There are an abundance of applications out there such as Apple’s Calendar and Reminders, and a lot more third party apps to manage your time and sort your tasks. However, there are very few that I have ran into which focus specifically on managing your work appointments and tasks.
iPlan myTime ($1.99, App Store Link) by developer Urban Design does just that. The app displays all your tasks on a timeline, which makes it really easy to sort through the day and not to have to click back and forth though screens to see a whole day’s worth of your hours to manage.
Overview
You start by choosing the number of workdays that you work per week. You can choose anywhere from 5-7 days per week. Some people work less than 5 days a week. I’m not entirely sure why they left out anything less than 5, if for instance, someone only happens to work 4 days a week. You then choose a color scheme, either black or white. They chose black or white depending on what color iPhone you have, which also makes the interface more graphically rich by choosing the same color scheme. I was using it with both color schemes and they both looked just fine to me.
You’re then taken to the main menu where you can cycle through your daily tasks, delete or add a project, or go back to the setting. The main menu itself is very clean and laid out. The font reminds me of something you would see in a Windows Phone 7 interface, like a Segoe font. Once you add a new project title, you select the work date that you want to manage. You can choose anywhere from the hours of 9:00 am to 5:00 pm, though the management goes by a 24 hour clock, so 17.00 in that case.
Features
For each task you can select anywhere from 2 hours and up. The task can’t overlap each other of course. I did find it a little odd that you can’t make a task that’s less than 2 hours. A lot of people do have smaller tasks throughout their workday, but the format works well nonetheless. From the color wheel you can choose any color and apply it to a task, which will make it a lot easier to manage all of your tasks throughout the day or week. On the timeline you can zoom in and out on a task by pinching and zooming, adjust the number of hours by scrubbing the timeline or edit it by selecting that task, then the scissor icon. This will then bring up the options for that selected task.
Sharing
One thing about iPlan myTime, which you think you would be able to accomplish is to be able to export your tasks to icloud or convert them and import them to iCal or the Calendar app on your iPhone, or even import from Calendar to iPlan myTime. I think it’s just fine the way it’s set up because the whole point of this app is that everything is made exclusively to stay within the app. This makes managing, adding or deleting any task very simple both in an organizational and time wise. You can share your daily tasks by creating a desktop image, saving it to your camera roll, or sending it in an email, which works just fine for the simplicity of the app itself.
Conclusion
iPlan myTime is a great app that will help you immensely sort through your daily tasks and help you manage projects. The app is so simple to use no matter if your workday is a few hours long or all day. It is a minimal app. There aren’t a lot of options within iPlan myTime, so if you’re looking for something really in-depth to manage your day, you might need to look elsewhere. The app looks aesthetically pleasing. The interface is one of the best I’ve seen for creating tasks and managing them. If you tend to be somewhat unorganized or even if you think you need to organize your work day a little better, look no further than iPlan myTime.
Price: ($1.99, App Store Link)
Rating: 4/5[rating:4]
Pros:
- Clean interface
- Simple to manage tasks
- Ability to share timelines or export as a desktop image
Cons:
- No support for iCloud
