Okay, so this last Assignment shall be done. I decided to examine the To do Lists out there, which is kind of ironic, since I am notorious for not being a To Do List type of person. I tend to keep all the things I need to do crammed in my head, and if I begin to lose track of things, I take it to be a sign that I’m trying to do too many things. I guess that’s why I am not a mover and shaker in the world.
But the whole online To Do list sounds like it might be a useful technology. I examined all three of the recommended online To Do sites. Each has a slightly different take on the concept.
WorkHack takes the barest of bones approach; you directly create a list (without any login), and link directly to that list to access it later. The interface is extremely basic, and the site itself looks kind of slapped together. You create a new list by entering a Captcha phrase and add items to your list. The items can be assigned one of three different levels which get red, yellow or green text. You can reorder items on the list directly. Each item has a button to allow you to mark an item done, and once it is pushed, that item is removed from the list. Frankly, WorkHack didn’t appeal to me. If I am going to work with to do lists (I know, big “if”), I think I’d want to have a couple of them going and visible to me at once (and yes, I can figure out how I might do that with WorkHack). I think I’d also want to be able to see what I’d already finished. So, I think I’ll skip the WorkHack thing for my nonexistent to do lists.
ToDoIst has more features in it. You have a login, for starters. And once you’re logged in, you have a full array of tools to create and arrange lists and their parts. You can create multiple named lists. You can arrange your lists in hierarchies. And once you check off an item, you can retrieve it later to see what you’ve finished. They claim to integrate with calendar and email software, which (if I were a To Do List Kind of Person [TDLKoP]) I imagine would be useful, since what good is a to do list if it doesn’t get right in your face and tell you what you’ve got to do?
TaDaList is the last site, and is similar to ToDoIst. You have a login, and list options similar to ToDoIst. Ostensibly, one nice feature here is the ability to add a list as an RSS feed to another site, although for some reason it wouldn’t work for me. You can also email a list to yourself or others.
Either of these last two would be my choice, although neither had exactly the configuration I imagine I might want to use, if I were a TDLKoP. I also recall that both Yahoo and Gmail have Calendaring/Note taking options, which might serve a user’s needs without resorting to yet another set of sites and logins.
Oh yeah, and since I just received an email from ZoHoPlanner telling me that I need to fertilize my lawn tomorrow, I guess I must have tried out ZoHo’s to do list feature.
