Todo List Quest: Gneo and Todoist, where I am now

Alright, it has been a little bit since I have talked about the todo list quest. I am still in the process of going through different apps and putting their info in the spreadsheet. But, I wanted to let you all know where I am now in the aspect of managing my own lists from day to day.

Currently I have separated my day job and the rest of life in to two different task management apps. For work I am using Todoist and for the rest of my life I am using Gneo (the G is silent, but I like to pronounce it anyway :)

These two apps both fulfill different purposes for me. Some people would discourage you from using two different apps and systems to manage tasks, David Allen would probably be one of those. But, at this point in my life it helps me to keep work from invading the rest of my life.

Todoist is for work

I really like Todoist, the system is clean and because of its integration with chrome through an extension it works really well. I do almost all of my work for my day job in chrome so Todoist is always there for me to dump things into. It also integrates with Gmail so that I can turn emails into tasks (one of the criteria I was looking for).

Gneo is for everything else

I have selected Gneo as my first full test for a new personal todo list because of a few features. The first one is its integration with Evernote, Gneo is essential a skin for an Evernote notebook stack. I have long heard of people using Evernote for GTD but I just couldn't get the interface to work for me for task management. Gneo ends up making that interface much more user friendly. I really like the idea of my todo list data actually being stored in Evernote where most of my other project data will also be stored.

The second reason is that Gneo uses the Covey matrix as one of its task views. I am a huge fan of the work of Stephen Covey and I love the way the matrix organizes things. I didn't put this on the criteria because at the time I hadn't ever seen an app that did it.

A third reason is that its integration with Evernote allows me to use it with Drafts for quick input. I find this to be super useful for the capture step of GTD.

So there you have it, for now I am using these two apps for work and personal life. I am still testing others and adding them to the spreadsheet. I will right more full reviews of the apps in the future.

Both apps are nicely put together and have responsive teams. If you have used either of the apps please tell me what you think of them and any tips you have for using them.

Goal Apps: Writing Them Down

Now that we have talked about how the iPad can help with goals I want to get into specific apps that can be used to do that. I'll deal with simply writing goals down and then in latter posts I'll talk about the three categories I discussed last time (communication, tracking, achieving) that we used before.

Writing Down your goals: This is the most important step in the goal process, nothing else happens in a consistent way if this does not happen. For an app to do this for you there are only two things needed:

1. You can enter text (either typed or hand written)
2. You will see it often

The second is obviously the hard one in this set. There is no shortage of apps that you can enter text into, but actually seeing that text so it is useful is something else. In order for that to happen you either need:

• some kind of an alarm system in the app
• or you need to have a built in habit to check your goals (like a daily/weekly review).

The good news is that you do not have to get any new apps to do this if you do not want to, your iPad or other iOS device already comes with the notes app, and the clock app

You can use the notes app to write down your goals, either in a single note or a separate one for each note depending on you level of organization and detail. Then use the clock app to set a recurring alarm to remind you to review your goals every so often. Because you can not stick a note made on your iPad to the fridge you have to have some way of remembering that you are working on goals.

There are literally thousands of apps that you could use to keep track of your goals, I am going to highlight three more because I have used them, not because they are necessarily better than others.

Sticky Notes

This is an app I have used for a long time, its a good solid way to make sticky notes on your iOS device. You can select different colors of notes and other options such as size. One of the nice things here is that you arrange all your sticky notes on a cork board and then you can save it as a photo to the camera roll, if you then set that photo as your lock screen it is the tech equivalent of the paper on the fridge.

There is the option to upgrade for .99 cents, and then you can give note specific alarms. So you could also use that as your reminder.

Evernote

This is the app I personally using for my goal setting write now, the flexibility of Evernote allows me to do pretty much whatever I want. I am to keep my goals accessible across all my devices. I am able to make a chart of the four areas of life (Physical, Mental, Spiritual, Sociemotional) and keep current goals in each of them. I also like the ability to put check boxes next to goals for when I have finished them. I gave a full review of Evernote here.

Lumen Trails

Lumen Trails is an app I will talk more about in the tracking section because that is what I am currently using it as. But it also has the capability for full notes synced across devices. It is an extremely robust app with a bit of a learning curve. As far as just notes go it is fairly simple though and can function like Evernote, you can set up a notebook for your goals and determine whether you want all your notes in one note or in separate notes. It uses iCloud to sync across all your devices

I only recommend using Lumen Trails for writing down your goals if you are also going to use it for tracking or accomplishing goals or some other function. This is because the price for the full version is 9.99, I was fortunate and got it on a free day. 

You might know of other apps you like for writing goals down, if so tweet them to Tweet to @halduauthor

Now you may be wondering why this writing goals down is different than tracking, after all you will have to write down the goal wherever you are tracking it as well. I do not do them in the same place for several reasons:

1. I want to put them in the box, as mentioned earlier
2. I like to write down more information and have them all together (you may have heard of the S.M.A.R.T. goals concept) its hard to have this much information in a tracking program.
3. I like to have future goals also written down in the same place so I can add them to my current goals when I am ready.

Thats it for writing down your goals on the iPad or iPhone. If you like this article or Tweet it to share it with others.

Thanks for reading, set some goals, next time we will learn how to track them.
And remember, live better.

Review: Evernote

Name: Evernote
Type: text editor, word processor, note taker, document manager, cloud storage, OCR, audio recorder, anything you want it to be
Price: Free
Stars: 5

Evernote is probably the single most used app on my iPad. As far as mobile productivity tools go it is the unmatched king of the app hill. Evernote has apps for nearly platform in existence, but this review will be focused on the iPad app.
Evernote as a system is a way to capture almost everything and remember it by storing it in the cloud, accessible by all your devices. Evernote on the iPad is one of the very best ways to use it. Why? Because it is with you almost always so you can capture any idea in a moment, or get some work done while you are waiting five minutes for something else. While evernote for the iPhone is great, on the iPad it is much easier to work and be productive.

As most of you are probably aware there is no native system of file and document storage on the iPad, much to the chagrin of many nerds. At least for text documents evernote gives you some of that control back, you can save a document somewhere and easily find it again. Evernote allows you to organize in several ways through notebooks, tags, location services, etc. It also allows you to search everything so its easily findable. We all know to be productive you have to find what you need to work on, and evernote makes that simpler.

One of evernote on the iPad's biggest productivity advantages is that it integrates so well into the system. If you give it permission evernote will become integrated with your calendar, your photos, your location, and will become an export option for most files from email attachments and websites. It also incorporates with its own secondary applications like Hello, Skitch, Penultimate, and Food.

All in all there is just no reason that you should not be using evernote if you have an iPad. I only have one problem with evernote on the iPad and that is the lack of a word count feature, but I hope that will be fixed in the next update.

That was just a quick review, you will definitely here more about evernote from me in the future, I love it and use it everyday. I am definitely not the most productive or innovative user of evernote. Three people who are much better at it than me are: Katie Floyd, Jordan Collier, and Michael Hyatt.

Thats all for now folks, if you have any questions leave them in the comments sections below, if you use evernote already leave a comment telling me about one of the ways you have found to use it. Also if you found this post helpful share or Tweet it.

And remember, live better.