklers won’t be in 2.0; but hopefully within two releases of that.
Ed Pontius Says:
November 22nd, 2007 at 4:26 pm
Thinking About Future GTDInbox and Conversations for Action-
I’m very impressed by the word done so far on GTDInbox, and I’m excited about the functions coming in 2.0.
Since this product seems to be growing out both a clear need and user input- thought I’d mention a way of looking at email and other communication that others might find helpful, particularly in terms of GTDInbox.
THIS IS FYI- “Speech Act Theory” or “Illocutionary Analysis” is a way of thinking about what we do with words.
An English philosopher, John Austin, pointed out that a lot of what we say and write is not the “All crows are black” type of statements that concern us mainly as being true or false. When you wish someone “Happy Thanksgiving!” you are EXPRESSING yourself, and when you ask “What time is it?” you are REQUESTING, and EXPRESSING and REQUESTING are not about truth/false conditions, but have to do with social relationships (part of language as a social/cultural invention). One particular thing you can do with language that is absolutely key to GTD and GTDInbox (IMHO) is PROMISING, or making a commitment. The notion of a “Conversation for Action” was a brilliant extension of Speech Act Theory made by Winograd & Flores in their 1986 classic book “Understanding Computers and Cognition: A New Foundation for Design”. In the “Conversation for Action” Winograd & Flores sketched out a state-transition-diagram showing all of the possible ways that a commitment could be negotiated and realized or broken. (see http://www.inf-wiss.uni-konstanz.de/RIS/1996iss01_01/articles01/sitter03/Gif/01.gif ). All of us use this process all of the time to work out the details of what we want from one another, whether we have an agreement or deal or not, and whether we’re satisfied with the interaction. The same dynamics between actors can be defined in a Conversation for Action diagram- whether the scene is a lunchbox trade between grade-schoolers at lunch or a contract negotiation between union officials and a major airline.
Why does this matter? IF parties to a conversation for action are willing to COMMIT to proposals and to DECLARE their satisfaction with a given agreement, then it becomes possible for a system to keep track of the status all of the commitments that we’ve made.
Key to the GTD philosophy and “mind like water” is distinguishing between things we’ve made a commitment to do (a commitment to ourselves or a commitment to others) and all the other ’stuff’. GTDInbox already makes it very easy to define our own, individually-perceived notion of a message (Is it just “stuff” for Archive or Delete, or do I choose to make it a PROJECT, assign it a STATUS, etc.?).
Now, with V2, if there will be the option to DELEGATE, then this is (in Speech Act Terms) a real opportunity! If we choose to forward a message to someone we know to DELEGATE, then we are entering a “Conversation for Action”.
At a minimum, if I receive a DELEGATE message from another V2 GDTInbox user, then I need a way (preferably an easy and consistent way) to-
indicate MY CHOICE about what to do with this request-
a) REJECT- (maybe “Sorry.” or “In your dreams!”, but as far I’m concerned, your desire for me to handle this is just “stuff”, so don’t expect me to handle it.)
b) ACCEPT- (maybe “Sure, I’d be glad to!”, or “Yes, Sir, I sure do want to keep my job!”- But in any case, I’m formally accepting responsibility for handling this issue as currently proposed - notice that it’s helpful if the initial proposal or delegation request makes it easy to determine what successful performance is, in terms of who doing what by when and how…)
c) COUNTER- (”No, I’m not on-board with your proposal as written, but how about we do it this way…”)
IF NOTHING ELSE, if GTDInbox makes it easy for us to track ACCEPT/REJECT/COUNTER status, then all of us could easily keep track of SHARED PROJECTS- no small deal. Add just one more piece- the ability for a party to ASSERT a completion status, and an ability for the other party to DECLARE satisfaction/nonsatisfaction, and then we all could enjoy a system that could AUTOMATICALLY track completion status of our shared projects. We do our “Next Steps” which include letting the other party know what we’ve done, and they agree that they are satisfied, and we can get (if we want to see it) a simple message “This project completed 11/22/07 and moved to PROJECT Archives.”
GTDInbox users might be particularly satisfied with Conversation-for-Action capability, as they are already committed to the notion of defining what they are personally committed to and what’s just ’stuff’, and they are already functioning in a text-based email environment (Firefox Gmail). The ability to do just this could be another compelling reason for many of the people we work with to take the plunge and get Gmail/Firefox/GTDInbox…
Andy- This may be way too long to be a post of general interest- possibly of interest to some GTDInbox blog readers and not others- feel free to use this however you see fit or to respond to me individually if you think that’s more appropriate-
And please do keep up the great work-
A Satisfied GTDInbox User (and Contributor!)
Ed Pontius
Topsham, Maine