ListPro: Just What I've Been Looking For

I’ve been using a Palm for long enough that I usually tend to doubt that any new app will change what I do with my Palm or how I do it.

ListPro shook me out of that kind of thinking. It’s the app I’ve been waiting for.

Throughout the day, I’m constantly thinking of things that I need to do, calls I need to make, tasks I need to do. I need a way to jot these down fast. That’s why I usually use index cards (other folks use Post-It notes or other scraps of paper). Why? Because they are convenient and fast.

ListPro may be the best combination of speed and convenience. But it doesn’t end there. The problem, of course, with the “Little Slips of Paper” method of organization is that, well, paper gets lost (Sticky Notes especially), or you forget to bring them with you when you leave Point A for Point B. And they aren’t very good for letting you organize or prioritize Not to mention that it’s something else to carry around (index cards and a pen) versus the Treo that I’m already carrying 99% of the time anyway.

ListPro gives me the same quick-entry without the fear of getting lost or inconvenience of trying to organize paper notes. With Type Right (another new favorite app), I simply press “L” on my keyboard and ListPro launches. From there it’s a quick click to either add to an existing list or start a new “Quick List”

My #1 most important quality for any software is stability. If a program isn’t stable, then I won’t trust it. If I don't trust it, I won’t use it (that’s the good thing about paper and pen, it almost never crashes... of course you may occasionally run out of ink or have your pen leak all over your pocket). That is the main reason why I don’t use Agendus as much as I would like... it seems to crash on me at the worst times). I’ve actually been using SMS to send messages to Google Calendar. It’s not nearly as convenient, but it’s very stable, and reliable.

ListPro has never crashed once on my Treo650. I trust it completely, meaning I use it often.

You can get plenty of screenshots from the official website. There are a wide variety of lists that you can create, as creative as you want to get (or use the “Quick List” to just make a fast basic checklist.) There are free ListPro lists you can download.

ListPro can sync with a Windows machine — the combination of ListPro for Palm and Windows goes by the slightly redundant name “ListPro (Professional Edition)” I haven’t use that much since my primary machine runs Mac OS X, but I have tried it and it seems to work fine. It’s especially good for a periodic review of your list items and reorganizing them, but even this can be done fairly easily on the Palm itself.

Note that Mac users can get the .zip version of the ListPro download which can also be used downloaded directly to your Palm if you have HandZipperLite installed.

As I was preparing this review, I read this little article from Simply Kelly (who works for David Allen, author of the uber-popular Getting Things Done):

(If you are interested in Getting Things Done, checkout the DavidCo Blogs. They are some really good posts in there.)

I initially learned a time management system that involved putting everything in my calendar. “If you commit to doing something, commit to when you will do it, or don’t commit at all” the thinking went. Which is great except that my life doesn’t work that neatly. Some things are fixed on a certain date (meetings, mostly). Just about everything else has a due-date. ListPro can set alarms for items, so you can have them “Pop Up” (trusted system!) without putting stuff in your calendar that doesn’t necessarily need to be there.

There’s even a customized Getting Things Done template for ListPro available from their website (although you’ll have to decide for yourself if ListPro is the right tool for the job).

Like any decent program, ListPro gives you a 30 day trial of the fully functional app for Palm Powered Handhelds, Pocket PCs, MS Smartphones, or Windows. I’ve been burned enough to know that demos are great ways to see if I will really use a piece of software or not, but I think after using it you’ll decide that $30 is a good buy. (Note: you do not have to buy the Windows PC client separately from the handheld version. They come bundled together for that same price.)

For me, ListPro has come at the end of a lot of searching. It’s a rock solid app that excels at what it does.