We’re looking to find a suitable to do list application from Windows. It would be great to have something as elegant looking as Things for the Mac that syncs with the cloud, runs on Windows, and is accessible via the iPhone. Web-based is fine, but it needs to use Gears or AIR to run without a network connection.
The list of requirements for a high-quality to do list for me (in rough priority) are: 
- Runs in Windows
- Create a new task with one keyboard shortcut (ideally the enter key)
- Accessible via iPhone
- Supports multiple lists
- Somewhat attractive and somewhat elegant
- Rearrange Tasks
- Has anyone found a great app like this?
- We’ve tried Remember the Milk (multiple lists support sucks), Google Tasks (works OK, but has some quirks, and native app would be better), Tudomo (no web/iPhone access, plus expensive), FruitfulTime (entering a new task is a 3-step process, total dealbreaker). Since we build Outlook addins, we’d use Outlook, but we can’t get to the tasks in the cloud.
June 8, 2010
Any luck?
I’ve had the same thing on my wish list for a long time. Here’s what I do:
* Outlook tasks, with categories for key project-sized deliverables (as opposed to projects), next actions, and a few other standard GTD-type contexts, such as @waiting for things I’ve delegated, @agendas, @deals for deals in progress, and so forth. I try to keep these simple. I also prioritize them using the simple bang (high) and arrow (low) flags. You can’t rearrange them within a category via drag and drop, but you can modify the display rules so you can see the ones you want, and you can manipulate the display easily enough with a few basic hacks like putting #’s in front of task name and sorting alphabetically, or creating a new category for “top tasks for today”. Since tasks support more than one category (via drag and drop) you can play with that too.
* Outlook syncs to blackberry via exchange server. i don’t know if there’s an iphone interface for this.
* I also sync outlook to plaxo, which syncs contacts, calendar, and task (though the latter is not well advertised) across platforms and to the web. It formats these well and respects category tree. You can access this directly on the web, or possibly find another interface to suck them out of plaxo into a different app.
I’ve been using this pretty effectively for a couple of years now… while waiting for the PC version of Things to come out….
Let me know what you come up with; I’d be interested in checking it out.
June 8, 2010
No, no luck at all, unfortunately.
What you do sounds a lot like what I ended up doing in my previous life, except I’m now on the iPhone without an exchange server backend, so nothing syncs worth a darn.
What you’re describing with Plaxo sounds interesting, but I still haven’t gotten over how they hijacked subscribers’ email accounts to spam everyone they’d ever emailed without permission back when Plaxo was just getting started. I feel uncomfortable letting them have any of my data, even to this day.
For now, I’m using Google Tasks (which works on the iPhone when it’s got a network connection), and that’s working OK. It’s still not quite what I’d like to have, though. Let me know if you find something awesome as well!
June 8, 2010
Plaxo can’t seem to outgrow that spam problem from early on (and I think everyone agrees it was a terrible mistake), but I’ve been happy and spam-free with them for a while.
Hopefully Lazyweb will make us a no-suck task manager one of these days….
June 23, 2010
I use toodledo.com, with heavy GTD flavor, integrated with my android phone. There is a nice Firefox plug-in that simplifies adding tasks. Autohotkey makes it even faster if needed.
August 25, 2010
I use ReQall on the web and droid x. I find it especially useful because of the excellent voice to text features and ability to reqall lists from my phone. No windows desktop however.
October 28, 2010
Have you tried manymoon.com? I have used it some, but have ended up just using ouutlook as my to do list, which is why I ended up stumbling across your software. So, between your software, outlook calendar, and lettermelater.com, I have a system that kind of “maintains itself”, which was the goal since organizing myself daily has not been succesful.