DoIt
Passive Guy has been using a handy freemium program for his To Do lists lately - Doit.im.
The program is designed to work well for Getting Things Done fanbois and fangurlz, but you don’t have to be into the whole GTD system to gain benefits from it.
It’s dead-simple to use. You just type in a to-do item, then hit return and it’s on your list. If you want the task to show up tomorrow, you just drag it to the Tomorrow button and it will show up then. For a future date, drag the item to Scheduled and a calendar will appear for you to drop it on whatever date you like.
When you finish an item, click on the box next to it and it disappears. Each item will automatically carry over from day to day until you mark it done. Items not completed on the date scheduled will show the date they were supposed to be completed.
The company offers free iPhone and Android apps that put the same screen on your smartphone/tablet so you can add or clear items while you’re away from your computer. Unlike a lot of web apps, the smartphone/tablet system works very nicely on a touchscreen. The app/computer integration is very smooth with information flowing back and forth seamlessly. The free version syncs once per day between all your devices. If you pay $2 per month or $20 per year, you get instant syncing.
There are lots more features, but this is all that PG uses the program for. For a long time, PG would schedule to-do’s on his calendar, but then he would have to re-schedule them if he couldn’t do them on the date scheduled. He also used the List feature on Outlook but swore off that program when he left the corporate world.
It’s a nice psychic reward to click the Done box and have the task fade out then disappear. Unfortunately, the next task automatically jumps up to the top of the list.
Here’s a link to Doit.im and a more comprehensive description on Lifehacker
, Amazon will pay Passive Guy a small affiliate commission on any of your purchases.
I’m not familiar with this offering, however my team LOVES Asana. It’s really made our work so much easier.
We create tasks, assign, follow, update, and re-asign as needed.
We can attach files and images to any task.
For example, on a new book, I assign myself the task of writing (including breaking down the tasks as in intro, blurb, etc). I also assign a task for the cover artist with my notes to her, she will reply with mock ups as jpgs. When ready, I assign the text to the editor and formatter. All the notes follow the task from one assignee to the next so everyone is easily on the same page.
Additionally, I do the things that PG mentions above for my other todos and the tasks I have part in.
You can tell Asana when the task is due and set up recurring tasks as well.
I get an email everyday with my tasks (We call it the “Asana lady telling me what to do today.”)
My productivity has really gone up. All my tasks and todos are in one place in an easy to scan list all divided by project. Frequently, a few minutes before an appointment can see me checking off a quick task that previously would have been buried in written todo lists.
Ideas and insights about projects are a quick copy/paste and never lost again!
Even though there are five of us using it, we still fall in the free usage level.
I highly recommend it, especially if you are working as a team.
Thanks for the tip. I’ve been using Vitalist.com (another GTD system) for years, but there has been no obvious development on it for the last 2-3 years, so I’ve been nervous about waking up one day and finding it gone.
So I’ll definitely have to check this out.
I’m using TeuxDeux. It’s web-based, but also super simple. I was using Mindbloom, which I really liked, but they stopped updating it and it got a bit boring.
Between those, I tried some fancy stuff, like Lifetick. I could see that being great for someone that works on a lot of projects at once, or for those in the business world, but since I just keep to simple daily goals, it was a bit much for me.
Will add that I’ve found putting really dumb things on my list helps me finish everything else, for example “Make bed” is on my daily list. Feels like something I can easily “win”.
That, and lately I’ve been using 750Words.com and it’s really helped me write continually. I do everything from outlining to writing to just making notes on stuff I have to do the next day. Even if I start padding it, it seems to make me more consistent.
My “to do” list is the same every day:
1. Wake up
2. Spend the day fighting writer’s block
3. Go to bed
When you figure out the writer’s block, tell me what you did.
I used to write easily and for fun. I have finished some pieces more recently, but it was slow and very hard. I want my old writing self back.
Thing is, I don’t want tasks I’ve done to disappear. I want them there but crossed out, with a red tick, a smiley face and a gold star.
Do any similar systems have this feature?
YES! That’s what I like too!
I remember finding an old to-do list that somehow escaped the recycle bin. It was really cool to see what I’d been doing (the crossed-off items) and even cooler to realize that all of the still-to-do items were long done.
(The list was 3 or 4 years old and had lots of DIY remodeling projects on it.)
Very helpful to keep my book promos straight, thanks PG!
OK, I have to admit my aging eyes took the capital I for a lower case L. For a moment it had me wondering at the marketing genius that christened a program “Dolt.” Then again, all those “for dummy’s” books seem to sell pretty well.
Glad I am not the only one. Looked like Dolt to me, too.
I was waiting for that admission from someone.
Ha! Me, too. In fact, I didn’t realize it was Do It until I read these comments.
Looks like a cool program – thanks for sharing it!
Thanks, guys! I’m relieved I wasn’t the only dolt.
Ha ha! Ditto here!
Does anyone know of a free or shareware option (money is an issue) for organizing to-do lists and schedule tasks that is not in the cloud/web? I have regular periods through the year of no internet connection, so I need something that works only on my Mac.
I’ve been using a program called ToDoIst. It sounds very similar to DoIt. One thing that I really like is the ability to set up recurring tasks (I can’t tell from your description if DoIt allows this). I have a bunch of list items set up for every day, and then there are some for every Wednesday or Sunday, or every other day, or every end of the month.
It may interest some people that, at least in the Firefox add-on, when I check off an item it stays on the list (at least for a while, maybe until I close my browser), only faded out, so I can see how many things I’ve done. And it sends me an email every day telling me how many things I did yesterday.
J.A. Marlow, ToDoIst has a Mac app that appears to work offline.