Personally, I consider myself a “to-do list addict.” My daily routine begins with sorting through a list of things that I need/want to accomplish by day’s end, and later preparing my list for the next day. Fortunately, Android developers have been offering alternatives to the good old “pen and paper” approach since the early days of the operating system. Here’s a list of the six best to-do, checklist, and task applications currently available for Android.
1. Evernote: This one’s been around for about 5 years now, and has since become one of the most popular organizational apps in the Play Store. Through its suite of software and services designed to allow note-taking and archiving of important information, it has quickly gained the respect of users everywhere. It’s got a very sleek design and although there are tons of fancy features, you don’t have to take full advantage of all of them to get something out of the application. Personally, I use it as a text editor to create and manage all of my lists, and have them easily synced between my phone and PC. I make use of the great widgets that the app offers to easily view my lists. Another great feature is the browser mode, so if you’re using a computer without the Evernote software, you can just visit their website, log in, and all your notes are right there for you to access.
There is a “Premium” subscription to Evernote that costs $5/month or $45/year, which offers 1GB of upload capacity per month, searching in PDFs and documents, a Related Notes feature, offline mode, PIN lock protection, more collaboration features, no in-app promotions, and more. Your account can be upgraded to “Premium” once you set up your free account.
2. Astrid Tasks & To-do List: One great thing about Astrid is that although there is a ton of functionality, the sometimes unnecessary features don’t quite jump out at you like they do in Evernote. It comes across as a very simple and clean list manager, and that’s exactly what it is. Users can swiftly switch between their lists using the top task bar, share their lists with friends, classmates, family members, and co-workers, and can even “divvy up tasks” between users to take a “divide and conquer” approach to your to-do list. This is great for family members managing household chores, or a team working on a project. It’s simple to add descriptions, set reminders and even more. Best of all, it uses Google sign-in, so you don’t have to worry about remembering more usernames and passwords. The Chrome extension is great as well, and makes the application useful across multiple platforms. If there were a text editor to make my lists more flexible and more “free-flowing,” I might have switched to Astrid a long time ago— but after writing this guide I’m definitely thinking about it again!
3. Google Keep: This one is still only a few months old and still in its infancy— but knowing the way that Google does things, it will most likely be one of the top task-apps in the Play Store in no time. Google Keep allows users to quickly jot down a note and recall it easily across multiple platforms because it offers Google Drive sync. It’s simple to create a checklist, enter a voice note, or take a picture with your phone’s camera and annotate it. Users can color-code notes to make them easier to locate as well. When comparing this product to the others in this list, it’s very basic, but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t offer the perfect amount of functionality for certain users. As a lightweight note-taker, Google Keep is great and is likely only going to get better.
4. Any.DO: Aside from the basic features of any to-do list manager application, Any.DO offers users the ability to snooze upcoming tasks, sync with Google Tasks, take notes and collaborate with other users. Its gorgeous interface only adds to the reasons that this is a personal assistant worth using. There’s a pretty nice calendar feature as well that users can take advantage of to organize their tasks.
5. Todoist: To Do List, Task List: This one offers most of the same feature as the other apps listed above, but one thing that makes this application stand out is its ability to look at an overview of a period of days. Users can easily see what’s coming up on their plate in the next day, week, month, or even longer. Todoist allows users to place tasks in different categories to separate them from one another. It’s simple to add new notes, change to the menu by swiping, set priority levels of tasks, easily cross off completed tasks, and more. The app offers great looking interactive widgets that are very useful and have a great amount of functionality. There’s a nice tablet version of the app as well and its syncing capabilities make it a great fit for any user. The only downside is you won’t get notifications or the use of labels and filters, task notes, SSL encryption, access to iCalendar, task searching, and the ability to add emails as tasks unless you sign up for the paid service which can run as much as $29.99 per year. For more information about this app, check out our recent review.
6. Task Radar – Task List: Task Radar is an intuitive and brilliant concept. Tasks are set in order of priority and as deadlines approach, Task Radar automatically re-prioritizes the list. The “Radar Scope” view is extremely unique, allowing users to look at tasks on an actual radar to get line of sight to incoming deadlines. The radar range is flexible as well, as it can change from anywhere from 8 hours to 8 days. Task icons can be added to tasks as well so users can easily identify them. Although it doesn’t feature the amount of functionality the other applications do, Task Radar is definitely worth checking out for its cool features. The app is free, but there is a paid version that removes ads. It’s definitely something different and sometimes it’s nice to shake things up a bit!
Play Store Download Link – Free
Play Store Download Link – Paid
Honorable Mention: GTasks, Wunderlist, Google Tasks (Gmail), Remember the Milk, Toodledo
The Google Play Store is full of other task/to-do apps, so there are plenty more to pick from than just these. These are just the few that top my list. Did any of your personal favorites not make the list? Let us know in the comments!
Come comment on this article: Best To-Do, Checklist, and Task Applications for Android [May 2013]
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