ListPro: Because Life Is One Long List Of Things...

There is one business application for my Treo called ListPro to which I have become completely addicted – in fact I wonder how I ever managed to track and get things done before…

As its name suggests, ListPro (available for both PalmOS and WM5) allows you to create lists of pretty much anything you want – from your daily schedule to your shopping – and can be used for all types of information management.  The Professional Edition that I use has the added benefit of an essential desktop client which I update constantly throughout the day.

I currently have four top-level folders with over 50 lists each (left column in the image below) with tens or hundreds or items.  Among others, I use ListPro to keep track of all the accessories and applications that I want to evaluate and I particularly like the fact that I can simply and easily drag & drop any item within the list.

You can easily add Notes for each individual item and also have the option to customize an unlimited number of column fields.  There are also many pre-built templates from which to choose with simple checklists to more complex travel and expenses lists.

After using ListPro for a while I realized that I could create a simple template to keep track of my daily/weekly tasks in a way that I found much more practical than the standard PalmOS or Outlook ‘Tasks’.

I devised a simple list (below) with a Weekly header and indented Monday to Sunday sub-levels each of which contain the same four daily repetitive tasks – Quick Calls/To Do’s, Post, Project(s) and Long Calls.  I can then easily tick or delete completed tasks or instead drag and drop them to another day if I need to postpone a particular activity.

Having previously tried all sorts of other solutions – from a simple Excel sheet to more expensive and complex programs – this is the first time that I’ve actually managed to have a tool truly adapt to my needs.

Using ListPro on your Treo (screenshots above) is equally simple.  I personally prefer to input all the data on my laptop and use my Treo to view the data on the road but I can easily add a couple of items here and there while on the go which will be synchronized on my next HotSync.

Overall I couldn’t recommend ListPro more highly – particularly if you’ve been struggling to make sense, keep track and actually take care of the hundreds if not thousands of things that make up your daily work and personal life.  At least for me ListPro is a fabulous application that I’m not uninstalling anytime soon – it fully deserves to be in my Top 100 Treo Applications list.

Treonauts are always looking for the best…