How to Use the iPhone as a Planner
November 17, 2008 · Print This Article
In June I asked the question: Will the New iPhone 3G be a Good Planner?. I didn’t have an iPhone myself back then, as it wasn’t available where I live. Since august I’ve been using one though, so this is a good moment to get back to that question and see how the iPhone holds up to the expectations I had back then. A lot of people visited this website because they searched for “iPhone planner” in Google, so I guess there’s quite some interest in such thing.
To my knowledge there is no application that can do everything you need to create a waterproof planning system. But can you make your iPhone a good planner by combining a few applications? This was one of the main reasons why I bought an iPhone in the first place. I was using a Moleskine weekly planner at the time to hold my appointments and to-do lists. I used iCal mainly for setting reminders. I played around with different GTD applications, but they didn’t provide enough value as they only worked on my computer.
What Should a Planning System do?
Before we get into the practical stuff, what should a planning system actually do? I want to be able to use it for three things:
- Keeping track of my appointments: the ‘hard landscape’ - things that are fixed to a set time or a deadline.
- Making to-do lists: I like to use some elements of David Allens Getting Things Done (GTD) system.
- Setting reminders: Things that I want to be actively reminded of and don’t go on my to-do list.
Create the Perfect iPhone Planner
- I use iCal on my laptop as well as my iPhone. It syncs perfectly well. And since my iPhone goes with me wherever I go I don’t have the need for a paper calendar anymore. I really loved my Moleskine planner, but the fact that it didn’t sync with my Mac was what made me look for something else. If you are like me and you really like to write with your fountain pen on smooth paper you might miss this. But I always carry a notebook with me for note-taking and brainstorming anyway.
- OmniFocus by the Omni Group is a great application for storing my to-do lists. It’s designed as a GTD application and I’m not really using its complete functionality. If you have some knowledge about GTD you know about ‘projects’ and ‘contexts’: Everything consisting of more than one task is a project. And every task is carried out within a context, like email, errands, meetings.
And… there is an iPhone version of OmniFocus! And since I got my hands on it I’ve hardly used the desktop version, which stays perfectly in sync via Mobile Me (I use it mainly for my weekly reviews).This is how I use it: I enter a task, assign it to a project, set the context and due date and hit ‘Save’. When a task is due soon it automatically becomes available in the ‘Due Soon’ list, which means I have about three more days before reaching the due date. This way I never miss a task anymore. That is, if I look at the list regularly.
OmniFocus is not free, and it might seem a bit overwhelming if you don’t know about GTD and if you just want a to-do list. There are several applications available for the iPhone which can provide you with just that, but what makes OmniFocus so valuable for me is the ‘Due Soon’ list I just described. - Now this is were it becomes a bit less exciting, as I didn’t find a good solution for setting reminders as of yet. For now I’m using iCal, but I don’t like having these reminder events in my calendar. I just want something that allows me to set multiple reminders which say ‘Pling! Don’t forget [...] !’. Does something like that exist? If you know please tell me. I’ve been told it has to do with the fact that third party applications can’t run in the background on your iPhone, so there is no way for them to warn you when you’re writing an sms for instance.
Still Using Paper?
I’ve been fairly happy with my iPhone and it’s planning capabilities. I still carry around a notebook though. I look at OmniFocus to see which tasks are due soon, and write down a few tasks for the day. Because the list is always long, I have to take a few things to focus on. And I still like using pen and paper, and marking those check boxes by hand.
Do you use the iPhone as a planner? Are you using a totally different system? What works well for you? Please leave a comment and let me know.
Photo by Johan Larsson
I’ve had my iPhone for about 8 months now and really love it. I’ll have to check out OmniFocus. Looks quite promising.
Thanks, Hugo, for the great ideas! Eric.
Well Eric, I really like OmniFocus as you might have read
Are you familiar with David Allens book Getting Things Done? If you’re not I highly suggest reading it first, it explains the system and makes OmniFocus very easy to use. I don’t think it’s perfect, but I really like the basic idea.
Thanks for your comment!
I have had my iPhone for a few months now. I tried using it as an all-in-one planner, but I am having a hard time switching back to electronic from pencil and paper. I had switched to a paper system because I have too many disparate operating systems and computers that I am on daily. I have no choice but to operate on all of them, and sometimes switching workstations is too much work at that instant. So it is easier to pop open the planner and jot it down.
The applications that I did try out on the iPhone are Things, Zenbe Lists, and EverNote. All three are excellent, but since I keep my system on paper, Zenbe Lists is really the only one that has remained in general use. It is handy since it syncs with the web-based Zenbe account, so I can access it from iPhone or any web browser. However, it is not full-featured enough (yet, Zenbe is coming out with some other apps… soon) to use for a GTD and calendar replacement.
Overall, I love my iPhone, but I love my paper-based system even better. The paper goes with me everywhere and there is never an issue with battery life or any of the other fun problems with electronics.
Nice setup ideas.
If you’d like a tool for setting your goals, you can use this web application:
http://www.Gtdagenda.com
You can use it to manage your goals, projects and tasks, set next actions and contexts, use checklists, schedules and a calendar.
@Ian: I understand your choice for paper very well, I hadn’t been using a paper planner for years since the beginning of this year, and I really liked it. I have to say I don’t really like the static feeling those electronic devices have.
I really wanted it to sync with my computer though, as I’m working on it a lot and want to be able to use iCal. The ultimate system for me would be a paper planner which would sync with my computer though.
Are you using an application to set reminders on your iPhone? As you’ve read in the article, that’s one thing I’m still looking for.
Thanks for your contribution!
@Dan: That looks fine, but how will it be an improvement to my current system?
I’d argue that this isn’t planning, it’s *execution*. I think of planning as the process of working out the steps to take to make a project happen. That is, the precursor to getting to the point where the fine tools you mention come into play. For planning in this sense, the iPhone is virtually useless (this from an avid iPhone lover!) Just my 2c
Related: Simple Project Planning For Individuals: A Round-up
http://matthewcornell.org/2008/10/simple-project-planning-individuals-a-round.html
That’s a very good point, Matthew. I think it’s somewhere in between planning and execution, as using OmniFocus to break things down into several tasks to be done later falls into the planning stage.