gtd

The clear way to task management

This app won't take the place of Reminders or other scheduling apps that offer alarms--Clear sticks to simple list making, and it does a fine job.

The first thing I noticed about the app is the lack of interface buttons. You never hit a button called "menu" or rely on arrows to turn pages (though you will use the iPhone type pad). Instead, you navigate around this to-do list app using swipes and pinching gestures with delightful sounds as you complete each action. While looking at a list, a swipe down creates an empty list item so … Read more

Getting started with Clear (video)

Clear is in a class of its own when it comes to both user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) in an iPhone app. It's simple, yet elegant as Jason Parker described it.

The no-frills approach to adding, deleting, and completing tasks with such a minimal UI can confuse some people at times, though. This short video walk-through will cover the basics, enough to get you started using Clear.

Once you get the hang of the gestures, moving around the app is intuitive. As I mentioned in the video, you can unlock up to three themes, each changing the … Read more

How to unlock three hidden themes in Clear, the new iOS task app

Clear, which is a task-managing app for the iPhone, launched and almost instantly became No. 1 in the App Store.

The rich UI, mixed sound effects, and a long list of usable gestures, make for a unique experience on your iPhone. There really isn't another app out there like it.

In the settings for the app you will find themes, five in total. One thing you may not know is that there are actually three (that I can find/know of) themes that can be unlocked by the user in the app itself. Here is what each of them … Read more

Focus on the task at hand

OmniFocus is a high-powered, flexible, feature-filled task-management app that's based on the widely used Getting Things Done (GTD) productivity method, but it's designed to accommodate a variety of work styles. OmniFocus uses a GTD-esque approach ("Capture, Organize, and Do") to handle actions, projects, and contexts. You work in a relatively clean, two-pane interface, with folders and projects in the sidebar and grouped actions in the main outline (where you add, edit, and check off actions).

Within this interface, it's easy to set up versatile contexts for your actions, distinguish between sequential and parallel actions within … Read more

Toodledo helps manage your life in bite-size pieces

Earlier Monday one of my colleagues from Gamespot spent most of lunch gushing to me about his new favorite GTD tool. Called Toodledo, it's diminutive name does not do its to-do list prowess justice--this is one of the most deep and full-featured offerings on the market. It's also one of the easiest to get into, especially if you're using other Web services like Google Calendar, Twitter, and Jott.

At its heart Toodledo is a task organizer, so two of the most important aspects should be entering in the data as well as being able to access it … Read more

Never have a quiet moment with Alerts.com

Outlook alerts have regularly saved my professional career. I also use a scheduled alert to wake me up in the morning that's successful as long as I change it up every few weeks. Some people need a little more though, which is where a service like the freshly launched Alerts.com could be a life saver.

Alerts lets you set up your e-mail, home and mobile phones to get alerts for just about anything. Some of the more useful ones include weather and gas prices, but there are entertainment ones as well, like the horoscopes and daily tidbits which … Read more

Turn grocery lists into mind maps with Text2MindMap

We've looked at quite a few mind mapping tools here on Webware. Most recently, Webware's Rafe Needleman checked out a half dozen services that do the job one way or another. Nearly all of them require you to build and develop maps in a giant 2D space, something I think most people will spend more time trying to figure out rather than simply getting ideas down, which is where Text2MindMap is quite handy.

Instead of having you build out your ideas on some huge network of nodes, the tool lets you simply write down a list. Whenever you … Read more

GTD for students: The Class Connection

Getting things done service The Class Connection is nowhere near as exciting as The French Connection, but potentially useful for students looking to organize the whirlwind of planning and information sharing that getting a modern day education entails. The service combines calendaring, messaging, flash cards, and social networking to help students manage their work and daily schedules alone or with others. The hope is that students can become better organized, and if everyone in the class uses it, they'll have a centralized place to share files, notes, and study materials with one another.

The most useful part of the … Read more

Designer Macworld Part 3: OmniGroup

OmniGroup is one of my favorite Mac application developers. They make slightly niche, slightly quirky, but always very well-crafted and innovative applications that take full advantage of the technologies built into the OS.

Omni were showing off their new OmniFocus application, for those who are fans of the GTD approach to task management.

They were also showing (in beta) version 5 of their oddly-named but wonderful application OmniGraffle. This is usually described as diagramming application similar to Visio, but this does its wide range of applications an injustice. I use OmniGraffle all the time for all manner of activities, from … Read more

Microsoft launches Listas

Microsoft Live Labs has a new "technology preview" for you to play with. It's called Listas and it's basically a social bookmarking service for keeping track of content you come across while browsing the Web, and sharing it with others. Users can make their own containers full of all sorts of links, and supplement it with text, images, and RSS feeds using a WYSIWYG editor or by just pasting in entire Web pages from their text clipboard. The service is being billed as a way to make lists, but I think its core appeal will ultimately end up as a Web clippings service.

Oddly enough, Microsoft has had their TagSpaces service kicking around since April. TagSpaces gives users a bookmarklet to tag any item they've come across while browsing, and drops it into a giant pool of tags for everyone. Listas is clearly a more advanced effort, and one designed to handle media and collaboration a little better.

Similar to other social bookmarking services, Microsoft has included a toolbar to help Listas users speed up their list creation. The toolbar borrows the idea of taking entire clips of Web content from services like Yoono, Clipmarks, and eSnips. For every little bit you grab, you can assign it to one of your pre-existing lists, or add it to a new one. There are two caveats about the toolbar though. For one, it's Internet Explorer-only. Secondly, there don't seem to be any plans to give users a Javascript bookmarklet to use like what they've done with TagSpaces (something which would add crossplatform functionality). It's also worth noting that you can accomplish the same effect of the toolbar by doing a copy and paste into a list item, which will include things like pictures, links, and embedded videos (which incidentally don't play without jettisoning you off the page).… Read more