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to-do posts

Filed under: E-mail, Productivity, Web services

Use webpages and Gmail messages as tasks with Todoist Anywhere

Todoist has been around for a while. In fact, Download Squad first wrote about this web-based to-do app back in 2007. It's come a long way since then, though, and the latest feature addition, Todoist Anywhere, lets you turn webpages and Gmail messages into to-do items. With one click, you can view your Todoist tasks and take advantage of Gmail integration.

Access Todoist at any time using a convenient bookmarklet - you can even sign up for a new account from there - and then you're good to go. Todoist anywhere supports multiple lists and recurring dates, and there's even a convenient mini-calendar included. In terms of Gmail-specific features, Todoist lets you click on a message in your inbox and add it as a task that links back to the original email.

[via Lifehacker]

Filed under: Productivity, Web services, Web

ReminderFeed: add reminders to your RSS reader

A lot of sites offer email reminders, web-based to do lists, and even reminders via Twitter.

ReminderFeed puts your reminders somewhere else, somewhere you're likely to see them: in your RSS reader. It's ideal for recurring reminders that you want to see in your reader periodically.

ReminderFeed is a good concept, but I'd like to see it develop more customization. Some calendar apps can already deliver your events as a feed, and ReminderFeed isn't going to keep up with those if it doesn't offer, for example, multiple events within the same feed.

Right now it's good for a daily mantra or routine, but it has the potential to be a middle ground between the simple service it offers now, and the overcomplicated featuresets of some calendar apps.

Filed under: Productivity

TiddlyDu2: use Tiddlywiki as your organizer

Some very knowledgeable people swear by wikis as personal organizers. They work with any OS, they're easy to organize, and they make it simple to link related information in an understandable way. With TiddlyDu2, you can painlessly turn a wiki -- a Tiddlywiki, specifically -- into your own organization system.

You can either work with your wiki online or download it for offline use. TiddlyDu includes important features like integrated goals, projects and tasks that can quickly be associated with your contacts and calendar. Basically, it's whatever you make of it. There's a full Tiddlywiki tutorial available, but it should be fairly intuitive to learn TiddlyDu2 if you've used another wiki before. Download the .html file and start messing around until you get your wiki (and your to-do list) organized.

UPDATE: Dave Gifford points out that there's actually a newer version, TiddlyDu3, so check that out first.

Filed under: Utilities, Productivity

Keep an in-browser sticky note with Stickyscreen

Desktop sticky note apps are old news. A basic one is packaged with Mac OS, and stickies will be a standard feature in Windows 7. Stickyscreen offers something different, though: a sticky note for your browser. It's a simple, minimal way of reminding you of a personal mantra or an important to-do item.

Stickyscreen is just a pad you can write on, save as a homepage, and change whenever you want. There are no skins, extra fonts, or fiddly bits: just a note. This way, you spend the minimum amount of time updating it, and you'll see a handy reminder whenever you open your homepage. Personally, I think the "Get to work!" message from the default note would make a good Stickyscreen all by itself.

Filed under: E-mail, Web services, Google, web 2.0, Web

Gmail gets a task list

Gmail TasksGoogle has a an online calendar, email service, and even an office suite. But for some reason, the company hasn't offered a to do list application to round out its suite of Microsoft Outlook-like services -- until now.

If you check out the Labs section of your Gmail preferences today you may notice a new option called Tasks. Once you enable this feature, you'll be able to add any email message to your task list either by selecting "Add to Tasks" under the More Actions menu or by hitting Shift+T if you have keyboard shortcuts enabled.

Once the to do list is open, you can also add tasks using keyboard shortcuts or by hitting the plus button. Or you can mark off completed items, rearrange your list, or perform all sorts of other functions.

You can also bring up the to do list by hitting the Tasks link that shows up below Contacts in Gmail's left hand navigation.

If you're looking for a way to add a task list to Gmail that's always visible from the sidebar, you can also add a widget from third party task manager Remember the Milk.

[via TechCrunch]

Filed under: Utilities, Office, Web services

Deadline - simplest web calendar ever?

Deadline
Deadline is a really great web-based alternative to the standard desktop to-do apps. There are several ways to interact with it and access your to-do list, including via Jabber/Google Talk, through Atom, RSS and iCal feeds, and email. Deadline understands input in natural language, so you can write something like, "call mom on Tuesday," and the web app will schedule it appropriately.

The Deadline UI is well-designed and not distracting, with edit and delete buttons readily accessible next to each item. Inspired by Twitter, to-do items have a 140 character cap to accomodate SMS support (which is forthcoming for Deadline, but not quite there yet). The 140 limitation doesn't have much practical effect, because date, time and location information can be submitted through brief natural language, no fancy syntax involved. There's an XML API, too, if you want to experiment with Deadline yourself.

Filed under: Windows, Macintosh, Office, Productivity

MiniTask - light task manager for Adobe Air

MiniTaskMiniTask is a basic cross-platform organization app built on Adobe Air. The learning curve on this app is basically nil, and you'll soon be adding, checking off, and setting alarms for to-do items with ease. There aren't a ton of features, so it's not the greatest for the completely neurotic among us, but if you just need a simple, unfussy to-do list, give it a look.

Let's a take a quick look at what MiniTask can do (fortunately, it's not much!). There's just one window, and you can right-click (CTRL-click on a Mac) to add new tasks and new dividers. You can use the dividers however you like, for different days or different categories of tasks. To-do items have three modes: checked off, not checked off, and alarm. Double-click a task to change the name, and double-click an alarm icon to change the time on an alarm. Seriously, that's all there is to it!

Filed under: Productivity, Apple, iPhone

Nik's Favourite iPhone Apps: Things

For better or for worse, the Apple AppStore has a bucketload of To-Do apps. If you're looking for a heavy-hitting [and location-aware] application designed specifically for the GTD mavens, you'll want OmniFocus ($19.99), and if you're looking for something a little lighter on the wallet, then Erica Sadun's free To-Do app might just be the answer.

But over the last few months, I've used and grown to love Cultured Code's application Things ($9.99). At the AppStore's debut, the number one qualm that I had with most To-Do apps was that my task lists were only ever accessible via the iDevice. However, just like OmniFocus, Things also works with the identically-named Mac sibling* and seamlessly syncs your to-dos over a local WiFi network.

The appeal of Things isn't just that it syncs, however. The application has always been easy to use, and unlike some competitors, friendly to those not versed in the David Allen Getting Things Done methodology. It's also got a delightful user interface: elegant, admittedly rather beautiful on the eye, the app is one of the few I've tried that actually kept using from day one.

In amongst a swathe of lacklustre applications on the AppStore,Things (like my other favourites Exposure and Twitterrific) is one of the few apps to look, feel and work as though Apple themselves produced it.

* The Mac-only desktop version of Things at the time of writing is still in 'preview' [beta], however the developers have announced it will launch at Macworld Expo in January for $49.

Filed under: Productivity, Social Software

Muse Wedding 2.0 keeps you organized

Muse Wedding
Muse Wedding has recently changed almost everything about its format, and it is for the better. The formerly ho-hum wedding to-do list program is now a full-fledged information and community site full of good stuff. All of the new features will be live today for new users.

Muse Wedding is basically one of those big, thick wedding planning binders on the web. You can enter whatever you need to get done into your task list and check it off as it gets done. You can create a budget and add what you have spent. You can even see it in a pie chart!

You can visit the Idea Book to see what other users have posted or post your own ideas for others to see. You can create a profile so like-minded users can find you for brainstorming sessions or idea swapping.

I used Muse Wedding for some of my own wedding planning before the redesign and community features were available. What I liked the most is that I made my own task list and wasn't tied to the traditional ideas of what needed to be done 6 months before the wedding, 5 months before the wedding and on and on.

Muse still offers that flexibility, now with a nice looking site design, and plenty of planning and community features. And even if the person planning the wedding isn't quite as web savvy as you, our DLS readers, each page has clear explanations of what you can do with each command.

Filed under: Features, Linux, Productivity, Open Source, Beta

Flipping the Linux switch: Forgetful penguins love Tasque

Tasque notesDo you forget stuff? Do you wonder where the heck you put the keys when they're in your right hand? Do you get in the shower with your socks still on? Do you ever get to the bus stop, and realize you can't recall if you've put on pants? We're the only ones? Really? Damn.

We're willing to bet you can still benefit from Tasque, even if you just need reminders about the things normal people put on their to-do lists.

There are a few other to-do list applications in Linux, but most lack the finesse that Tasque is already bringing to the table. Tasque is a newcomer (it got its start at last year's Hackweek), and seems well on its way to becoming a big player.

Tasque (pronounced "Task") is a unified frontend for a number of backends. Honest to god, we don't mean anything obscene by that. What we mean is, it's a very standard graphical interface that works with a number of to-do and database types to make your to-do list dynamic.

Read more →

Listaculous: tabbed to-do lists on the web

We've met a lot of users who take their to-do list applications very seriously. It seems every task management system -- from old-fashioned pen and paper to OmniFocus -- has its own fanatical following. Listaculous is a web-based to-do list that keeps it simple, but still offers tabbed organization, and it could be the right to-do list for you.

There's not much to Listaculous, which is what might make it useful for a lot of people. It's just tabs and to-do items, all in one window. Opening Listaculous in a pop-out window is appealing; the tabs make for a small footprint, even with multiple lists. For those who like their action items embedded in a home page, Listaculous also comes as an iGoogle widget.

Filed under: Business, Developer, Text, Utilities, Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Blogging, Productivity, Commercial, Freeware

Toodledo, the killer task-list application

toodledo
There are many task-list applications out there, but not many with the impressive feature set that Toodledo has. Its deceptive simplicity of task entry using inline editing via AJAX makes for lightning fast tasking and better productivity, while providing integration with Google Calendar, Google Personal Homepage, Firefox, and IMified.

One of the best features of Toodledo is the distinction between folders (for projects) and contexts (the many hats you wear). Contexts allows only your current frame of mind for work, and doesn't show you your home tasks. This keeps the honey-do list away from your work list, so you aren't thinking about that darn swing-set you have to put up in the middle of working on Mr. The-man's presentation.

If that isn't enough to make you jump over and check it out, they also have a printable tasklist, email alerts for your top tasks (called a hotlist), but also the ability to import/export tasks to iCal, Palm OS, XML, CSV, and text. Task lists can be published to the web if you want to share your inner-workings with the world, and with a non-free but reasonable price ($14.95/year) you can have others edit and append to your task list among other things. Toodledo offers a free 7-day trial of their pro account for your enjoyment.

Wait, there's even more. There is a developer API, it fully supports GTD, tags, history and stats, a scheduler, some goal-setting functions, RSS support, SMS support, WAP support and more. Tasks can be imported from Outlook, Apple iCal, and Remember The Milk. Seldom is there such a complete feature set in a free application. It is a major time-saver for the quick-and-dirty type task person who doesn't want to spend 8 years filling out a task form. If you don't have a solid task-list manager yet, this is the ticket.

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