It seems like there is another Getting Things Done related task manager popping up online almost every week. The latest to surface is one called Nozbe, which reminds me in some ways of Tracks, although it takes a very different approach to the design and workflow.

Anyone that is familiar with the GTD methodology will be comfortable with the concepts used in Nozbe; you create Contexts, Projects, and Next Actions. A couple of the nicer features in Nozbe is the time field, which allows you to estimate the amount of time a given Next Action will take, and the pre-populated list of default contexts, complete with icons representing them.

The time field in particular sets Nozbe apart from other GTD-related productivity tracking tools. David Allen's methodology relies on a number of criteria to determine an appropriate next action, such as context (can I do that here?), energy (do I have the energy to perform that task?), time (is there enough time to perform that task?) and finally priority (out of what's left, what is the most important task to complete?). Most task managers either don't offer the ability to track estimated times, or don't do a good job of it. Giving the user the ability to think about the amount of time a task will take while entering it into their system respects the GTD ethos of doing all of the thinking about your tasks before reaching the point of actually doing your tasks. I like this quite a bit.

On the downside, when I first signed up for it I actually spent about 4 minutes staring at various pages in Nozbe trying to figure out how to simply add a Next Action, before becoming frustrated and trying something else. Luckily for me I decided to add a new Project, which finally allowed me to begin entering Next Actions. It seems there are still a few rough edges to sort out in this regard.

Nozbe is currently in beta, although they are exposing the various packages that they will have available once the site goes out of beta; a free account limits you to 5 active projects, and you can upgrade to a Standard or Pro account for $4.95/month or $12.25/month respectively. A Standard account gives you a maximum of 30 projects, and a Pro account gives you 100. There are other differences between the levels including number of custom contexts you can create, and online file storage, but these features are still in the "coming soon" stage.

Nozbe certainly looks interesting, but at this point if I'm going to pay for a hosted online GTD productivity application, my preference is still GTD Tracks, which costs just $1.49/month.

[Via Marc Orchant]