This month I've been testing Actions by Moleskine, though in actual fact I only actually tested it for a week as that's how long the free trial was for. Obviously this app probably works best for someone who uses it in conjunction with a Moleskine diary or bullet journal, but I wanted to see if it would be a good application for tasks in it's own right. If you wanted to use it long term you would have to become a member. However, it's actually not that expensive at £1.79 per month or £10.99 a year.
Like most of the apps I've tested so far this one is pretty intuitive. When you open it up there are three main pages. The first, which is also the default page, is the Schedule page. This holds all your activities for the upcoming days, which it gets from your calendar if you agree to link the two pieces of software up at the start, and the tasks that you put in.
The page on the left is the Logbook. This shows all the tasks that you have completed in date order.
The page on the right is the Lists page and this holds all the tasks that you have categorized into specific subjects, such as dinner, blog, etc. Here both those active and completed can be found which makes it a good way of keeping an eye on projects with sub-tasks. Each list is given a different colour which is then shown in the Schedule and Logbook pages.
The menu symbol at the bottom takes you to Actions where you can get help, change your account details, go over how the system works, and pay for your membership. It's also where you can change the colour scheme and whether the pages are set up as 'night' or 'day' by click on the symbols at the bottom of the page.
Adding a task is pretty simple, just click on the cross at the bottom and type in the name before clicking enter.
At this point you can also add in the date and if the task needs to repeat;
Add it to a list;
And add a reminder if you need to.
Though all of these can be added later on by just double clicking on the task. Once you've completed a task you swipe it left and it disappears from Schedule to be added to your Logbook.
Any tasks you don't complete automatically get added to the next day and, something I really like about this app, the date the task was originally meant for is shown with the task. This allows you to see tasks that just keep getting shunted day after day, giving you the opportunity to decide whether it's worth keeping it on, whether you need to assign a specific time slot to it, or whether you should just delete it all together. (To delete a task just double click on it and you'll see delete on the bottom left.)
And that's it really. It is a really good, simple app and I would say probably worth the less then £2 a month you would have to pay for it. I do really like the way this app adds details from your calendar as it means you can see everything in one place, making it easier to schedule in your tasks and giving you the same feel as you would get with a physical diary. However, as with the other apps I didn't like the way the days ran into each other as you scroll down the page. Again, this makes me feel like I would probably add too many tasks to one day if I wasn't being careful and a prefer at bit more structure to my planning than that.
At the moment, with these types of apps I think the Microsoft To-Do is still coming out on top for me just because of it's layout, it's link to my other accounts, and how you start each day afresh, pulling in your tasks for the day yourself. It's also free which is always good. However, out of all the apps Teux Deux is still coming out on top.
Next month I'm going to try a pretty simple task app called Tick Tick that I found on my Google Store to see how that does compared to the more fancy well known ones. Will probably do a few of these over the next few months.
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