zendone: a beautiful task management app based on GTD® that integrates with Evernote and Google Calendar

[jorgemanrubia 0]

Hi,

Mi name is Jorge. I am one of the founders of zendone. Evernote plays a very special role in zendone but we have never announced it officially in this forum. Today we are fixing that.

 

About zendone

zendone is a task manager based on Getting Things Done® (GTD®) that integrates with Evernote and Google Calendar. It is based on 3 principles:

• It is faithfully based on the the GTD workflow and vocabulary.
• It tries to use the right tool for the job: zendone features a sophisticated integration with Evernote and Google Calendar to make the best usage of both for implementing GTD.
• It is crafted to be simple and beautiful.

Your data is stored in the cloud. We offer

• A web application. It has been crafted to offer a desktop-like experience.
• A native iPhone app
• A native Android app

About our approach to GTD

GTD defines a clear vocabulary and workflow. For example:

• You inbox contains collected stuff
• An action is a well-defined commitment
• When you process your inbox you transform the collected stuff into an organized system
• A project is an outcome that requires more than one action to be achieved
• Actions that are not to do by yourself should be stored in a waiting for list.

Since we started with zendone, we wanted to design it for GTD-power users. In our opinion, when you use a general-purpose tool for implementing GTD you necessarily have to use workarounds (for example, an Evernote tag that starts with an underscore represents a project).

 

An important aspect of zendone is that we built a User Interface that speaks GTD, no workarounds or conventions needed. For example, in GTD you manage contexts for filtering what to do next in the Do stage. In zendone you will see a list of GTD contexts to filter by in the Do section. The mapping is direct, and that makes implementing the workflow much more easier.

 

 

About the way we use Evernote

Evernote plays a crucial role in zendone. zendone is about GTD, and GTD recommends 2 core practices:

• Collecting all the things that enter your world that might represent something you have to do.
• Keeping an archive of things that are not actions but that you want to keep as  , as well as an archive for stuff related with your actions and projects.

In zendone:

• Your default Evernote notebook is your GTD inbox. That means you can use all the Evernote apps out there (official and third-party) to collect stuff in zendone. Keeping your mind clean by collecting everything that enters your world is a core GTD practice. In zendone you can just use  the best collecting system out there. 
• Evernote is also your archive. In zendone, Evernote will store all your not actionable stuff that you want to keep as reference, and also all the reference material you need to keep attached to your actions. 

With this scheme:

• You collect everything into Evernote
• You process your stuff in zendone. Processing your inbox means emptying your default notebook in Evernote. Going from stuff to an organized system. Notes that are relevant are kept in your archive in Evernote. Seeing how your default Evernote notebook/inbox gets emptied feels great!
• zendone will keep your whole GTD system, so that you can review it periodically.
• And every piece will be where it belongs, your trusted system will be organized. Your archived stuff in Evernote. Your inbox, actions, projects, contexts, areas of responsibility and GTD lists in zendone. And zendone will keep everything synced and working seamlessly.

The integration with Evernote is bidirectional

• If you update some note in Evernote, the note will be updated in zendone.
• If you update the description of some action or some inbox item, the changes will be propagated to Evernote.
• If you write some description for a given action in zendone, a new Evernote note will be created for holding them.
• zendone lets you create_actions directly from Evernote.
• And also attach existing existing Evernote notes to actions.

About the way we use Google Calendar

 

In zendone, Google Calendar is your GTD calendar. As with Evernote, the integration is bidirectional:

• When you create an action with a due date in zendone, the corresponding event is created in GCal.
• When you create an event in your zendone calendars in GCal, a new action is created in zendone.

This means that you can use the powerful GCal notifications system for your actions. For example, receive an SMS the day before the corresponding due date.

 

Pricing

• Free version: It limits the monthly synchronization to 30 Evernote notes and 30 GCal events
• Premium version: $50/year or $5/mo. It doesn't have syncing constraints, includes printing lists of actions and will remove the zendone branding at the footer.

All the plans include 1 month of premium-like trial. No credit card required.
For more details you can visit our pricing page.

About us

We are an small and bootstrapped company which members work from London and Madrid. We advance slowly but steadily:

• We were finalists in the first Evernote conference celebrated in the summer of 2011
• We started our private beta in October of 2011 and our public beta in the middle of 2012
• In 2013 we released our premium plans and our official apps for  iPhone and Android

We have a healthy and active community of users who have already processed over 6 million of Evernote notes. In our forums you can find passionate GTD users discussing about the method and about zendone. There are already thousands of comments posted. We listen and we love to interact with our users. Thanks to our community we have changed our mind about different features more than once and we are very thankful for that.

 

You can find more about us in:

• Help docs
• Blog
• Twitter (@zendoneapp) and Facebook

And of course, you can try zendone now. You can give it a try for free and use a fully functional version of the app for 30 days, no credit card required. 

 

 

* GTD® and Getting Things Done® are registered trademarks of David Allen & Co. Zendone is not affiliated with or endorsed by the David Allen Company

[danproveto 0]

This tool looks pretty solid so far.  Is there a way to integrate it with two different google calendars?  I keep one for personal and one for work and being able to link to the two different google accounts is pretty crucial for me (and I'm guessing many others).

Thanks for the help.

[Jorge Manrubia 5]

Hi Dan,

 

Sorry but support for multiple GCal accounts is not currently possible. 

 

Thanks for your feedback

 

This tool looks pretty solid so far.  Is there a way to integrate it with two different google calendars?  I keep one for personal and one for work and being able to link to the two different google accounts is pretty crucial for me (and I'm guessing many others).

Thanks for the help.

[qot 23]

Jorge:

 

Oh. My. God.

 

I just discovered Zendone today, and for the first time ever I finally have a GTD software system that works exactly the way that David Allen wanted. I can't even tell you how happy I am. ThinkingRock was the closest I've got before this, but your solution with the amazing Evernote integration is almost making me cry, it's so amazing. And the keyboard shortcuts........ <3 Thank you so much.

 

danproveto:

 

Why not just share the zendone-work calendar from your personal Gmail account to your work Gmail account? Seems perfectly effective and easy to me.

[Jorge Manrubia 5]

Hi,

 

I think this thread is interesting for Evernote users interested in GTD. 

 

Also, I would like to announce here that we recently launched our new community site. We want it to be a place of discussion not only about zendone, but also about GTD and productivity. You are invited to participate!

 

Regards

[Wordsgood 526]

I signed-up for Zendone several months ago when on a quest to find something that would help me to stop fogetting appointments and remember to pay bill on time. Zendone is great for that and so much more. While I found it to be a bit over the top for my needs and did not in the end, stick with it, I would still praise this company the skies! Their customer support was very prompt, courteous and most patient. Great job, Zendone!

[Gem 6]

This looks great! I have been trying to use Evernote as a to-do list manager but have just found it too clunky to manage items which don't have due dates. Off to try and figure out how to use it now. 

 

My only comment is that it would be great to have additional calendars such as Outlook as well. Right now I use two separate calendars - Google for home and Outlook for work (although if I COULD switch to Google for work, I would in a second...).

[*susan* 10]

I might consider it if you develop an iPad app.