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As some of you might have read in the recent interview I did at Black Belt Productivity (thanks guys!), I’ve moved from an all-paper GTD system to a hybrid setup. The primary difference is the employment of Tracks to track my projects, actions and a sort of basic, digital tickler. This wasn’t a whimsical decision, mind you. I toyed with several different web-based GTD applications before deciding on Tracks, including Nozbe and Vitalist. Tracks seemed to have the most usable interface with the least amount of fluff. So, I installed it on my webhost and started inputing all of my projects/actions. Here are my thoughts/reactions:
Short version: Tracks has a long way to go. It’s got some decent features, but it’s not ready for prime time. For the longer review, read on…
Having used Tracks for about a week now, here is my initial list of problems with it:
- Speed - This is the chief problem, in my opinion. Moving between pages always takes way too long, usually around 15-20 seconds (sometimes much longer). It will also error out at least once or twice a day, forcing me to begin another lengthy reload process. I haven’t dug around under the hood or anything, but my initial thought is that the database and queries could definitely be optimized.
This is probably going to be the deal-breaker for me. I need to be able to (very) quickly add next actions and projects and Tracks simply doesn’t allow me to do that.
- No ‘Someday/Maybe’ - Personally, I make somewhat-heavy use of the Someday/Maybe list. It gets reviewed and edited regularly, sometimes more often than my weekly review. Simply put, there’s no way for me to add a project and assign it to this list. Honestly, I find this puzzling as it’s one of the main tenets of a canonical GTD implementation.
- Hoop-Jumping - In order to add a project, I have to click on ‘Projects’ (wait 10 seconds for that to load), then scroll to the very bottom of the project list, then click ‘Create New Project’. This gives you a little input form with name and description fields. Type in your stuff, hit ‘Add’, then wait another 10 seconds for the page to refresh. Now, my new project is at the bottom of the list. If I want to add a Next Action, I have to click the name of the project, wait another 10 seconds, then click ‘Add a Next Action to this Project’. Fill in the fields, click ‘Add Item’ and wait another 10 seconds. Perhaps you can see where I’m going with this…
At this point, I’m now at least 40 seconds into the process, and I’ve define the project and the NA (10 seconds is a very conservative estimate, by the way). This is unacceptable.
- AJAX is Clunky - Tracks relies heavily on AJAX calls for many of it’s smaller-scale database operations (adding new NA’s, marking NA’s as complete, adding Notes, etc.). These actions are also subject to the 10-20 second wait period I described before, and often go off into cyberspace, never to return.
- No Sorting of Anything - My project list is somewhat lengthy, probably 60-80 projects as I write this. Way more than will fit on a single page without scrolling. Once you mark a project as complete on the Projects page, it stays in the same position in the list as it was before, but now says ‘Completed’. There’s no way (that I’ve seen, anyway) to sort projects by status or even hide completed projects altogether.
- NA Lists show All Actions - Sometimes, when I’m defining a project, I’ll have an idea what the first few physical actions should be. Call Mike, then call Bob with whatever Mike said, etc. So, if I create actions called “Call Mike” and “Call Bob”, they both show up in my NA list. In my opinion, I should be able to order NA’s chronologically, and have only the first one appear in the contexts. Once I complete that action, the next one should appear - etc. I don’t know if I’m asking too much (and I certainly might be), but having “Call Bob” and “Call Mike” in the same, unordered list seems counterintuitive and problematic when your goal is to “point and shoot”.
Now, in the interest of fairness, here’s my list of things Tracks is doing right:
- Interface - Aside from the slowness, the UI is actually laid out pretty well. But, it definitely needs some more quick-style actions like ‘Add Project’ and ‘Add NA’ (the type of thing that should be available on every page).
- RSS - The fact that I can (though, don’t) read my NAs and projects in my favorite RSS reader is nice. It also supports a text-only feed, which could be useful in exporting to other devices/applications.
Needless to say, I’m not terribly impressed with Tracks. It has potential, for sure, but it definitely needs some fine-tuning before it’s ready for production use. Perhaps it’s time to revisit Vitalist…
Technorati Tags: gtd, web2.0, tracks, review, rants
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23 Responses to “Digital GTD: A Review of the ‘Tracks’ Software”
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Being a bit of a Ruby on Rails user, I am a big fan of Mongrel as the webserver. Massive speedup over webrick which looked like it was the default shipped with Tracks. I have never tried Tracks before, but I downloaded the code onto my laptop and deployed it on a single production Mongrel instance. I am getting subsecond response times for everything you listed above across my LAN. You must have some kind of deployment issue.
I also am confused by why you want your projects to be on a someday/maybe list. If you look at things like GTD for the Palm, which is what I use, Someday/Maybe is modeled as a context. Then again, maybe I understand you because the hardest thing for me was seeing where to put actions that weren’t part of projects. I just made a default project for non-project actions. Then you can add actions to this project and set the context to someday/maybe.
Totally agree with you on the inconvenient location of many of the links.
I had no problems at all with the AJAX, it was surprisingly fast. As I said, I think your hosting or deployment has some problem.
Completely agree on the lack of filtering and sorting in the list of projects.
Completely agree on the need to only show the NA in the context lists, not the next-NA…
I’d love to see some keyboard shortcuts in this thing, gmail style.
Anyway, it’s some nice RoR code to look at, but I currently am still best served by my treo/outlook 2007 combo, really effortless. Tracks really beats it in the consistent view of projects, but I’d much prefer that capability as a small extension of what the palm can do than to make such a big switch.
Just deployed this with subsecond response time- the code looks good, you have a deployment or hosting problem!
Well, considering that I’ve talked to several other people with similar complaints about the speed of Tracks, I don’t know that I agree.
Anybody else care to weigh in here?
Besides, the speed - while a major issue for me - isn’t my only complaint.
I’ve been an on again, off again user of tracks and I’ve run it on multiple hosts. Speed is VERY host dependent, because it’s a ruby on rails application. If your webhost runs rails through apache fastcgi, it’s dog-slow. (I used dreamhost, and they were TERRIBLE for hosting tracks (lost processes, failed rails starts, all kinds of crap). I ran it again later on mongrel, and it was easily ten times faster.
I’m currently using vitalist (I try out new GTD software every few months), but so far, it’s just leaving me flat. My last tracks install was pretty sweet… I have a very basic cell phone with just SMS, but because I hosted my tracks setup myself, I was able to write up some perl scripts that would fetch data from the tracks task lists for me. If I had an extra half hour, I could stop at the grocery store and pull @grocery out of the ether, or I could pull up my @phone list, etc, etc. I’m already missing these things with vitalist.
Another thing I love about tracks is the ability to filter my task list by context. at work, I’d hide everything but @office, etc, etc. Great for keeping distraction away, and again something I’m missing with vitalist.
With regards to sorting, one option is to set sequential due dates for tasks you plan to do in a certain order, but it is admittedly a hack. I never had that particular frustration, but then, I built my GTD implementation around tracks, so I never got used to doing it another way.
What are you using?
My previous system was entirely paper-based, so this is my first real foray into digital GTD (save a short stint with GTDTiddlyWiki when I first got started).
Oddly enough, I’m using dreamhost for my tracks hosting. If I could find a *very* cheap (like, < $10 month) hosting plan for tracks, I'd be in a much better position to give it a fair shake.
And I realize there's 3rd-party tracks hosting out there, but I'd much rather have control over the environment myself.
The article I used as a guide for setting up Tracks on dreamhost does indeed have me using fcgi. But what's the alternative? I must admit that I know nothing of RoR (in practice, anyway). (Article is here)
As one of the contributors to Tracks, I want to thank you for publishing this thoughtful analysis. One of my favorite things about working on Tracks is getting new ideas from the community. We have a issue tracker at dev.rousette.org.uk where we track bugs and feature ideas. Anyone can add ideas/issues there.
A few thoughts of my own about your list:
1) Speed - Performance optimizations are something that is important to me and particularly important to an app like Tracks. We’ll spend time on that before the next release. That said, the slowness you’re describing is definitely not normal. There’s something sub-optimal about the way you’ve deployed the application.
2) Someday/Maybe - In my instance of Tracks, I have a context I’ve created called “Someday/Maybe”. That context is hidden from the front page of tracks, and I add actions to it as appropriate. That meets my needs, but I understand that some users want to do this on the project level. In the development (trunk) version of Tracks, we’ve added a project status of Hidden that has a similar effect.
3) Hoop-jumping - I agree that the old way didn’t work very well. In the trunk, the New Project form is now on the right-hand side. We also are supporting creating a new project on the fly as you add a new action.
4) Ajax is Clunky - this is 90% about your performance issue, and 10% about the way Tracks gives user feedback during and after Ajax operations. We’re working on the latter and the trunk includes some improvements already.
5) In the trunk, we’re separating projects by status (Active/Hidden/Completed) on the projects page. This goes a long way toward addressing your concern, but there are some other improvements we have in the works for project viewing, sorting and navigation.
6) NA Lists show All Actions - I agree wholeheartedly. Figuring out the right UI for dependent actions is a big challenge, but I *really* want to do this and do it right. The trunk offers deferred actions, which let you hide actions until a certain date, but we don’t yet have the ideal interaction on this.
At this point, you’re probably thinking, “all that’s cool but when will it be released?” Soon, we hope. Both bsag, the project founder, and I have full-time jobs, so it’s slower going that we would like, but we’re definitely moving toward a release.
I’d welcome your participation on our mailing list and issue tracker to help make Tracks a great GTD tool for all.
Cheers from NYC,
Luke Melia
Tracks committer
“Well, considering that I’ve talked to several other people with similar complaints about the speed of Tracks, I don’t know that I agree.”
Then you responded with the fact that you were using Dreamhost and it all made sense.
I was dumbfounded that somehow you wouldn’t “agree” with the fact that I am getting good response time, very funny.
Definitely don’t use Apache FCGI, Webrick, or any other option that doesn’t involve mongrel for Rails applications. Dreamhost doesn’t really offer a good hosting environment for Rails- it and TextDrive are widely bashed as hosts. You want to use mod_proxy with Apache to forward to Mongrel. Check out RailsMachine or Slicehost for higher quality hosting options. Honestly, it’s so easy to set up on it’s own that you would be better off running it locally first to see if you like it when it’s fast.
matt m-
I was disagreeing with the notion that it was necessarily a problem with my webhost (which turned out to be the case).
Sorry for the confusion!
Wow, what a great review - you have just saved me countless hours of fiddling around to try and get Tracks on my machine. Thanks for saving me the hassle! I’ve even formalized my thinks with a post: http://gtdwannabe.blogspot.com/2007/03/no-tracks-for-me.html
And keep up the great blog - I enjoy reading it.
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[...] super review of the application over at the Cranking Widgets website that sure is worth a read before you spend the time installing Ruby and Rails to get Tracks [...]
[...] GTD Wannabe had some very kind things to say about my recent review of the Tracks GTD web application. [...]
[...] The Cranking Widgets Blog has a semi-sweet review of the Tracks software As some of you might have read in the recent interview I did at Black Belt Productivity (thanks guys!), I’ve moved from an all-paper GTD system to a hybrid setup. The primary difference is the employment of Tracks to track my projects, actions and a sort of basic, digital tickler. This wasn’t a whimsical decision, mind you. [...]
Nice review. I tried Tracks a while back and agree with all of your points (though performance wasn’t much of an issue for me).
Concerning 2), if you reread the book, Someday/Maybe is NOT a context. I was also baffled by this in Tracks.
The other thing that bothered me about Tracks was my inability to create next actions *without* a context. Maybe I missed something…
Have you checked out any of the hosted Tracks solutions, Brett?
http://tracks.tra.in/login
http://www.zenlist.com/login
http://docs.gtdtracks.com
[...] 4. Six Reasons Why You Might Want to Avoid the Tracks GTD Software [...]
As a Tracks user, I have to completely disagree with this review, on just about every point. I use a hosted solution for Tracks, and it runs very smoothly and quickly. I use it daily, all day, and it works perfectly.
In my opinion, it’s the perfect GTD app. There are improvements that can be made, but they are on the development list for release soon, so those little things will be ironed out. But on the whole, there’s really no better application for GTD, at least with online solutions. It’s better thank kinkless, gtd tiddlywiki, stikkit, Backpack, Remember the Milk, and a dozen other apps I’ve tried.
Btw, I also use Someday/maybe as a context. You can put projects on here, and when you decide you’re ready to actually do the projects, just turn it into a full project and delete the item off the someday maybe list. I don’t understand what the problem is … technically, it may not be considered a context, but it’s just a list, just like any other list. Contexts are lists. You can create any other types of lists here as well, by creating a context - DVDs you want to watch, songs you want to download, goals, etc.
I’d suggest trying a different host, or using a hosted solution, just to try out Tracks a little more, because it really is a great app. I don’t think you’ve given it a fair chance.
@Leo,
First let me say that, since posting this, I’ve switched to a hosted version of tracks at gtdtracks.com and am much happier. My speed issues are mostly gone and they seem to be running a development version of tracks with some newer features than the version I had installed on my webhost.
That being said, you say you disagree with my review, but you never really say why (other than the fact that you like it). The fact remains, I still can’t sort my list of projects and I still have all of my NA’s for a project visible at once. Now, I realize these issues have been addressed in previous comments, but the fact remains that these are, in my mind, important functions of a web application that deals so intimately with lists.
And with regard to the Someday/Maybe list - I know I can use a context for those, but that’s what we programmers like to call a “hack”
The Someday/Maybe list is an absolutely fundamental part of GTD and, in my opinion, should be built into the core of any application that would be used for GTD.
Thanks for the feedback - I really do appreciate it
Hi Brett … I’m glad you tried the hosted version. Actually, I addressed the first four points of your six points. I didn’t address the last two (sorting and showing all NAs) because they’re not that important to me. Just to recap, here are your six points and my answers:
1) Speed — as I said, the version I’m using works very well and has no speed issues
2) no someday/maybe — I agree that someday/maybe is a core part of GTD, but I don’t agree that it needs to be in a separate feature. It’s just a list. In tracks, you can create a list and call it someday/maybe. There’s no need to make it more complicated. If you were to create a someday/maybe list on your Moleskine, you could create the list anywhere you wanted. You wouldn’t need a new Moleskine for the someday/maybe list.
3) Hoop jumping — creating new NAs and projects are a one-click operation for me; I’m not sure how this is hoop jumping.
4) Clunky AJAX — the AJAX works smoothly and quickly on my version.
5) No sorting — I’ll admit that I’d like to see this improved, but it hasn’t been a major issue for me. I just move completed projects to the end of the list.
6) NA lists show all actions — Again, not an issue for me. If there are date-sensitive reasons that NAs need to be sorted, then I simply add a deadline and it gets moved to the top of the heap. If none of the NAs are date-sensitive, then it doesn’t matter to me which is on top. I just do a quick scan, and pick one that I need to work on. Takes 2 seconds. If your NA list is so long that a scan is too difficult, I would suggest looking at whether that context is working for you.
Anyway, I’m glad GTD Tracks is working better for you. There’s no one program out there that will satisfy everyone, and you should use what works best for you, but as a Tracks user, I just wanted to respond to your points because you kinda gave the impression that it was a horrible, slow, clunky program, when it is anything but — for me, it is smooth, fast, and nicely designed.
[...] Digital GTD: A Review of the ‘tracks’ software [...]
[...] of Nozbe * Review of Tudumo GTD Software * Mindmanager, an excellent GTD tool? Win free licenses! * Digital GTD: A Review of the ‘Tracks’ Software * Vitalist: When it is Vital to Get Things Done * Nozbe: Starting to Get Things Done via the Web? * [...]
I’ve been using a hosted version of Tracks for a while now (tracks.tra.in). It’s easily the best GTD app I’ve tried. I agree with you about the sorting feature. But I don’t see the difficulty of creating a context for someday/maybe. I’ve read the book and the GTD system is very fluid about what can count as a context.
If you create a someday/maybe context in Tracks and hide it from the front page, then it’s not there cluttering up the place but it’s still accessible when you need it. I have a rule for making this work, though. When I put something in my someday/maybe context, I deliberately do not assign it to a project (after all, if it’s not something I’m committed to doing, how can it be part of a project? A project in GTD is a series of actions to achieve a specific outcome. A someday/maybe item has no place there). Seeing those someday/maybe items when you’re viewing a project is also distracting. So, if it’s truly someday/maybe, it’s not part of a project (except some vague one in your head). If it really is something you’re committed to doing, create a project for it and add it as a next action.
While I like the idea of dependent actions, I think that implementing it in software would be very tricky. I, like you, can’t resist mapping out lots of actions when I’m thinking about a project. And the lack of sorting (other than by due date, which works quite a bit of the time) can make that tricky. So that’s still a problem, but it might well be a problem with GTD itself, as much as with Tracks.
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I think GTD is a splendid method for getting your life “sorted out”, but agree with you that most software around is crap.
In Outlook, Lotus Notes, Entourage and GroupWise, there’s ways of teaking the client to do your bidding according to the GTF method.
I visited a great seminarlectured by Göran Askeljung, Director at immediate effects where he went thorugh the way’s of handling GTD in these applications. Most of used Outlook, so he focused on that. Since then I have experienced the pros’ and con’s of GTD, mostly pro’s though! The con’s are limited to not goign through your reviews regularely…
If there’s a seminar I would recommend, it this one. As for software - nothing can help you if you haven’t grasped the essentials, and then you can “do GTD” as well with any major PIM really.
Cheers