Doris: simple and free online task manager with iPhone integration
I recently wrote a post saying why, in my opinion, Toodledo is the best GTD web application available. I still think Toodledo is terrific but, in some cases, you might need a simpler tool that allows you to be more effective without the learning curve of setting up and using a new app. That's where Doris comes in.
According to the team who is behind Doris development, they built the tool with the following requirements in mind:
- Simplicity: we have often been overwhelmed by the amount of projects, tasks, deadlines and priorities that needed to be tracked - we needed an app that didn't get in our way, made it simple to manage work, and that allowed for hiding complexity.
- Great usability: the UI had to be fantastic, frictionless, fast, minimum clicks, keyboard optimised and of course very responsive.
- Speed: there almost seems to be a requirement in GTD circles to make Todo apps as complicated and painful as possible. Reminds me of submitting bugs in Bugzilla where you need to fill in 50 fields per ticket as opposed to Trac where you need 2. Typical task options we've seen are priority, category, mood, colour, status, due date, flagged, starred, notes, tags, contexts ... no kidding, just unbelievable! So with Doris we wanted single field, keyboard-friendly task entry. Lightning entry! We do actually make other aspects of classification available to users, but these must be enabled in your settings first.
I've been trying Doris for 1 day now (switching back and fourth from my computer and iPod Touch) and I'm loving it so far. It is so simple to drag and organize tasks around, and the design is totally well thought. It doesn't have stars, deadlines, priorities, etc.. However, since its goal is to be simple, you can easily create different groups (there is a default Today group) and organize you actions in order of priority. I, for example, created groups for Next Actions, Waiting on and other GTD typical organizational method.
The web application is free and I paid USD $1.99 for the iPhone app. There is one free version available, but apparently it won't sync with the web version, which to me would not be enough for my needs. The app is also very well-built and the commands are a pleasure to learn and use.
There are different functionalities that are still under development (team collaboration, integration with e-mail services, gadgets, etc..), but the app is ready to use for those who just want a simple but flexible to-do list.
Check out Doris here.
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