Judging from feedback on both Everdo and other to-do apps, I see that calendar integration is important to many users.
I also know that it can potentially be a really complex feature with very diverse and unclear requirements.
I would like calendar integration (and every other feature) to be done in a way that makes it a must-have feature for almost every user. If that’s possible, then the feature will happen.
Anyone who feels calendar integration is missing, please share what exacly you want to acomplish with it. Particularly if you have used something like this before in a different app and it was really useful. Please specify the “must have” part first and then the “nice to have” bits.
For the calendar Integration I think something like this that gives a overview of the day according to different contexts can be really helpful. Also would help in the review if I could see in the past on a particular date what all tasks have been completed. Another view of what the calendar could look like for time specific stuff like meetings where you might need to plan your day accordingly.
Integration with something like Google calendar would be related to specific time related tasks like meetings.
Dynalist has a nice setup where you can sync date items from one or more documents to a Google Calendar you specify. It’s one-way sync at the moment.
I use that to see my due dates in an easy layout.
This has become a “must have” feature for me: one of those things you didn’t know you missed until it became available. The “blob” or list of dates spread out through a bunch of list items or tasks suddenly is a clear calendar view. Added benefit: instead of having the app do all kinds of extra stuff like calendaring, reminders, notifications, and what not, that now all gets delegated to Google Calendar.
In Omnifocus you have the Forecast view, which is a little bit calendar like. It shows your items due and/or deferred for a specific date and can pull in data from one or more calendars so you can see the two pieces of information together.
A Forecast view is nice to have but in reality I don’t use it that often.
Ideal solution for the “must have” part:
In settings:
specify calendar to sync to
sync all ☐ due ☐ start dates for all lists
Right-click lists (can be projects, contexts, etc)
sync ☐ due ☐ start dates for this list
Covers basically any use case. The keep it simple users go into settings and enable it for all. Power users, or users who only want this but not that synced, will find the right-click options.
Two calendar-related sync features would be useful to me:
One-way (outgoing from Everdo) sync to a caldav calendar.
I often add tasks to my caldav TODO list from a variety of places - Android, Thunderbird, and some of my own scripts. If Everdo could take caldav tasks, dump them into the Everdo Inbox, then delete them from caldav, that would be cool. But maybe tricky/too niche?
This seems to be in line with previous suggestions if I understand correctly. That’s good.
The Android part would be solved by having an Android app, right?
For the rest of it I’ve been thinking about having a REST API for task creation. That would make automation a piece of cake. At least with apps/scripts running on the same machine/network.
An API would be fantastic! I have lots of other use cases, like syncing tasks with my Gitlab instance, importing from caldav, sending email reminders, creating tasks from scripts, etc. An API would solve basically all of my interoperability needs. So the REST server could run on any machine on which Everdo was installed, and use a token or something to authenticate? Then I could proxy behind nginx (for SSL) if I wanted to access the API from the internet? Or a headless Everdo instance?
And yes, an Android client would solve eliminate any desire to do incoming sync from caldav.
Lacking full calendar integration right now, I’d like time to be a part of a scheduled item, with start and stop dates. That would make it easier to organize days with meetings. Pushing to Google or some other calendar service could follow.
From a purely GTD perspective I believe an integration with 3rd party calendar is not optimal. I say this because google calendar for example does a very bad job at presenting tasks to you if they are not set for a specific time. They are just put on the top as an all day event. Additionally, you cannot interact with the task from google calendar.
I realize that creating an in-app calendar feature might be a lot of work, but it would be much better than an integration. Maybe even less frustration in the long run because you have to keep up with eventual 3rd party changes. I am no expert tho. As a user, I would prefer an in-app solution over integration. Events can stay in the various calendars and task should remain in Everdo!
The above example with chaos control is a good one.
I often end up creating google calendar events based on my focus list in the morning.
I think it would be nice if they could at least get created automatically once the new day begins. This way I would just need to drag/rearrange the events and be done with this.
I think this highlights a difference between GTD and the Things 3 workflow.
From the pictures you’ve provided it seems like Things encourages you to schedule actions for a particular day.
In Everdo (and GTD) you are encouraged to work with the Next list, where you see what you can work on now. There is also “Scheduled” list which shows a breakdown of upcoming items and their due dates, which is similar to what you are looking for.
In other words, the way I see it:
Today in Things roughly equals Next in Everdo
Upcoming in Things roughly equals Scheduled in Everdo
