Chaos Control™: GTD Task List

I’ve tried setting up Trello, Todoist and Asana. I just didn’t have the time for all the bumbling trial and error. I hated the idea of completely giving up and working from an Excel “Project Lists” but at least that is a one and done for me. Thankfully yesterday I read about Chaos Control as a GTD app and decided to give it a shot. Wow! Is all I can say. Within 15 minutes I’ve entered my current tasks by context and am easily setting up my project folders. SUPER INTUITIVE for the way my brain works. I run a creative business from home, work outside the home, volunteer, have hobbies, personal goals, kids and a hubby. I’m believing I can finally get it all in one place! If you are looking for a simple and straightforward project/context/GTD app - give this a try!

I’ve just started (re)-using this app on my iPhone, iPad, and PC. Over the years, I’ve used well over a half dozen systems for task management. Every system works if you follow the system. Chaos Control makes that as easy as any. The app is attractive, versatile and easy to learn and use. I like the hierarchy of folders-projects-tasks, common to most good task managers but for the simplest of “list making” ones. I’ll call out just a few observations. I find the one-time purchase preferable to the subscription model of Todoist, and I like that I can sync across both Mac and Windows platforms, unlike Things. I very much like Things, but not presently using a Mac limits its use to the mobile versions. They do work nicely, but presently I need a way to make some relatively massive changes, and the desktop software of all the task managers — most having “drag-and-drop” — is much less cumbersome for that. However, I’ve not yet discovered a way to send emails to the Chaos box, a feature I use often in Things. The integration with Siri is useful for this. I have not yet discovered a way of batch importing my Things data to Chaos, not difficult to do in other task managers. I recommend Chaos Control for its basic function and clean interface, especially for those who like to organize workflow using a process such as GTD. There is one potential concern I have in today’s environment of data piracy, not specific to Chaos Control. If you use this or any app to sync information between machines, you might want to understand where and how your data is transmitted and stored.

Yet another company that things they have to change things that already work pefectly. They had a clean, well-organized interface that put all the necessary controls on the main screen. I’m looking at the old and new versions side-by-side on my two iPad minis: with the old version I see my 8 to-dos for today in the upper 2/3rds of the screen in nice bold print, along with 6 items from tomorrow’s list on the bottom third. With the new version there’s a lot of wasted white space, leaving room enough for only one of tomorrow’s items at the bottom -this is with the display options set for minimalist information. Old version: simple, highly readable and efficient. New version: a huge amount of wasted screen space and smaller print, making it both less readable and less efficient. If you write long sentences for your to-dos you might appreciate that the menu bars are no longer present on the left and right sides of the screen, but for those of us who express ourselves succinctly, the convenience is compromised by this change. The wasted vertical space is the major complaint I have about this upgrade.