Jess Lively

Up to this point I have been a devoted paper to-do list and calendar girl – because when my palm pilot in ninth grade lost all of my information, I vowed only to use ink.

However, over Thanksgiving I thought that I lost my planner on a train back from St. Louis which caused a level yellow panic. I instantly regretted that my information was all tied up in that little pink book.

So with that in mind, I am stepping back into the realm of the online appointment books in 2012, and I’m liking the results.

To make this transition as easy as possible, I’ve found a few great apps and systems that might be helpful for others who are doing the same paper to web shift.

Because I run an online business and blog, it makes the most sense to keep everything I do on the internet. I have had a Macbook Pro for several years and when I launched the iPad covers for Jess LC, I got an iPad2 to make sure I knew what the heck I wanted the design to look like. And I recently switched from an Android phone to the iPhone 4s to keep things streamlined. I now love the iPhone interface much more than my old Android.

With the advent of iCloud and other systems that work over the web, the computer, iPad, and phone are all updated wirelessly and reflect the same appointments and to-dos, which is incredible. Losing my phone won’t mean that I lost all of my appointments and data like it did when I only had a hard-copy appointment book.

Here is a run down of the go-to apps that work seamlessly across all of my tech gadgets that I highly recommend:

This one is popular and obviously a no-brainer. I like that I can see it in month view:

And in day view:

Best of all, it isn’t too tedious to enter the appointments in on the phone and the reminder alerts are a nice feature that you can turn on or off. Once I enter it on either my computer, phone, or iPad, the appointment appears on all three devices immediately.

For me, the major drawback of the Google Calender is that I can’t just make a trusty to-do list. There is a standard Reminder app on the iPhone which can help. But I am now personally obsessed with TeuxDeux. TeuxDeux is available on your computer for free and they have designed a simple and beautiful app for the iPhone for $2.99. I’m not one to normally spend money on iPhone apps, but this puppy is worth it’s price tag and then some.

I can make daily to-do lists:

And if I don’t accomplish the to-do list item today, it will automatically transfer to the next day. Also, any updates I make on the computer or iPhone version of the app sync automatically to both platforms. TeuxDeux allows you to place to-d0 lists into the future as well. They have a great, short video explaining how it works on their homepage.

In addition to the daily to-do lists, there are also Someday to-do lists. I have one for blog post ideas, another for intentional obsession items I’d like to buy, and a third for errands. These lists are more by topic than date which is great for more long-term planning.

Lastly, the app I use the most is called Flip Board. It is a free app for the iPhone and iPad which Mr. Lively got me hooked on.

They have tons of links to news, sports, business, etc. in an extremely intuitive and beautiful format. But rather than flip through news on the app, I spend my time using it for….

My Google Reader! It makes my blog reader beyond beautiful and shares posts in a way that the desktop and phone Google Reader totally fails at. In a way, I feel like I have my own custom magazine constantly updating all of the blogs that I read and enjoy.

And lastly, I love my monthly background as well, courtesy of PuglyPixel.

Anyone else out there using web devices to keep their appointments? Any other apps that we should check out?