Task Management Options

The quantity of small tasks with fluid priorities is starting to get to me and I've decided to attempt to use electronic task management again, even though all my previous attempts have caused me to give up, sometimes only days into the trial.

There are a vast quantity of applications available for every-day task management. My minimum requirements are that there is a web/Mac and an iPhone version of the application and, if I'm going to spending all my time in the application, it also has to be beautiful and easy-to-use.

At the top of my list is Things. 

Things gets rave reviews everywhere, is simple and beautiful. It's biggest disadvantages to me (someone who has failed at task management in the past) are it's price. AUD$69.95 for the Mac version and AUD$12.99 for the iPhone version and AUD$23.99 for the iPad version. On top of this, syncing doesn't happen over 3G (I have no idea why not), which seems like a huge limitation for me, although at least it syncs via WiFi.

The positive of this expense (AUD$106.93 for all three devices) is that I will have invested a significant chunk of cash in my everyday task management. Maybe this will encourage me to keep it up. 

Maybe I should just try out the iPhone app first (as I will probably be spending most of my time in that).

Any thoughts or recommendations?

Comments

[Rohan]

Simply investing money in something does not guarantee its adoption.
Take for example gym memberships. Someone diligent will probably go to that gym 3 times a week, so thats 10 visits a month, or ~$4 a visit. But most people with gym memberships go once a week, so $10 a visit. The member feels its a chore, and thus begins dreading it. This dread drives them to find excuses to not go. This then gives rise to a negative feedback loop. Anyway, I digress. Having just done some quick and dirty Google searches, I've found a few free (or free enough) other to-do applications that support the iPhone.
My favourite so far is Remember The Milk (http://www.rememberthemilk.com).

[Wayne Robinson]

You/re right... paying for something doesn't automatically assume that I will follow through. However, task management for me at the moment seems more of a necessity than a chore - there is a lot of different things I have to do which don't take up particular slots of time (I've been using my phone calendar to handle most of my appointments and tasks to date).


I have looked at RTM, and I may end up using it. But there just seems to be something about the user interface that I'm not happy about. I don't know.

By the way, it's nice to know that someone out there reads my blog and doesn't just end up landing on my Word 2007 printing issue or ActiveRecord from XML page.