Keyboard Karma Blog ~ Helen Crozier

Chapura Key Tasks adds Outlook category support for iPhone

Thank goodness. I swear to you I've been almost checking  my iphone three or four times a day waiting for this update. I was in bliss when Key Tasks appeared for Microsoft Outlook but without category support it was next to useless. Now it's there and it works I'm in heaven. Thank you Chapura... my only suggestion would have been to wait until you had it before you released. In plain english..if you have separate lists (like David Allen from GTD fame suggests) you can now have those lists appear in proper order on the phone - my lists are simple but necessary.

Here are mine....
@Calls
@Errands
@Home
@Work
@WaitingFor
Projects
Someday/Maybe

Now I can abandon all the other todo applications I had to use until this was sorted... yay!!!

Outlook Tasks on iPhone with Key Tasks from Chapura

UPDATE:
On June 20, 2009, KeyTasks and KeyNotes for iPhone OS were officially discontinued. This was a business decision business based on the conditions of the market.

No updates will be made to these products; however, they will be supported and the synchronization server will be available until June 20, 2010. Please note that because these products were discontinued, Chapura has no plans to provide future updates or enhancements to these products.

One of the things that gave me a heart attack when I picked up my iPhone was the realization that there was no synchronization of tasks from the desktop! I tried a few replacements but was not so happy that I had to stop using Outlook to manage my to-do list. I had been doing it for so many years - it was kind of hard to stop! Anyway I was working with toodledo - which synchronised at least to the web - meaning I didn't have to solely enter and manage the lists on the phone (I'm still pretty slow at typing on the phone ... please please please Mr Steve let us have a bluetooth keyboard!). It was working ok but didn't feel right to have to use something outside Outlook.

However.... on Friday night I discovered a little surprise! Chapura had released keytasks for the iPhone. Woohoo!! I was downloading it faster than the speed of light - excited about going back to my nice Outlook 2007/Getting Things Done lists!

I was unfortunately a little premature with my excitement. This version does not support categories. Oh dear!!! I find it impossible to work from one big long uncategorized list but tech support have promised that category support and a date problem fix will be coming asap in the next update. Can't wait.....

One nice benefit of the keytasks is that your tasks are synchronized to the 'cloud' on Chapura's server. You download free software for any of the computers you are using Outlook on and in a couple of minutes you are synchronizing away on auto pilot every 15 minutes. So technically I could have a computer at home and at the office plus a phone. When-ever I change my task lists by adding, deleting or completing etc the next time I use a computer it will synchronise and bring in the changes. Vice versa as well. This is what you pay $12.99 (in Australia) per year for.... The advantage is that if you dash out the door before synchronising via iTunes, you can still synchronize on the iphone itself and it will bring any new tasks down through the air. Bliss......and thank you Chapura - once the category support is here life will be restored to better than normal.

ps I've been a big fan of Chapura's Keysuite for Palm for many years - it gives you a much better interface and many more options than using just the inbuilt Palm calendar/contact/task & note applications

heathervescent & paperwork the GTD way

Check out this cool purple-haired LA geek-girl, heathervescent (great name!).  I particularly enjoyed  this video she made of filing papers the GTD (Getting Things Done) way. 

According to heather, David Allen said in the roadmap seminar she attended "It's OK to have a bucket labeled THINGS I DON'T WANT TO MAKE A DECISION ABOUT.

Look I think this is a very helpful thing to give ourselves permission on. So many times we are afraid to attack the piles because we don't know what we need or want to do NEXT with them. So I guess to gather them in a bucket or file is OK as he says... as long as we have it labeled and it doesn't get bigger than our house... and we check it out in our weekly review.