New GTD Gun In Town- The Hit List

With the new year, also comes a new contender in the GTD segment. In spite of this segment being already over crowded, The Hit List has floated to the surface with a public beta. The application has obvious potential and is well thought out, but is not the OmniFocus slayer that some are proposing; at least not yet.

OmniFocus and THL are kind of at opposite poles of task management philosophy. The folks at OmniFocus take more of a project management approach– aiming at power users. THL is simple and easy to use, and more suited for folks with a limited number of projects and tasks.

I like the UI a lot– good color scheme, very usable layout, and sensible use of screen real estate. Most users can be screaming down the path of productivity in no time at all. Creating new projects and tasks is a pretty intuitive process and accurately follows the GTD process.

A glaring gap is the availability of an iPhone or Smartphone client. This is understandable since the core product is in beta, but without such clients the product faces serious limitations. If you need only the core functionality and have a limited number of projects to manage, then you may find the tool worth implementing. For those users who are looking for a more fully baked application, you are better off waiting for later generations. There are still many features missing such as:

  • Remote synchronization
  • Quick filters that can be saved
  • Complex queries
  • Task notes
  • Quick entry screen
  • Customer formatting

One of the problems with jumping into a crowded product segment is that you really need to have your act together fast. Switching GTD tools mid stream can be quite a daunting affaire. With Things and OmniFocus already at very mature points in their product life cycles, THL will have a challenging road ahead. As I stated in the beginning of this post the product does have a lot of potential, and I wish them luck. Solid competition is good for all the products in the category.

mnassal@gmail.com

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