I will hold my hands up and say that, left to my own devices, I am not the most organised of people in the world. If I have an idea or something pops into my mind that needs doing I will usually jot it down on a scrap of paper and carry on with what I was doing. However, what I have increasingly found is that scraps of paper get lost and I end up a week later thinking to myself “I’m sure there was something I wanted to do with that website”. This is why I have decided to put technology to use and embrace a To-Do List app, something that will prompt me to do something and record what has and hasn’t been done.

I have tried this in the past with a simple spreadsheet but I need something that will easily sync across web, phone and tablet so that, no matter where I am, I can gain access to my tasks. So before I dove in and started using an app I came up with the basic functionality that I would need for it to be useful to me:

• It needs to be simple. I don’t want the app to over-complicate things, i’m not looking for a project planner or task manager just a simple To-Do List.
• It needs to sync well with the browser, my Android phone and my iPad.
• Ideally it should be free but i’d pay if I thought the app was worth it.

So armed with these 3 criteria I set about trying to find the right app for my requirements, after some brief reading I landed on Remember The Milk. A brief tour of the features showed that it was a pretty simple To-Do list app that you could you use in your browser, on an Android device or on iPad and that it was free, all 3 criteria met. Despite the horrible, in my opinion, name of the app it was actually really nicely designed too which was a bonus.

After signing up for the app I downloaded the Android version onto my phone and the IOS version onto my iPad and, using the iPad, began inputting all of the tasks that I wanted to give myself. Everything went smoothly and I was very happy with the way app worked. Later that day I had a call from a client and needed to add something to my tasks, as I was out I loaded up the Android app and was about to add my new task when I noticed that none of the tasks I had previously inputted were there. No problem, I thought, maybe it just needs to sync and I hit the sync icon, only to be told that if I wanted to sync my devices more than once every 24 hours then I would need to upgrade to a Pro account at $25 for the year.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I am certainly not against paying for useful apps and $25 for a yearly subscription was certainly not extortionate but I have a problem when an integral feature of the app is essentially not included in the free version, I don’t mind paying for upgraded features like collaborating with other users or scheduling reminders etc. For me, syncing once every 24 hours was useless, I needed to be able to access my tasks from various devices at any time during the day. This meant I was back to the drawing board and I would not be going forward with Remember The Milk.

So I asked around and the overwhelming response that I received was to use Wunderlist, a simple app from Berlin company 6Wunderkinder. I have just started playing around with Wunderlist but it certainly seems to fit the bill and do everything that I need a To Do list app to do.

It is very very easy to use, you simply create your tasks and assign due dates if necessary. You can group the tasks together by project if you wish and you can set up notifications, either via email or push notifications, to remind you of tasks. Even more useful is that you can sync everything to all of your devices via the cloud at no extra cost, in fact I have yet to see any sign of them pushing “Pro” features so I’m not sure where there revenue model comes into play.

I have only been using Wunderlist for a few days but so far I love it and find it extremely useful. From reading the company blog I note that Wunderlist 2.0 is due out later this year with feature upgrades which sounds promising, as long as they keep the interface simple and easy to use.

Do you currently use anything to manage your tasks?

About the Author – shaun

Shaun is the owner of Van Zant Media and, subsequently, The Accountant Marketer. Can be contacted at [email protected]. Check me out on Google+