Software review: The Hit List

December 5th, 2013

If you're a Mac user and seeking an easy way to manage your to-do list, I strongly recommend The Hit List. Here are some of the feature that I like most.

Multitude of shortcuts

Start entering a new task by simply hitting Enter on your keyboard. Once you typed the task name, hit Tab to select a start date and Tab again to select a due date (all optional). Hit Enter when done. You can select these dates even faster by using shortcuts such as "t" for today, "d" for tomorrow, "dd" for the day after, "5d" for 5 days, "2w" for 2 weeks and even "17" for the 17th of the month. You never need to touch your mouse.

When your task is complete, hit Spacebar and it will be marked as complete and play a cheerful sound to reward you. Because it's so easy to add your tasks, you'll be motivated to dump everything in there and liberate your mind. Having too many tasks on your mind that you don't write down is an important source of stress. Even if you're not going to do some of them, at least your mind no longer needs to track these anymore.

Organization

Writing down all these tasks can quickly turn into a clutter. Organize these tasks by dropping them into lists. For example, I use one list for each client, one for my conference ConFoo and another for all personal tasks. The software also creates an automatic list for everything due today, upcoming in the next 7 days, in the next 30 days and highlights everything that is overdue. On a personal note, I sometimes delete tasks when I realize that they are not important after all.

Overall, this software is lightweight with a clean interface. It adds so little overhead to task management that it's definitely worth using.

http://www.potionfactory.com/thehitlist/

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