10 of the Best iPhone Apps for Creating To-Do Lists

http://www.housekeeping.org

In today’s hectic world, managing all of the tasks that you’re responsible for each day can be a daunting prospect. Keeping track of your professional and personal duties requires something a bit more comprehensive than the pen-and-paper lists and sticky notes of days gone by. Fortunately, Apple’s wildly popular iPhone and the App Store offer a variety of interactive options for keeping up with all of the items on your to-do list. These 10 apps keep the time-sensitive tasks in your life at the tips of your fingers, and help to make them more manageable.

1. 2Do: Tasks Done in Style – Highly rated by App Store users, featured on the BBC, and the winner of several awards, this $9.99 app is well worth its relatively steep price tag. Sync your tasks with Dropbox, iCloud Reminders and Yahoo! Calendar, just to name a few. Siri will also add reminders for you through iCloud sync, allowing you to manage and edit your tasks in a multitude of ways.
2. List Master – The beauty of this $7.99 app lies in the user’s ability to customize lists almost endlessly. Featured in Apple’s New & Noteworthy Apps, List Master is just as useful for simple tasks like grocery lists as it is complex ones like vacation planning and scheduling activities. You choose the number of columns, and are then given the options of building lists within lists, customizing font sizes and row heights and synching your lists with multiple devices.
3. To-Do List Pro – At $0.99, To-Do List Pro is a heavy hitter that won’t deal your wallet a blow. There are several graphing options that allow you to track your progress on any given task, a searchable database, and customizable alerts that ensure you never miss a time-sensitive task. Categorize your lists to keep personal and professional tasks separate, and share them via email in .CSV format.
4. eTo-Do – This well-designed app has a beautiful user interface, and also offers users the option of sorting to-do list items into a “Someday” list, making it useful for planning future events and keeping long-term goals in mind, as well as managing the more pressing tasks of your day-to-day life. There’s a function for recurring tasks, several sorting and filtering options, and a priority level setting to help ensure that your most important tasks are displayed above less urgent ones.
5. reQall – This free app not only allows you to save and manage your to-do lists, but also to capture ideas as you have them via voice or text for sorting into those lists later. The Here and Now feature lets you know what pending tasks you have attached to your current location. You will have to have either a free or paid reQall account to use the app, and a Pro account does allow you to access more advanced features.
6. Today To-Do: Clever Task Management – Rather than relying upon a rigid task structure, Today To-Do’s self-described “Zen-like” approach to building lists allows you to sort each pending item in the way that best suits your working and thinking style. Each morning, you start with an empty list, but you are still able to access those from previous days.
7. Home&Work Lite – The free version of Home&Work is supported by advertising, but allows you to upgrade within the app if you feel so inclined. Divide the tasks on your to-do lists into “personal,” “home,” “business,” “school” and “project” for easy compartmentalization of your responsibilities. This app is designed to be as simple and straightforward as possible, without a wealth of options that are superfluous to some users.
8. ListPro – Ultimate List Making Tool Kit – If you’re a dedicated list-maker, the variety of options and powerful tools offered by this $4.99 app are sure to tickle your fancy. ListPro offers more than 40 templates that are fully customizable, and the ability to build your more elaborate to-do lists on a desktop version that transfers seamlessly to your iPhone.
9. ToodleDo – Ranked in the top 30 paid iPad apps of all time by Apple, and compatible with both iPad and iPhone, this $2.99 app is flexible and customizable, while still managing to be user-friendly. Use it alone or sync with the popular Toodledo.com web-based task manager.
10. Errands To-Do List – Free in the App Store and universally supported by the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch, Errands is an easy-to-use task manager that allows you to set reminders, customize your folders, and organize tasks in whatever manner works best for you. Premium users also have the option of syncing their Errands lists on multiple iOS devices.

These valuable to-do list and task manager apps can help you streamline your approach to completing your daily responsibilities and boost your productivity, freeing up more time to spend with your loved ones at the end of the day.

Maria Wells/ http://www.housekeeping.org