Getting Organized: Apps to Keep You On Task

The beginning of a new year inspires me to try to be more organized. Like most people I know, I faithfully use Evernote and Pocket to keep all my research filed and accessible. Both are free, beautifully designed, easy-to-use robust organizational tools that are happy on my desktops, smartphones, and tablets.

But when it comes to project management, there are so many great apps to help create to-do lists and plan tasks. Here are three I’ve used recently:

Online project management with Trello lets you create public and private boards, share multimedia, and collaborate in realtime. This free app works nicely on desktops and mobile devices and the design is beautiful. One drawback (for me) is the inability to delete boards/projects once created.

If you want to create lists to work on with others, Catch is a free “mobile collaboration” app for smartphones. It’s useful for creating lists of tasks and ideas and sharing them with a group. Mark Wilson just reviewed this app for FastCompany and concluded, “it’s become one of the best collaborative apps around.”

If you’re an iOS/Mac user, then Wunderlist is really worth a look. Beyond the stunning design that makes lists painless to compile and very easy on the eyes, this app sends reminder notifications to you via email or in-app, and enables teams to collaborate via lists. And it’s also free.

New year, new projects, and an old challenge: keeping tasks tamed! I hope you find one of these tools helpful to manage your day.