Yes, yet another todo application for the iPhone. Why bother? Honestly, I didn’t. I stumbled upon it in AppSniper and, since it was free, I downloaded it. What a stroke of luck! I’m using it for nearly two weeks now and I am more than pleased by the design and usability of this little productivity helper. It has all the features I want from a decent todo application.

• Detached todos
• Priorities for todos
• Search through the complete todo and project list
• Sorting of todo lists and projects. Can be activated by tilting the iPhone
• Quickly enter new todos by copying other entries
• Projects with separate todo lists, notes and contacts
• Automatic archiving of completed todos
• Different views on projects and todo lists with filtering for completed entries
• Sync with Google Calendar
• Nice built-in help

Personally, I do not need the syncing capabilities with Google Calendar, and I haven’t tried it. But it should be pretty straight forward. Just enter your credentials in the iPhone’s settings and tap the big sync button. Syncing seems to be an important feature for most iPhone users, therefore I added it to the list above. Most of you will be aware of the possibility of syncing your Google Calendar with desktop applications like Microsoft Outlook.

What is much more important to me than syncing is the start-up time and the possibility of quickly entering new todos. Also the search capabilities are important to get a quick status of my various projects. All these work perfectly in TouchTodo.

The possibility of organising your todos in projects is also a big plus of TouchTodo. I try to organize all of my todos in projects, since the most important thing for me is to bring my projects forward. I am not a big fan of the Getting Things Done method (GTD) as proposed by David Allen. For those of you following David Allen’s approach the Things application might be better suited, though I haven’t tried it yet.

TouchTodo is also a great complement to GoalKeep.

This is exactly what GoalKeep is good for. Define your goal by writing it down and then check off each day whether you did something to reach your goal. After a few days you will see a chain of check marks in GoalKeep’s calendar view. You will be proud of yourself and this will give you the motivation not to break that chain.

I know this may sound a bit theatrical, but I think this little app really has the power to change your life. In the last weeks I succeeded in remaining a vegetarian. Moreover, I am exercising every day and formed other habits which seemed important to me. Though it is really too early to tell whether the success is sustainable, I wholeheartedly recommend this little app to you. It is well worth its price.

Here is how I use it.

• I open GoalKeep each morning and go through my life goals and plan the actions I want to take that particular day. This encourages me to go after my goals.
• Throughout the day I take my baby steps I planned in the morning.
• At the end of the day I add a little check mark to the chain.

As the app description states, it is really a great motivator to have a visual feedback and see what you have done in the past to reach your goals. 

And remember, don’t break the chain.