SmartTime Gives You More Time to Get Your Life In Order

Left Coast’s SmartTime+ (Calendar, ToDos, GTD), a to-do, calendar and task manager, is one of the more complete and flexible apps of this kind in the App Store, at least you’ll think so if you’re just not into time, like me.

When I looked at Left Coast Logic’s SmartTime 1.3 last November, I came away impressed. That says a lot, because in general, I don’t like task scheduling and managers, and $9.99 is starting to get up there pricewise for an app that I think I might not use for very long.

If you tend to be organized, and willing to religiously enter your to-dos and appointments into an app, SmartTime + should be among your top considerations.

With SmartTime+ you have flexibility to easily organize items on your schedule, prioritize them, accommodate unexpected changes and integrate tasks by simply dragging them. SmartTime+ gives you different views of items on your schedule: Smart, Calendar and Focus to display your items by color codes, by day and by priority.

The reason I’m not keen on organizer apps is that I lack discipline. I haven’t found an app  that is so easy to use and thinks the same way I do that I’ll use it without giving it much thought, but SmartTime+ is as close as I’ve found.

What I like a lot about SmartTime+ is that I can synchronize events and tasks with my Google calendar account, which saves time and effort. It’s one-way, but that’s a good start. SmartTime also links meeting locations to Google maps, and that’s a pretty cool thing too. I also can create event alerts in SmartTime+ and get them through Google or as a text or email.

If you can make entering information easy in an app – not just apps for time travelers like this one – then you’re already a step ahead of most other apps in my book. SmartTime+ sucks up my contact names, gives me one-tap icons for action items and one-button phone dialing from items on my lists.

Now that I’ve put SmartTime+ (Calendar, ToDos, GTD), through my iPhone-o-meter and calibrated the results, I’m going to be hanging onto this one for a while and see if I can really get serious about getting rid of all the Post-Its, napkins, and scraps of paper where I currently stash my life’s work.