Using technology to stay organized

19 Oct, 2012

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Written By:  Jennie Nollette 

Being organized is something I have always prided myself in.  I am huge fan of lists to help keep me organized – I know I am not the only one! Now when I say I am a fan I mean I am a FAN!  Sometimes it can get a bit out of control.

Although I love my lists usually my various written notes end up getting a bit cluttered, and I strongly dislike clutter. In my quest to declutter, I realized the solution has always been there…technology.  Whenever trying to break old habits it can be difficult.  I still have this strange attachment to writing out my lists, but slowly I am breaking away from that.

So…if I was going to break this habit I knew I needed a cool program to help me get there.  I already spent the money and bought my new favorite toy…my iPhone. To get started I thought I would try three different apps.  

They are: mList, Easy Task, & Wunderlist.

All of these apps are free which is a plus.

Here is what I think of each app:

mList

This app seems to have the most potential minus the few bugs. It syncs with your contacts allowing you to set reminders to make a phone call and dial right from the reminder. Cool Huh?! It will also email and SMS. With this app the reminder alarm goes off 3 times rather than just 1, so if you are like me and don’t always hear the 1 beep the couple extra beeps definitely help. Probably my favorite feature is the way you enter in a new item. It is simply done by pressing the circle in the middle, that pops up with a screen with the options : call, SMS, email or to do, you just simply swipe your finger to the option you want.

See isn’t the swipe thing pretty cool?

Easy Task

This app has the most options for color-coding different categories.  There are at least 15 different colors.  You can print or send your list via email, which is handy when trying to convert from paper lists. This app has the option to pull all your calendar items from your phone calendar, so you have a full list of everything you have to do that day. It also separates tasks by day rather than a long list of everything you have to do. You can call directly from the app but requires one more step than mList does.

These are all the options to pick from

Wunderlist

Probably the most basic of the 3 apps. You can create different lists, such as a shopping list, To Do lists, etc, then add items and set due dates. You can also star important items that will be moved to a separate list. You can also email the list to yourself, post them on Facebook (not sure why you would want to do that, if you do that please stop) or text the list.  This feature would be nice to text to your husband what to buy at the store without having to retype!

So really it is more of a preference of which features are important to you. I am a fan of color coding my categories so I may be drawn to Easy Task, but I really love the swipe feature on mList. I guess I will have to use them both and see which is really more convenient. Another option is the basic Reminders that come with the iPhone, it is probably the easiest to use but doesn’t have the cool features of some of the others.  Maybe there isn’t a perfect solution, it is all about your preferences. I may keep all three and see what upgrades they come up with, and then make my choice. If I am looking for the perfect app I guess that can’t happen overnight.

Do you have any apps that you like?

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