January 12th, 2009

Is The Hit List better than Things? (GTD App)


First of all, this might not make many fans of Things very happy, I’m referring to those who had already bought Things as their GTD application (including myself). If you don’t want to feel the tinge of regret, navigate away from this page, otherwise read on to discover this great app with me.


The Hit List is a to-do list application that works very much like Things except with a few more perks. If you’re a shortcut fan, loving the keyboard more than the mouse, you’re in luck.

The app comes with a slew of keyboard shortcuts you can use. Entering a new to-do item means hitting the “return” key. Set priority of the item by pressing 1 through 9. Spacebar to mark the task complete. Set context or tag by pressing “@” or “/” key. Hitting “T” to set an item as “Today”. These are only a few of them.

The Hit List offers almost everything you would expect from Things, and here’s more:

Drag and Drop Files


Essentially, dragging and dropping files into your items creates an alias to the original file, double clicking opens the file. You can also add notes along side it.

Time your tasks with a Timer


Never imagined this on a GTD application. Start timing your task by hitting “b” on your keyboard. A lovely counter timer will appear timing the time taken to complete your task.

Create Tabs


The Hit List lets you create and delete tabs based on your most important or frequently used list.

Create Sub Lists


Create sub lists by hitting “tab” after creating an item. The previous item before you hit tab will become the main item for the rest of the sub list. Marking the “main” list item as done will mark all the sub items as done although you can also mark as done the individual sub items.

Lovely Chime

This might not be a core feature, but marking an item as done sparks a lovely chime that makes you feel even better about getting a task done.

Sync with iCal


I love the ability to sync ALL my list respectively with ALL my iCal calendars! Something that you can’t expect from Things, maybe not yet? I think this feature is the most important to me.

Sync with iPhone

This feature is still in the works. Once the native iPhone app is done, The Hit List will certainly attract more GTD fans on top of its elegance, ease of use and functionality.

The Hit List is still in beta, there’s still some kinks to be sort out, for example when I create an item on the app, the item immediately syncs with my iCal, when I try to delete the item, it doesn’t let me unless I delete the item from iCal first.

Otherwise, a Things and Omnifocus killer?




Mac Apps