"Things" for Mac?

[ellenkushner]

My longlost brother, actor & nexus Doug Shapiro ( whom I met when he stepped in at the last minute to take part in our readthrough of our radio play, "The Witches of Lublin," last April), sends out a delicious monthly newsletter for "FoD"s. In his latest, he cites as "Item of Interest" A shiny helpful computer thing...

And by things, I mean "Things"! Things is a task management program for the Mac that is putting my life in order beautifully. I always have several projects going at any given time, and this program makes it easy to break them down into small, manageable tasks that I can actually complete. "Things" is clean in appearance, able to handle a big complex workflow, and syncs with your iPhone. Here's the review in Macworld.

Has anyone tried this, or heard anything about it? If you know me and my Methods (, Watson), do you think it would make any difference for me? (And if you know me really well, want to go in on one? Apparently up to 6 people can share use of the program for, like, $70).

Doug's also a career coach with The Savvy Actor ("Turn your craft into your business") - what I've heard of it and from him so far is impressive, if you're at all interested in some coaching.

Comments

[coffeeem.livejournal.com]

Hmmm--Things does look like a pretty useful appllication. Lots of the kinds of stuff I might use, like copying to-do list entries directly from e-mail. The linked page says it costs $45--is that for one authorized machine/user? If so, $70 for six seems like a good deal. I'd be up for kicking in ten or fifteen bucks to get a copy.

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

Really? Cool! Delia wants in, too. That makes 3 of us, and I bet I can strongarm our assistant into it (heh!).... Doug actually showed it to me today on his iPhone - it seems pretty sweet.

(That icon is just PRECIOUS, btw! But then, I am partial to grey tabbies. And spectacles.)

[coffeeem.livejournal.com]

SmartyCat is very well-read. Heh.

[aliettedb.livejournal.com]

I use it and like it a lot, though I haven't probed complex things (I have to-do lists, but I've never really got into nested projects or stuff like that). But it's very handy, cleverly designed, and straddling the thin line between too simple and horribly complicated for me. The sync with the iphone is neat, too.

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

Good to know!

[laurenpburka.livejournal.com]

I could do pretty much everything it does with google tools of various sorts. However, the google approach just works for me, and I wouldn't spend money on software when my main problem with organization is that I forget to enter stuff into whatever system I'm using. So I guess I'm saying not that google works well for me, but it works as poorly as anything else.

[martinimade.livejournal.com]

I'm feeling very low-tech because I do all of my organizing with a giant whiteboard and a calendar. Either I'm not busy enough or a Luddite. Or, um, both.

In my defense, it is an awfully big whiteboard....

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

Sigh! I *dream* of a whiteboard . . . a great big undeniable, unignorable behemoth of planning-- but I don't have the wallspace for one! I did get a little one, 8x11ish, and I adore writing things on it - but then I forget to look at it.... Having met people at all ranges of (dis)organization, it is clear to me that it's wiring as much as anything. It's like having an ear for music, or an eye for color, or a sense of design. Or not. What each person needs is different.

[tournevis.livejournal.com]

Things is wonderful. It is love in a package. Love, love, love.

[julianyap.livejournal.com]

I've used things, and I really really liked it, it's got a great, and very simple, very intuitive interface, and is also, to be honest, quite pretty for a task management program (which probably shouldn't matter, but does to me.) It also interfaced with my iPhone really well, which was a plus.

The only reason I stopped using it is because I couldn't put it on my computer at work. Things did not have any sort of web based interface (and I believe, still doesn't) which meant that if I wanted to add tasks at work, I had to stop what I was doing on my work computer, whip out my iPhone, and add the task, which proved to be just enough of a barrier for me to stop adding tasks at work. This should be much less of a problem for you if you're only on a single computer (or if all your computers are Macs)

I've since switched to Remember the Milk, which is fine as task managers go, but I miss Things. I don't know what your work habits are, but it's definitely the best computer task list I've used, so I'd recommend it.

[klages.livejournal.com]

It sounds like it would be a good fit for my not-so-organized, but full of To-Dos life.

I'd chip in to be part of the group Thing.

EK2

things

[jessag.livejournal.com]

Looks like a fun program to have! Also, I noticed you can download it for a free trial... so that
might answer your personal question of whether its going to be helpful for you. :)