2Do is one of my favourite and most-used apps. It’s not cheap, at €5.49, but for me it’s worth every penny.
Features-wise, there are way too many to list in a brief review like this one. This app has just about every bell and whistle you could wish for when it comes to to do lists and I haven’t even used the vast majority of them, but I feel secure in knowing that they’re there waiting for me when I need them. (On a side note, I approve highly of the tech writing on their tips webpage – it covers a great many of the options and possibilities very neatly.)
A few of my favourite features:
- Multiple calendars – Really, this is a necessity, but not all To Do apps have it, so it’s worth mentioning. Categorising your tasks using multiple calendars allows you, for example, to separate work tasks and home/family tasks. As a self-employed bod, I break down work tasks in separate calendars according to client/project. Once you have your tasks all neatly categorised, you can then look at your to dos for any individual calendar, all to dos for the current date (includes overdue tasks not completed on earlier dates), or to dos from all calendars filtered according to other criteria (for example, high priority, in a specific timeframe, or tasks with no due date).
- Soundex searching – I don’t actually use this much, but it is quite nifty. If you can’t remember how something is spelled (client/product names, for example), you can search for it by typing in something that approximates what you’re after, and 2Do will locate the appropriate task(s). (For example “huver” will find tasks that include the term “hoover”).
- Multiple sync options – One of the nicest things about this app is that you can sync it with several standard systems, so if you want to stop using it, or change to a new app, your data isn’t tied up irretrievably in a proprietary format. I sync every other day with ToodleDo, and at random intervals with Outlook. If you have a MobileMe account, you can sync with that too.
- Different task types – You can add a vanilla “to do” item, a project with a number of sub-items (in which case you can tick off each sub-item individually, or mark the project as a whole as completed), or a check list (for example a grocery list). The options you can set for each task type changes depending on which of the 3 types you select.
- Recurrence options – I love that you can specify whether recurring tasks should occur at an absolute interval (a specific day of each month), recur at a specific interval (every 10 days), or recur a certain time after it was last completed (water the houseplants 2 weeks after you last did).
- Defer tasks – Tap and hold any task and you get a little popup of options, select Defer here and you get a second popup which allows you to “defer” tasks to today, tomorrow, the day after, the day after that, or no date. I’d prefer if the “day after that” option was “a specific other date”, but this feature is fierce handy for quickly redistributing things when you wind up with to do build up on any given day.
- Sharing tasks – Again, not a feature I use much, but I can see great value in it. Tap and hold popup any task, select Share, and you’re prompted to Tweet, Mail or SMS details of the selected task. Particularly handy to pass on details of checklists or projects without going to the hassle of re-entering all the details.
- Viewing “Done” tasks – You can define a period after which completed tasks should be deleted in the settings, if you’re so inclined. I like to hang on to mine, as my memory is crap, so that at the end of the day/week I can review and see what exactly I’ve been up to. It’s reassuring to see a nice, busy list instead of a blank screen.
- Nearby – I don’t actually use this feature because I leave location services turned off to save battery, but it sounds quite neat. You can assign a location to your tasks, then ask the app to tell you what tasks you can do in or around your current location. I’ve landed home from a trip out shopping more than once to realise I should’ve done one more thing while I was in town, and this featue could be my salvation in cases like this.
If you’re using this or another To Do app and have favourite features not mentioned above, please give them a mention in the comments.
Now, I’m off to mark “Blog post” as done, then move on to the next task. 😉
Bis bald!
Can you use it to spend how much time you spend on the jobs each day? That would be useful for building up timesheets.
You can set a due/start time for a task, but there’s no specific field to record a duration/end time. There is a Notes field per item, though, so you could use that. There are apps out there specifically for time recording and reporting, but I’ve not tried any of them as yet.