Manage Tasks on Android with SimpleDo

Productivity Sauce

There are dozens of tasks managers on the Android Market, but SimpleDo rules them all. Why? Because it combines simplicity and versatility.

SimpleDo is inspired by the TaskPaper tool which stores task data in a plain text file. Similar to TaskPaper, SimpleDo uses easy-to-remember formatting to recognize and format tasks. Each task in SimpleDo starts with a hyphen and any text entered on a new line is treated as a note. You can tag tasks using the @ character; for example, @work, @home, @writing, etc. When you add the @done tag to the task, SimpleDo marks it as completed. Instead of adding the @done tag manually, you can swipe your finger from left to right across the task. To assign a date to the task, double-click on it and choose the set date command. The task manager lets you group tasks into projects. To create a new project, enter its name followed by a colon (:). SimpleDo can handle multiple lists, so, you can, for example, keep your work and private tasks in separate lists. To create a new list, press the Menu button, choose Manage Files, and press the create a list button. You can then switch between different lists using the Menu -> Select List command. To back up your lists, press the Menu button, choose Manage Files, select the lists you want to back up, and press the export selected files to your sdcard button.

The Menu -> Filter by Tag command lets you view all your tasks grouped by tags. Here you can use the tag filter to display tasks containing a specific filter.

While SimpleDo doesn't have all the bells and whistles of other task managers, it's its simplicity that makes it such a great app. SimpleDo's straight-to-the-point design lets you focus on managing your tasks instead of wasting time on learning features you might never use. Now if only it had a synchronization feature...