After a bit of playing around with TrogBar it seems that you need to have a category AND one of the date fields (Start Date, End Date, etc.) filled in for the task to disappear from the "Unprocessed Tasks" list. In setup under "How do you use Start Dates" I set it to "I ignore or hide tasks until the Start Date." I then set the start date for all new tasks to today and voila! Tasks are no longer in the Unprocessed list.

A few things from my quick tour of TrogBar so far:
- Read the 15 minute guide on their website (if it's up). There are a few things that you need to know setup wise to make this usable for you.
- For those that use GTD, the Someday/Maybe categories are hidden for some reason, but in the setup you can select what categories should be considered for this. I just type S/M as the tasks category and it will get moved to the Someday list.
- From what I can tell there's no way to delete items from the category list. You can add no problem, but for some reason there's no deleting. This could be problematic if you use categories to organize your projects.
- No real support for projects. A separate project list (similar to the Unprocessed and Someday/Maybe lists) would be cool.

Overall it seems to be workable. We'll see what it starts telling me to do in a few days :)

forcetrainer

Web site URL is useless at the moment. Can't download or register.

hobbyman

It just doesn't seem to work with my "system." I can tell it that items in a certain category are "unprocessed tasks" but having it remove them from the category upon processing does not appear to be an option.

Troy F.

I am a technical rep for Priacta. We apologize for our temporary server issues. They only affect the cart and registration.

Go ahead and download now, but wait to register until tomorrow. Registration will still be free, and you will have access to all functionality in the meantime.

Clarification: Outlook 2003 or later is required for this release of the Trog Bar.

ResidentGeek

I work at Priacta (the company that produced the Trog Bar.) We started changing hosting providers just before finding that Lifehacker had featured the Trog Bar. I just wanted to apologize for any immediate problems registering, and to assure people that this IS a temporary issue.

JohnCrenshaw

Good luck getting it registered! I guess their servers are getting overloaded. Lifehacker effect.

BigSwirv

I cannot make it start without Outlook...and it actually does say it's needed in the requirements...

Serendipipse

The product pages are working fine, but the registration page doesn't seem to want to work...

Rob P.

@Junkan: I think you missed the point - Trog doesn't just show your tasks in a sidebar and allow you to organize them, it claims to organize them for you.

I'm giving it a try. The website claims that it will eventually learn how you work, but it seems to be at least a decent guide for whichever system of task and appointment organization you choose. It seems best suited to those who use a system but find it difficult to implement with Outlook, or those who want to learn (using other resources, like the GTD or Total Workday Control books) and implement a new system.

joelena

I use desktop sidebar (freeware) [www.desktopsidebar.com] which has these features (& more) too.

Junkan

Good observations Forcetrainer. Some comments:

- Deleting categories: When you cease using a category it will drop off the category list. No need to maintain the list--Trog builds it from categories actually in use. (Restart may be needed to reset some categories.)

- GTD doesn't require dates to "process" something, so why does Trog? Dates allow more intelligent prioritization. David Allen (GTD) encourages you to "be intuitive" in working from your lists, however, we've found that most people can't be intuitive with more than 15 tasks in a category. They stress and waste time scanning their lists. By entering a "hard" or "soft" date" it's possible to make smarter decisions and focus on your most important work first. (NOTE: You don't have to keep adjusting the dates--it's not a treadmill. Trog looks at all dates in the aggregate, so in most cases the initial date you entered works just fine. Change the date if the deadline or need changes.)

- If you don't enter a date, the task stays in Unprocessed, but Trog tries to decide where and when you should work on it anyway. S/M doesn't require a date--it is a date as well as a category.

- I recommend the following date settings in Options ([+] sign near upper right corner):
Start Date = Hide until
Due Date = Loose goal
Reminder = Do on this date

- "Natural Project Support" is in Alpha testing right now. Oops, I let that slip out. ;) When updates are released with new beta features, you can opt in to test them while running the rest of the bar in release mode.

Kevin Crenshaw
Executive Coach, Priacta

inboxer

I installed TROG Bar, my free registration key in on its way (Order status is pending). When I start TROG Bar the first time, it offers 3 options about registration. Only option I can select is "proceed without registration". Then splash screen with progress bar shows up, it reaches (about) 50% progress, and then doesn't move forward at all.

I checked TaskManager, the process does get CPU cycle. I have Outlook 2003, I'm behind firewall (does it matter?) mailbox size is about 35-40MB, my local folder is huge (slightly lower than 1GB)

Anyone else see similar problem ? Is it analyzing my 850+MB local folder ?

Support forums on priacta are down due to migration.
Please help !!!

desipenguin

Please try redownloading the TrogBar and reinstalling. There was a small issue causing this problem with some of our customers. The new download should solve this problem. If you have anymore issues, feel free to contact me at residentgeek@priacta.com
Thanks for your interest in our product!

ResidentGeek

@inboxer:

Your comments are definitely helpful. I made the changes as suggested, and we'll see how things go over the next few days. Day two so far and I definitely like it! Entering tasks seems pretty natural - I actually sat in a meeting and created tasks on the fly. Very nice!

One aspect that I really like is that I often go through 20-30 emails at once, and creating the task when looking at the email is often a pain. I'm the type of person that likes to do several of the same steps at once (i.e. read a bunch of emails or create a bunch of tasks). So now I just use a two step process of reading through all my emails and I either do them or dump into my Action folder. I then go into TrogBar and process my tasks.

forcetrainer

Day 1 of Trog seemed to work fine. I noticed that some links on the Trog site that I wanted to read were dead, though. Day 2 of Trog gave me an error everytime I clicked on an appointment or tried to edit a task, and Trog would shut down. Also, I found the tasks didn't automtically update after I entered them through Trog.

So I uninstalled it, and when it sent me to the page where I could provide feedback, after submitting feedback I got a 404 Error page. So while it seemed promising, everything seemed too buggy to be useful right now.

Snakeophelia

OK some feedback from me (a GTD user in the UK):-

1. Trogbar downloaded and installed OK - I too have registered and am awaiting a registration key!

2. I've been using for a couple of days now, and everything seems to be working fine (using Outlook 2007 here).

3. In David Allen's 'GTD and Outlook' book, he suggests that you remove the fields 'estimated time' and 'actual time' from tasks as they are often unecesssary. I tend not to use them, and as such it would be nice to be able to configure the 'pop up' task summary so that it only displays the information you need (in my case removing these fields).

4. My task bar tends to be quite cluttered with several applications open at a time (sound familiar anyone?). I would prefer the icons at the top of Trogbar to open my task/calendar etc in just one (ie. the currently open) Outlook window, rather opening in a new window every time.

5. I'm using a 17" widescreen monitor. The default width of the Trogbar does not accomodate some of my longer task decsriptions. I have used the options panel to change this to 300 pixels which works better for me (a nice feature).

6. I for one, prefer the Trogbar on the right-hand side of my screen, but I guess that's a personal preference.

7. I find the popouts (erm) popout too quickly. Again using the options panel, I have delayed to 400 milliseconds...it's nice to be able to change this.

8. I am not a fan of the default colour schemes...I appreciate that you can customise these, but I'm sure these could be improved 'out of the box'....just a thought

9. It would be nice to be able to re-size the height of each of the individual panels on the trogbar. I would prefer to be able to turn the 'tips' off and have more height for my actual tasks.

10. When you click to expand a task category, it automatically opens up a task (and not necessarily the one at the top of the list). This is a slight annoyance.

11. If you simply want to close a task, you have to move your mouse off the trogbar and then press escape. This is counter productive....and it would be better if this was a one step operation (ie. click to open task, press escape to close).

12. Again, just a personal preference. I would prefer to be able to turn off the program loading dialogue box, and have the option of showing the program as running in the status bar.

Overall, I like this little application. Like others, I will be interested to see how it performs over the next few days/weeks.

My advice to anyone considering installing it would be to set aside a little time to read the tutorials etc and tweak the trog to work best for you.

@INBOXER. Just an idea....might it be worth putting in your recommended settings as the default option?

FizzyPopMan

@ Forcetrainer: The system I have set up for email is great. I don't even need to open Outlook. You can set it up so that all email in your inbox that isn't marked with a flag is an "unprocessed task". Then I set it up in the initial interview to make is so that when the task was "processed" or completed, it would mark it with a flag thereby removing it from the "unprocessed" list. It's wonderful. I can add notes to these emails right in the TrogBar and it treats it just like any other task. Including dragging it to my calendar. Whenever new mail comes in, it notifies me in the "Unproccessed Tasks" list. (One thing. You will have to set up a rule in outlook that tells it to mark all emails as a new "email" category. This way, at any time, you can click "Categories" ==> "Email" and see all of my email. Processed and unprocessed. Wonderful.

ResidentGeek

@Snakeophelia:
Thanks for the feedback. We were midstream on a stalled hosting provider swap when the Lifehacker flash flood hit. (!) We had no idea we were being sponsored, and we really had to scramble. We regret the ensuing confusion. Still, it was a memorable day. ;-)

The 404 error, bad links, registration/cart issues weren't all resolved until this morning, and residual issues remain in some areas pending DNS updates. Many registration keys are pending delivery since they reside on the old server. They should be delivered by this evening.

A maintenance release was pending when our listing was sponsored. Most visitors got the old version of the Trog Bar with some known issues, even when they re-downloaded. Make sure you leave automatic updates turned on and you'll get the updates automatically, or re-download in a couple of days to make sure you have the current version. Pending fixes include multi-monitor support and an issue reading some folder configurations on some systems (causes the slowdown/lockup that desipenguin and some others reported).

Kevin Crenshaw, Executive Coach, Priacta

inboxer

We apologize for the time it has taken to send the keys to those who have signed up. They are coming as we speak. The delay was due to the before mentioned server transfer that was taking place. This transfer is now complete. There may be some people who will have issues due to cached images of our site still floating around on the net. Anyone going through a major provider shouldn't have a problem though.

ResidentGeek

Is there anything like this for those of us stuck using Lotus Notes?

vahju

@FizzyPopMan:
Your comments are noted and will be "processed." ;)

Re: 3. Will be addressed in an upcoming release.

Re: 6. You can change the display side in Options [+].

Re: Recommended settings: When you first install, the Initial Interview asks you what system you want to use. If you choose Total, Relaxed Organization (TRO) you get the settings I mentioned. You can also set them manually. TRO is similar to GTD and moves beyond it in list management, processing efficiency, and expediting the actual DOing of work. It is explained in detail in the TRO Field Guide.

Kevin Crenshaw, Executive Coach, Priacta

inboxer

@Kevin (INBOXER)

Thanks for listening, and also the update!

Re. 3. Great!

Re. 6. Thanks. I had changed this setting already, but thanks for highlighting (my original comment did not make this clear).

Re. TRO. I'm such a fan of GTD that I kinda overlooked this one.....thanks for the link. I'll give it a go now!

PS. I've now received my key. Thanks.

FizzyPopMan

I am having the same problem as "Desipenguin" had. Even this morning, I have tried to download and install twice. Both times it will hang at about 50% during the "Logging into Outlook" stage. Any other suggestions?

jdhaines

Sorry to repost, it was my first and it was delayed for awhile.

I got it working and am loving it thus far. The tip about setting up the flags so that you really don't need Outlook is very handy.

Josh

@ResidentGeek: Your suggestion has helped. I had other problems too with the 'bad' version, like CPU usage going above 90%.
With New version that I downloaded today, initial setup was breeze, i moved forward in acceptable time. I finished the "Initial Interview", and now going thru 15-minute coaching.

I'll let you know how things go from here.

By the way, I did get my Registration key next day.

desipenguin

@jdhaines: I downloaded the version named 2007.11.28. This time around things are FAR better. May I suggest a fresh download ?

desipenguin