Things for Mac, iPhone, and iPad

Things, by Cultured Code, is a well-known time management system structured around tags. Things comes in three flavors:  a Mac version ($49.95); an iPhone/iPod Touch version ($9.99), and an iPad version ($19.99).  All three are priced separately, so if you own a Mac, an iPhone, and an iPad, and want Things on all three, you’ll be spending $79.93. Things, like many other task management applications, is designed to work with David Allen’s Getting Things Done (GTD) system, though you don’t have to know GTD in order to use it.

Things for Mac

Things for Mac opens with a beautiful, Apple-like, minimalist screen.

On the left side is a column that contains your lists: Inbox; Focus Areas (Today, Next, Scheduled, Someday, and Projects); Active Projects; Areas; People; Logbook; and Trash. The Inbox is where you can do your brain dump—quickly entering to-dos without thinking about categorizing, assigning due dates, etc. You can use the “quick entry” button to do this. The Focus Areas are where you can manage your to-dos. Tasks that require immediate attention are found in Today. “Next” lists all the items that are coming up soon. You can organize these by date or use other filters.

Scheduled is for items that don’t require your immediate attention. Instead, you can assign a date for starting the task—a week from now, a month from now, on a particular date, etc. These tasks won’t show up in your lists until then. Someday is for items you plan to do eventually, but have no real starting date and no real deadline. Projects are for tasks that require multiple steps to complete.

Areas of Responsibility are ongoing responsibilities, such as family, work, health, etc. You can include both projects and tasks in an Area. For example, I created an Area of Responsibility called “School,” which includes projects and tasks related to my job as a university professor.

All of your completed tasks are recorded for posterity in your Logbook. I must say, it’s a nice feeling to pull out the Logbook every once in awhile just to see what I’ve accomplished. And, for many people, a Logbook is a necessity.

Creating a task is quite simple. You can click on the quick entry button (which will automatically post the task in the Inbox), or you can click on the “new” button (which allows you to assign the task to a particular project). To add a new project or area of responsibility, click on the plus button at the bottom of the left column and choose from the drop down menu. You can also add tasks while you’re in other applications using the quick entry key combo (control, option, space) or by dragging text onto the application icon in your dock. If you use Launchbar, you can add items really quickly by typing “addth” (or something similar) and typing your task.

Things allows you to attach documents, emails, and other attachments in the notes section of each task/project simply by dragging and dropping. You can open these items from within Things when you need to access them.

You can organize tasks by dragging and dropping. So, if you want to move a task from the Inbox to a project, just drag it there. You can also move multiple items from one place to another using the file button.

Things for iPhone

Things for iPhone is a very simple application. The main screen is essentially the left column of the Mac version with all your areas and projects listed. You can add a new to-do by pressing the plus button which brings up a clean, minimalist entry screen. You access tasks and projects by pressing the appropriate item, and your screen shifts to the right, drilling down from project/area, to task, to details of the task. The project/area screen allows you to add tasks, star items, move items, or filter by tags. The info screen for an individual task lists any tags, the due date, and offers options for listing the item in Today, moving it to another project or area, or sending it via email. The iPhone version of Things uses the limited screen of the iPhone efficiently, but it doesn’t offer some of the nicer features of other task management programs like filtering via location services. You can sync the iPhone version with your Mac, but only via WiFi.

Things for iPad

Things for iPad provides a much better user interface than the iPhone version. It revolves around a pad of paper theme (complete with page turning animations), and utilizes the full screen (especially in portrait) beautifully. In landscape view, the iPad mimics the Mac version of Things with a column on the left side that contains your lists (Inbox, Areas, Projects, etc.). The main portion of the screen is devoted to the “pad” which lists the tasks associated with the lists in the columns. So, if you touch the Today list, the pad will contain all the tasks due today. The motif changes with the Projects list. Instead of the pad theme, you see icons that look like notebooks containing the various projects. Press on any one of these and the project with its to-dos pops up.

The iPad version is gorgeous, with the exception of the projects view. The notebook icons are just ugly—tan graph-paper covers with black spines and corners. Yuck. And although I’m sure the creator of the icons meant to make the notebooks look like they’re stacked on other notebooks, the result looks cluttered. Considering the streamlined aesthetics of the rest of the application, the project icons just don’t fit.

I also wish you could drag and drop items in the iPad version. It just seems a shame that the iPad’s interface isn’t used more effectively by developers. I should be able to move an item from the inbox (or anywhere else) into a project (or other area) simply by dragging it with my finger.

What’s Macgasmic: Things is, simply put, beautiful. On all three platforms, you will find a clean, polished UI with smooth transitions between screens. Things offers almost everything GTD-ers would want—an inbox, a place to focus (Today), scheduling to-dos and projects for a later time, the someday/maybe folder, etc. Those who love tags-based organizational systems will love Things.

Although Things does not offer cloud-based syncing (see below), the WiFi syncing between the Mac, iPhone and iPad, is fast and works well. Once you set up the syncing, the Mac will automatically recognize when your iPhone or iPad version of Things is running and will sync items almost instantaneously. It’s seamless and impressive.

Of the three platforms, I like the iPad version of Things the best. There’s just something about the dark gray background and the colorful icons in contrast that makes the application pop. The developers make full use of the screen and the animations are a delight to the eye.

What’s Not: I’m pretty sure there are two types of GTD people in the world: those who like tags and those who like nested folder structures. These two types of people will never get along and will never agree. They are the Hatfields and McCoys of the GTD homestead. Just look in on the discussion forums at Cultured Code and Omnifocus. Those who complain loudest at Cultured Code consistently beg the developers for nested folder structure. Those who complain loudest at Omnifocus beg for tags.

Me? I like nested folders. I think in outlines—so kill me. I find tagging a messy, unstructured exercise in futility. With tags, I feel like I have to come up with a dozen words to describe a to-do or I’ll never find it again. Now, I know you tag-people will tell me I’m doing it wrong, but I’m just not comfortable with tags. For this reason, I’ll probably never use Things as my todo manager, even though I really, really want to like it. Those of you who are tags people (*cough* Joshua Schnell *cough*) can stick with Things. Those of us who are not . . . can you hear Omnifocus calling?

Aside from the tags issue, there are other things I find annoying about Things. I wish the quick entry button would allow you to add a bunch of to-dos in your inbox without having to reopen it every time. As it is, you do a quick entry, press enter, and the box closes. So you have to click it again to bring it up. In Appigo’s Todo, for example, you can add a bunch of tasks all at once without having to re-open the quick entry window.

As I mentioned above, Things does not offer cloud-based syncing, which, for some people, might be a deal breaker. If you rely on being able to sync your mobile gadgets with your Mac, and you can only do this when connected to a WiFi network, you probably won’t be happy with this limitation.

Some other frustrating omissions include the fact that you can only create repeating tasks in Today, Next, and Scheduled. You cannot create repeating tasks within projects. Why? I have no idea, but a little pop up notification in the Mac version states that this will be fixed in the future. In addition, Things does not allow you to distinguish between sequential tasks and parallel tasks. Sometimes project tasks must happen in a particular order; sometimes tasks can be completed in any order. It is nice to be able to set up a project as a sequential-task project or a parallel-task project, but in Things you can’t do it. Things also does not allow you to set up Growl notifications or any sort of alarms. Many GTD-ers complain about the fact that Things does not provide a dedicated Context list. The GTD system makes contexts (the places where you work on your tasks) a central organizational feature. Although you can certainly create context tags, this omission from the program is a bit puzzling.

In terms of aesthetics, Things is really one of the most beautiful applications out there. But, I do wish the developers offered more options. If you click on the settings in any iteration of Things, you will find very few choices. You can’t change the font; you can’t change any colors. Basically, the only thing you can determine is what shows up in the badge count and when items are logged.

I’ve run into an interesting problem whilst using Things alongside my iPad and iPhone. When Things is running on my Mac, sometimes it randomly (?) tries to sync with the other two gadgets, even though they aren’t on. The syncing dialog pops up and runs and runs and runs. In fact, while writing this review, the sync dialog popped up multiple times. I’m not sure if this is just a temporary glitch or a bug in the program, but it is annoying.

One last thing. I’ve prowled around the discussion forums and I’ve read several reviews of Things both on iTunes and elsewhere. Two complaints resurface over and over. First, many customers are frustrated at the slow pace of the app’s development. Certain features (like cloud syncing) apparently were promised a long time ago but have not been delivered. Second, people on the forums complain that their concerns, comments, and suggestions receive rude responses from the Cultured Code team. In other words, customers do not feel they are being treated well, at least on the forums. Customer service is part of the package when you commit yourself to a task management suite of applications. If you’re considering purchasing Things, you might want to check out the forums and see for yourself whether or not you will find the technical and professional support you need.

Download Things for Mac

Download Things for iPhone/iPod Touch

Download Things for iPad

**This reviewer was provided review copies of Things for Mac and Things for iPad. I already owned a copy of Things for iPhone. Thanks to Cultured Code for generously providing these review copies.