Excellent task manager

I’ve tried just about every task manager out there. I eventually found myself just using the built in Apple Reminders. But Things is a great enhancement. I’ve actually found it best to use a combination of Apple’s Reminders and Things.

1. Things can read Apple’s reminders list. This allows you to take advantage of Siri and add things to an Apple Reminder inbox and have it show up in a Things Inbox.
2. Reminders allows you to set things that are time based, not just date based. As I thought about this feature, I found I mostly use this for small tasks due on a given day. For example, I don’t want to forget to get milk after work so I tell Siri to remind me to get milk at 5 PM. I continue to use Reminders for these little tasks.
3. Reminders does a nice job with shared lists. I keep a shared grocery list with my wife and one other for errands.
4. Beyond this, I turn to Things. Things let’s you create projects with multiple tasks. One of the keys to getting productive is breaking things down to small enough pieces that you can do that one task. i.e. You don’t “Paint a bedroom”. You have to:

1. measure the room
2. get samples to decide on a color or combination of colors
3. decide the type of paint and buy paint and supplies
4. Prep the room before painting
5. paint

Most people don’t get things done because they don’t think of these steps up front and then knock them off one by one. I don’t have time to “Paint the room” but it’s easy to find 5 minutes to measure the room.

5. things sync service is rock solid. There was a comment they should use iCloud. Why? iCloud was not always as reliable as it is now and even now, still need to prove itself for data syncing. Things service is solid and fast.

One other consideration is comparisons to a program like OmniFocus. Both are similar. OmniFocus is a bit more expensive but handles contexts differently. It’s more geared to showing a task when you are at the correct location. i.e. display tasks that are work related when you are at work. You can use tags in Things and just select the tag to get a similar result but it’s not quite as automatic. On the other hand, location based tasks tend to eat some more battery so you have to balance everything.

Simdude about Things