Posts Tagged
Productivity
Individual task management can be hard enough to tackle, but trying to get tasks done within teams can be a nightmare. With the recent interest in getting tasks done, a lot of collaborative task management software and web services have come to market. One of the more popular options is Basecamp. The AppStorm team of writers started using Basecamp several months ago, and it has been a nice way to bring everyone into one area for collaboration and team discussion. It works great when a person needs some ideas to include in an article or if an editor needs to communicate with everyone. The other alternative is through email, which can be a disaster to organize. Thankfully, Basecamp makes it easy to keep everything in one place.
Since Basecamp is based on the web, the main access is through their website. While it is accessible on your iPhone, it is not ideal. Recently, the team at Basecamp released an iOS app to access all of your projects and discussions. Customers have been requesting an app for a long time, but can the app live up to the same features as using the website? Let’s dive in and see. (more…)
Wake up. Grab a bagel, avoid the line at the coffee shop. Check the to-do list. Should I hit the gym like it says I should? Nah, let’s just skip that and grab a donut instead, I’ll work out harder tomorrow.
Sound familiar? Face it: there are lots of things that you’re supposed to do on your to-do list, but you don’t. Is it your fault for being lazy, or is it the list? Carrot aims to answer that question a bit differently: It’s you, stupid.
Every time I open Index Card for iPhone, I feel a little intimidated. That’s because it’s a different breed than the regular app; Index Card feels like a single-purpose, desktop-class productivity app. If you’re like me and you’re used to littering your wall with post-it notes or covering a cork board with actual index cards but wish you could make this part of your life a little more digital, it’s going to take you ten seconds to see Index Card as a godsend app.
If you’re not like me, you might take a little more convincing than that. That’s alright. I’m traditionally wary of making my pen-and-paper practices digital, but Index Card really does fill in a need for me that helps me look a little more sane whenever I start plotting out my latest story ideas. The only thing my post-it covered wall ever got me was a bunch of questioning looks from guests and a public display of my most secret ideas. (more…)
Even before the launch of the App Store, people were consumed with finding ways to be more productive. Technology has both hindered and attempted to help at solving that problem. The more things we do online, the more we find that we benefit from tools to help make those things easier and take them off our minds.
If you’re like me, you’re always looking for ways to be more productive. In fact, there are thousands of apps available on the app store dedicated to just that. One of those tools is the app Easilydo, which claims it can be your life assistant. That’s quite an impressive title to throw around. Read on to see if it lives up to that declaration. (more…)
I have been on a never-ending quest for the perfect to-do list app. I experimented with Apple’s Reminders for a little while before extensively using Wunderlist and then Cultured Code’s Things for iPhone. I ended up migrating back to Reminders simply because Things and Wunderlist didn’t make me want to use their apps; I never felt charmed by Wunderlist’s visual aesthetics or by Thing’s OCD-level of task management.
To me, a great to-do app needs to encourage and foster use. It needs to make you want to go in and take the time to write down something that needs to get done. The challenge is to make sure that there is a visual system of rewards for using the app, and that visual appeal and reckless reinvention of the digital to-do list is exactly DOOO‘s success. (more…)
With the advent of smartphones, and largely driven by the market-defining success of the iPhone, the way in which we employ these devices has changed. The telephone and the mobile phone were designed so that we could speak to each other with distance being no object. Nowadays, we increasingly email, text, iMessage, twitter, facebook or google. We are using mobile phones to talk increasingly less. Despite this, an app called Wavedeck Voice Messenger PTT makes it easier to communicate than, say, texting. (more…)
I’m a calendar junkie. The way some people collect to-do apps, I tend to have lots of different calendars all over my iPhone, iPad and Mac, and very few stick. I’ll use one for a month or two, then off to the next or back to an old favorite. I have lots of different options.
But one that has stuck on my Mac is Fantastical. Not only is it quick and easy to use, but it’s just so natural. When I was contacted by the developers and given a sneak peek at the app, well I just had to jump on it. Will the magic transfer to my iPhone or is Fantastical a Mac-only purchase? Let’s find out after the jump. (more…)
I have lots of things to keep track of, but not all of it requires a lot of detail. Sometimes I just want to know how many pull ups I’ve done since I started working out or how many carrots I ate this week. The numbers might not really mean anything, but looking at them all grouped together like that gives be a sense of accomplishment.
That sense of accomplishment can be enough to keep me going when I think I just can’t eat another carrot. The question is, how should I keep track of all those carrots eaten or walks taken or cats petted? Kount.ly may be the answer, with easy, no frills counters and a slick interface. Can it match up to, or even replace, similar apps? (more…)
Dwight D. Eisenhower was the 34th president of the United States. Eisenhower is also the name of the time management method that good ol’ Dwight used to be productive on a daily basis. And if this method works well enough to, you know, run a country, then I figured it was worth a try.
Eisenhower the app aims to work according to the same principles as those of the former president by making the user divide tasks into four different categories: Do First, Schedule, Delegate and Don’t Do. Click “more” and I’ll show you how the system works. (more…)
Calendars are very personalized utilities, detailing an individual’s most important events and tasks, and maybe letting them jot down a note or two. No wonder visual calendars are all the rage these days. Fans seem to be in love with the ability to tailor their daily, weekly and monthly timetables just a little bit more with the pictures and artworks of their choosing.
Add to this function an ability to create alerts, visual sorting features and managing easy-to-create entries and the combination equals Moredays, the app that prides itself on being a digital planner that blends elements of a scrapbook. Can Moredays be a great addition to your app collection? Find out on the other side of the break. (more…)
