2Do
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Mac App of the Week: 2Do, a task manager with the right mix of power features, simplicity
I'm always on the lookout for new task managers that offer a different UI or a different approach to help me keep track of my seemingly endless to do list. The latest app to cross my path is 2Do for the Mac from Guided Ways technology. I was familiar with 2Do, having used their iOS app a few years ago when it launched. The tabbed interface of the iOS version never grabbed me, so I stopped using it after a few weeks. Late last year though, the company launched an OS X version, which was recently updated and overhauled. This latest Mac version (v.1.5.1) has brought me back into the 2Do fold. 2Do is a mid-tier task manager -- it's a step up from the Reminders app, but isn't as complex as Omnifocus. Very similar to Things, 2Do offers a nice balance between usefulness and simplicity. It's robust enough that you can use it to manage a large number of tasks and projects, but loose enough that you can adapt it to your own style of management. You're not pigeonholed into GTD or some other task management method. Rather than cover all the features of the app, which are too many to count, I wanted to point out a few features that'll keep me using 2Do for the foreseeable future. First and foremost is the app's smart list feature. This feature allows you create a custom list of tasks based upon search criteria such as tags. As the app review editor, I keep track of a lot of different apps for potential review. I tag every task and then use the smart list feature to group only iOS apps, only productivity apps or those apps assigned to my co-workers. It's a very flexible and powerful way of keeping track of a lot of tasks. Another aspect of 2Do I appreciate is how it approaches your tasks. Each individual task is more than just a simple note with a due date. You can add an image to your task, upload a file or attach an audio recording to help you remember unwritten details. 2Do supports status based on priority and tags, which are searchable within the app. You also can set a task to be recurring based on the days of the week, the days of the month or a set amount of time (every 4 days, for example). An alarm feature will remind you when your task is due, and you can choose when you want this gentle reminder to arrive. Last but not least is the Focus section in the app. This section sits in the left sidebar, which shows all your lists, smart lists, and a calendar. The Focus section is at the top, and it groups your upcoming and important tasks together. This is your central dashboard for the items that need your attention right away. It shows you all your tasks that are due today and highlights those that are overdue in red. This focus feature isn't unique to 2Do, other apps like Things have a similar focus section, but I am glad that Guided Ways decided to incorporate it into its app. It is extremely useful. Among the minor features, 2Do offers syncing across OS X and iOS devices so your task list will always be at your finger tips. It supports OS X Quick Look so you can highlight a task and tap your space bar to get an overview of your task. It also has a quick entry feature allowing you to add a task from any app. These are all small, but important items that increase your productivity. Note: If you use the default quick entry shortcut, you may lose the ability to access the new emoticons in OS X Mavericks as they both use the same Control-Command-Space shortcut. Just go into the preferences for 2Do and set your own custom keyboard shortcut. 2Do is as capable as any task manager I have used, with the exception of Omnifocus, which is in a league of its own. 2Do is a great choice for 99% of the Mac owners who are looking for a robust task manager to handle a variety of home and work tasks. It has a long list of features and is intuitive enough to use that you don't have to pull out a manual every time you want to add something to your to-do list. 2Do is available from the Mac App Store for $39.99.
Apple discounts OS X task managers in new Get Stuff Done promotion
Apple launched a new three-week promotion on OS X productivity apps. The Get Stuff Done offer starts this week and features a handful of task managers. We've already told you about Things 2, which is available at 50% off its regular price of $49.99. Also included in the sale are Todo ($6.99), Due ($4.99), The Hit List ($24.99), BreakTime ($2.99), TaskPaper ($11.99), 2Do ($14.99) and Clear ($6.99). The sale starts today, January 24, and ends January 31.
Daily iPad App: 2Do
I'm not exactly the paradigm of organization -- it took me years to get a regular calendar set up and working, my email inbox is usually a mess of various reminders and things that need replying to, and my present to-do system is usually just whatever piece of paper I can grab in real life and scribble some tasks on. But I do want to be more organized, and so when I finally bought my iPad last week, I poked around the App Store for solutions and tried to find one that 1) was easy to use and pleasing to the eye and that 2) I would actually stick with. Things is generally recognized as the champion of the bunch, and it's very nice, but at $19.99, it's an investment as iPad apps go, especially if you're not sure how long you'll stick with it. At $6.99, 2Do is a more reasonable place to start, and after playing around with it and a few other to-do apps, it's currently my system of choice. Before I get into specific features, I will say that the most exciting thing about 2Do is that it does what all great iPad apps should: really use the immersiveness of the device to model real-world objects and situations. As you can see above, the app is color-coded by project, and uses a nice "legal pad in a leather binder" theme to keep everything laid out. One of the biggest benefits of 2Do is that rather than just an arbitrary list of tasks, everything can be assigned a start date and a due date, so you're not just laying out things you need to do -- you're actually organizing them into a calendar that you can then filter views from, looking at only the tasks for today, tasks in the next week, and so on. Creating a task is as easy or as hard as you want to make it -- you can either just press the + button and type a name in, or you can go through and add the aforementioned dates, notes, alarms, or even voice notes, map locations, and pictures or URL to the specific task. You can also create checklists or full projects to work on, which are lists of subtasks to work through that have their own date and data associated with them. Checking a task off is satisfying, as it should be -- a little pencil pops up to cross it off your list, and all of the tasks you've finished can be seen in the "Done" tab (unlike other apps, which will just remove them off the list completely). The app is very easy and quick to use -- the only hitch I ever came across was when the keyboard sometimes popped up in portrait mode, and would cover up the "Close" button on the bottom of the task editing screen. Putting it at the top of the task seems like it would be a better option, and a little easier to find, in my opinion. But other than that little issue, everything runs smoothly, and there are some really cool implementations (like selecting multiple days on the calendar to see all tasks associated with those days, or an actual clock-faced time selector) to play with. 2Do will sync up with MobileMe (and presumably iCloud with iOS 5), the Toodledo service, or with your PC or Mac via a sync application, and all of the extras that you'd expect in a full-featured to-do app (like email alarms and repeated reminders) are all there as well. There's an update coming soon, too, with even more features and tweaks to the layout. It's definitely a quality app with a solid interface, and an excellent choice for anyone looking to get organized. As for me, let's hope I stick with it -- I'm not sure I've quite mapped my mind to 2Do's system quite yet, but I'm working on it. The app itself is a great tool, but it's up to me to make good use of it.
