Any.do: A better to-do list

If you’re anything like me, you’ve got a million things going on at any given time and you have a hard time keeping it all straight. I used to be able to run through my to-do list in my head before I went to bed, but eventually that routine just kept me up at night. That’s when I started writing things down so I could fall asleep.

Now, paper is so 20th century. I upgraded to using an app on my smart phone so I could keep track of items on the go and keep things in sync whether I was on the computer or away from home. I used Evernote and I think I may have tried Google Docs at some point too.

Eventually, I found Any.do. It’s sole purpose is to keep track of what you need to get done, and it does it perfectly. The interface is incredibly simple. There is a place to put in tasks and an area where they are displayed. You can organize them between 4 different timelines: today, tomorrow, upcoming, and someday. You simply drag your tasks where you want to keep them organized. You can also switch to a folder view to organize them another way, such as work and personal.

The best parts of Any.do are the extras.

  • You set up a time each day for your Any.do moment. At that time, a reminder pops up and runs you through your tasks for the day where you can mark them done, set a time to do them, or choose to do them another day.
  • When you have a missed call, you can set it up so that it asks you to create a task to call them back.
  • Tasks set for “tomorrow”, move to “today” the next day. Tasks set to “upcoming”, move to “tomorrow” after about a week.
  • There is a Google Chrome extension so you can see your tasks from the browser. Plus, when you’re in Gmail, you’ll see Any.do buttons to create tasks from inside Gmail.
  • The Post Meeting feature will prompt you at the end of a meeting so you can add any action items from the meeting.
  • Any.do also integrates with Google Glass, if you have one to play around with.

Those are just some of the features packed into Any.do. You can learn more on Any.do’s web site or on Lifehacker.

Do you have any tools that help keep you organized? Post them in the comments for us all.