To-Do software falls under the realm of time management and get things done. A good task management app will answer a question that we ponder every single day (and some of us every single hour!) – “What the F am I meant to be doing?”.
A great To-Do app will let you organize and focus on tasks at hand and complete them in a timely manner. The app should be simple to use, simple to add/edit/create tasks, allow you to plan and organize yourself, let you schedule tasks, and improve your productivity.
Other positive characteristics of good To-Do software include cross-platform support (Mac, iPhone, PC, Web, etc..), syncing between multiple devices, and simple-clean-clever design.
5 Great To-Do Apps For Mac
We took a quick look at the 5 most popular To-Do apps that our Twitter readers recommended. Things, Evernote, Wunderlist, OmniFocus, and iCal.
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Things
Things, by Culture of Code, was by far the most popular reply to our tweet. Things has a very simple to use interface but its simplicity doesn’t mean they forgo any essential features that make Things a robust To-Do app.
A 15 day free trial of the award wining Things is available for Mac, iPhone, & iPad. The app has a sale price of $49.95.
Things is a beautifully focused and amazingly intuitive task manager. Other todo applications either oversimplify or are too difficult to use. Things instead offers the perfect balance between ease of use and powerful features.
(Via Geekanoids –Things Review – Task Management Application for Mac OS X)
Evernote
Evernote is a very popular app for OS X that is also available as a web app, Windows app, and mobile app for iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, Android, Blackberry, Palm Pre, and Windows Mobile. That’s a lot of devices!
Evernote is a free app and takes a more “clip” approach to tasks rather than the more conventional approach of creating to-do lists. Think of Evernote as a filofax in which you can scribble notes, create lists, create documents, save images, and create bookmarks of webpages.
Evernote is a free-to-use and ad-supported app that can be upgraded to remove the ads, and increase your monthly online storage amongst other upgrades.
Evernote helps millions worldwide remember anything and everything that happens in their lives. Use Evernote to take notes, save interesting web pages, create to-dos and shopping lists, attach images and PDFs, and so much more. Then, watch as it all instantly synchronizes from your Mac to your smartphone, tablet and the Web, allowing you to find your memories at any time from anywhere.
(Via EvernoteAndrew – The New Evernote For iPhone Overview)
Wunderlist
Don’t be fooled by the fact that Wunderlist is free. It’s a ridiculously great piece of software and I’m really looking forward to what the future may bring for Wunderlist.
Wunderlist is a sync-friendly To-Do app that is available for Mac, iPhone, iPad, Android, and Windows.
Wunderlist makes it dead simple to organize your daily life. Just add some lists and start filling them with the things that need to be done. Keep track of your important tasks with reminders and notifications. You can even create a new task from your email inbox. And the best thing is it’s for free.
(Via Lifehacker – Wunderlist Demo)
Omnifocus
Omnifocus is a feature rich and extensive app that, in my opinion, is more of a project management tool than a to-do organizer. The interface is very similar to that of Things but the major difference is that Things is more of a personal focused app and Omnifocus is more centered on business activities.
You will need to devote quite a bit of time to Omnifocus to understand how it works and to get the best out of the app. Omnifocus is available with a 14 day free trial and sells for $79.99.
OmniFocus is designed to quickly capture your thoughts and allow you to store, manage, and process them into actionable to-do items. Perfect for the getting things done system, but flexible enough for any task management style, OmniFocus helps you work smarter by giving you powerful tools for staying on top of all things you need to do.
(via theiphoneblog – OmniFocus for iPad)
iCal
iCal is a calendar app that can be easily used as an organizer for to-dos and to manage your time. The hour by hour breakdown in the calendar-cenetric design makes the app very usable since it is simple to add and edit tasks and to get a snapshot of your activities for the rest of the day and week.
The great thing about using iCal, other than it will always be free, is that it is integrated into the OS X operating system and hooks up brilliantly with Mail.app
iCal makes it easy to keep track of your busy schedule. You can create as many separate calendars as you need — one for home, another for school, a third for work, and so on. You can see all your calendars in a single window or choose to see only the calendars you want.
(via ideamatt – Getting iCal Done)
Honorable To-Do Mentions
Some other great To-Do apps that are worth checking out include
Springpad, Remember The Milk, Toodledo, Anxiety App, Todolicious, TaskPaper, iProcrastinate, and of course the traditional approach of using pen & paper!
What Say You?
What To-Do app do you use and why? Drop us a comment and vote on our poll.
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