I was at first surprised by all the references to Evernote in this thread. But I have to keep reminding myself that Agenda advertizes itself as a new take on notes rather than on to-dos. As soon as I opened it up for the first time, it became a replacement for OmniFocus (which I bought when it first came out, and upgraded when it went to Version 2, but can’t bring myself to use consistently for more than a week at a time) in my mind, and that’s basically how I’ve been using it. While being aware that that’s not really its genre, the link with the calendar means that that’s how it’s likely to be used, it seems to me.
Of course, users can use whatever combinations of apps they like in whatever way they like, but guidance as to typical use cases would be appreciated. (What, if anything, is Agenda designed to replace?) Scenarios I can envisage are:
-
Add Agenda to your list of regularly used applications, i.e. use it alongside a notes app (Notes, Simplenote, Bear, Evernote…), a calendar app (Calendar, BusyCal, Fantastical…), and a task manager (OmniFocus, Things…). In this scenario, what kinds of things would Agenda take over from which of the other applications? Should it best be viewed as a kind of calendar adjunct, or as something else?
-
Use Agenda in place of a notes application and alongside a task manager and calendar. In this scenario, Agenda needs to be robust enough to handle many thousands of notes in various categories and have good browsing and search functionality. Users probably need some guidance in the best ways to link it up with their calendar application.
-
Use Agenda in place of a task manager. (As alluded to above, this is the most obvious scenario to me.) In this scenario, the fact that Agenda doesn’t look like OmniFocus is no doubt deliberate. Agenda is a more “friendly” or a “lighter” competitor. But, arguably, it still needs to offer much of the core functionality of OmniFocus. It seems to me that one important criterion for a task manager is that it’s possible to see an overview of everything in one laptop screen. Obviously, a lot of details won’t be visible, but I dislike having to scroll up and down just to get an overview. That’s why I think it needs an extra layer of hierarchy in the sidebar: The current setup of Categories and Projects mean that every new Project takes me further away from that goal, so I’ve started setting up a Miscellaneous project in each Category that houses what should really be separate Projects. Failing that, it needs a Focus/Hoist command, so that users can look at one Category/Area only with a single command (rather than going to every other Category/Area and clicking Hide).
Leveraging categories -
Use Agenda as a combined notes application and task manager for a specific area of your life, keeping your notes application and task manager for everything else. A teacher might want to organize teaching notes in Agenda; a university professor might want to use it to manage research schedules; someone working in a business might want to manage meetings or one core project in Agenda; and so on. I’m not sure how realistic this scenario is, because I think that having experienced the fine integration with your calendar you would want it in every area of your life. That might lead to an argument for document-based software (like TaskPaper), one for each project or perhaps one for each area of your life.
I know that developers don’t want to be or appear arrogant and therefore tend to avoid being too prescriptive with how people use their software. Thanks to that attitude, innovative uses such as
or
http://decoding.io/2018/01/integrating-agenda-into-my-workflow/
emerge. On the other hand, developers of innovative apps such as Agenda have spent countless hours of deep thought coming up with solutions to the real issues that people face in their daily lives with all the information- and time-related issues that life throws our way. I for one am eager to be educated by them.
Sorry for the excessively long message!