Most people have a schedule or timetable to be able to plan out their days. But if you have one for work, this’ll probably be the most hectic. Luckily, there’s a wealth of ways to help you manage your schedule and a lot of those solutions are available on shiny Apple devices. After paying $500 or more, surely an extra few to save you countless hours is worth it, right? Being able to have a clear view of what’s ahead will help to increase your productivity by reducing the time you need to work out what to do. Then you can just get started on what’s important: the work. A lot of my free time is spent writing for various causes. The biggest, coincidentally, are for the various Envato sites that I contribute to. Even since getting my iPad early last year, I’ve been trying to find a viable timetabling app that’s oriented around tasks rather than events. Here’s my roundup of the five apps that I’ve found to be the best.
1. Sorted
Sorted is a fairly simple, yet ingenious app for the iPad that serves as a checklist. You can add tasks to it with all only a title required. You can leave it at that or you can add notes, set priorities and schedule reminders. The highlight of this specific app is the role that priorities serve. You can create levels of priority in the settings (from a bank of many colours) and use these to easily identify the most — or least — important tasks. Sorted also allows you to create multiple task lists and navigate between them in a document view. This means you can create different checklists for different scenarios (home, work, etc.) or create lists on a day-by-day basis. Sorted is available for $0.99 in the App Store.
2. Todo
Todo is an iPhone and iPad (although separate binaries) app that offers task management in a Filofax-like design. The app does what it says, but wasn’t any favourable to me over Sorted. However, Todo offers a range of features over Sorted such as password protection, recurring events and syncing. Syncing co-operates with Microsoft Office Outlook and Apple’s iCal app so it can fit into your work ecosystem, too. Todo also offers the ability to create projects with sub-tasks so you can organize your goals even further. Unfortunately, all these extra features that Todo offers comes at a premium of $4.99 for either iPad or iPhone.
3. Things
Things is a popular Mac app which migrated onto the iOS platform for both the iPhone and iPad. On the iPad, the app is just beautiful — being one of my favourite apps by design. Most the features available in Things are also available in Todo (above) but the interface means it reigns over Todo. Things also features syncing back to the desktop Mac app, which is sold separately. This app is among the most expensive available, priced at $19.99 in the App Store with the iPhone version priced at $9.99.
4. iStudiez Pro
iStudiez is an app aimed at students, but the app can easily be adapted to suit anyone who has a recurring schedule. There is two main features of this app: schedules and assignments. The schedule option allows you to setup a recurring timetable and factor in semesters and holidays. These can be utilised in a work environment too, if you want to factor in something like a Christmas break. The “assignments view” is the task management feature that allows you to set up homework (or just tasks) and add reminders in for them. The interesting part of this is you can assign work to a course you have setup in the schedule view. This is yet another feature that can be adapted to a work environment. iStudiez also has a nice, custom user interface that’s clearly aimed at the education environment (with book and chalkboard backgrounds). The app is optimized for both for the iPhone and iPad for $2.99. If you’re looking for an iPhone app in this realm, take a close look at this, as the iPhone version also differs from the default UI to bring a fresh spin in terms of interface.
5. Easy Note
Easy Note is certainly not the most functional on this list, but I thought it would be best to include a free option for the cost-effective worker. Easy Note is a very simple app that is similar to Sorted in functionality, but not in design. In fact, Easy Note does not differentiate at all from the iPad’s default user interface. Easy Note is very simple what it does: add tasks, set its priority and date and then check them off.Easy Note is great if you just want something quick and easy that allows you to save money by removing any sort of custom user interface, such as those employed by Things and Todo. You can, however, actually add photos to tasks — something that isn’t featured in the other apps discussed here. Easy Note is available for free in the App Store.
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