This guest post is the first in a series where people answer the simple question “How do you Ikiru?” – describing what they use Ikiru for, and how it helps them in their daily lives.
As a professional writer, Ikiru is the task management app I’ve been searching for. I know Ikiru is—at it’s heart—a list app, but the features added that make it the next generation of Paperless allow me to easily orchestrate over 100 writing projects a year, plus track hundreds of smaller tasks. I now spend most of my day happily working in Ikiru.
The joy of so much organized space in one place.
A great thing I find about Ikiru is that I can keep most of my work in one app now. Previously I had an app for taking notes, an app for keeping lists, an app for tracking projects. All did their job well, but none integrated in any way. In addition to all the writing projects and tasks, Ikiru keeps a list of my meeting notes (and many have a whiteboard photo attached), cheat sheets for how to use various software and a checklist for posting to social channels. If a project needs to move into another app, I add a URL or iOS URL to the note. I can tap on this link and go directly to where the project has moved. It’s a comfort have Ikiru turn into a command center for my work day.
How I organize Ikiru.
Being a very flexible lists-within-lists app, there are many ways you can organize inside Ikiru. Since I have many regularly-scheduled projects like weekly blog articles, marketing emails, brochures and eBooks, I categorized my top-level lists by project type. So the blog article list contains all articles I’m currently writing and all notes future ideas. When a project is published, I just mark it completed and it sinks down the list. The swipe is so much more gratifying than the Paperless checkbox.
How I do Ikiru’s Due.
Over the years I developed a shorthand for the status of a project, which works fine in Ikiru. If a project is in my court, I use ! followed by what I’m supposed to do next. If it’s in someone else’s court for approval, layout etc, I use @ followed by who’s court it’s in And what they need to do. It’s a handy system to know where each projects sits, my next step and who I need to bump if things get snagged. At the top of the item I add the final due date, then use Ikiru’s Due system to remind me when I have to complete the next step by.
The Due list is definitely Ikiru’s killer feature. Just tap the clock icon from the main screen and you get one simple list of what’s due today, overdue from yesterday or on the horizon for tomorrow. It helps me to stack up my day and prioritize. I do find myself forever moving due dates to tomorrow or next week. You’d think this would be a hindrance, but since I’m juggling projects, some over a year out, I find it helps me to reassign priority to what really needs it at the moment and keeps things from falling through the cracks.
My take.
Within the few short weeks that Ikiru has been out, it’s been a great stress reliever for me. Projects that were getting lost and timelines that were getting ignored, aren’t anymore. Finding projects and ideas is now much easier. And all my lists and notes are finally in one place. Ikiru has managed to merge simplicity, organization and productivity all into one nice little iPad app. It certainly makes my day go smoother.
Want to share how you use Ikiru? Send your “How do you Ikiru?” submission to feedback@crushapps.com. Submissions can be anything from a paragraph to a full page, and can include screenshots – or even a list you think others would find useful. Please specify whether you’d like your name included along with a link to your website, or if you’d like it to be posted anonymously.
