Need an Online Day Planner/To Do List with Times

December 19, 2010 1:46 PM

I'm looking for an online day planner that lets you schedule your To Dos. I like to plan my day by assigning a time estimate to each to do item and then sticking it somewhere in my daily calendar. For example: "laundry" 1-2:30PM.

I realize that you may just say 'well use a calendar!', but I love the satisfaction I get from checking a box and seeing an item crossed out!

I love TeuxDeux, as it's pretty simple, includes the 'Someday' lists at the bottom, and automatically moves things over to the next day, but doesn't let you put things into a time grid.

Nice to haves: subtasks, 'raw' to dos without any times assigned to them, scheduling down to the closest 15 mins, automatic refreshing that also shows if you're behind schedule.

posted by kjhosein to computers & internet (6 answers total)

Google calendars is great for this and you can even set it up to do email or text notifications.
posted by moojoose at 2:50 PM on December 19, 2010

Seconding Google Calendars. If you really need a thing to cross off or rid yourself of, use the email notifications as your checkbox, and moving them from your inbox as the completion of the task.
posted by Rendus at 2:56 PM on December 19, 2010

Toodledo allows you to assign start and due dates and times, durations, tasks without dates and times. I highly recommend it. You can set up a subscription from a calendar app to your Toodledo tasks, but I have not tested how well this works. This is all free. You get subtasks if you buy a pro membership.

Google Calendar is a poor solution for this problem.
posted by grouse at 3:25 PM on December 19, 2010 [1 favorite]

Thirding google calendar. Set up a separate calendar called "completed", which you switch the tasks to when they are done. They change colour! Very satisfying!

You're left with a record of what you did every day, which you can refer to later. You can also add notes about the details of what happened.

Raw to-dos go in arbitrary timeslots a week or two in the future. Eventually their time comes around and you are forced to either do it or move it into the future again, which is a nice way to stay aware of the tasks that you are putting off.
posted by jeffj at 4:43 PM on December 19, 2010

Hehe, I guess I shouldn't have planted the 'subliminal' solution of a calendar in my question!

@grouse - I looked at Toodledo and as much as I find their interface pretty 'busy', I tried it out, but didn't find that 'day planner' mode that I'm really after.

Interesting idea @jeffj. I might end up having to give that a go after all.

Keep the ideas coming folks! Thanks!
posted by kjhosein at 12:15 AM on December 20, 2010

Ok, I give. I'm going to give Toodledo another shot, and give up (at least for now) on my little day planner idea as it somewhat conflicts with GTD philosophy and well, I can't find a good simple solution. I'll just have to do a huge reset on my GTD setup and get everything into TD instead.

BTW, I did find more than a few people unhappy with TD's styling, and who went the extra mile to fix it up (via CSS). Good options include styles at:
* userstyles.org (search for 'Toodledo')
* via the Stylish Firefox/Chrome extension
* via Greasemonkey scripts

Cheers!
posted by kjhosein at 1:53 PM on January 6, 2011