This App Integrates Your Calendar and to-Do Lists
One of the many modern annoyances that we all seem to agree on is the fact that calendars and tasks live in their own separate silos. Sure, you can link your calendar to the to-do app, but it’s not the same. When planning your day, most of us would be much better off with something like a planner that can show you your calendar appointments as well as the activities associated with them.
Luckily, there’s an app that manages to combine both of these features into an intuitive planner interface. If you enjoy jumping into apps, it might be time to try the Structured app , which works seamlessly between iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Android.
Combining calendar events and tasks with a structured
The structured application approach is to add a task based on a time frame. Let’s say you need to finish a letter today. Big. Previously, you would record this task in an app and then forget about it. Instead, in a structured way, you can say: I need to write an email to the head of HR and I will work on it from 2:00 pm to 2:30 pm . It then appears on your timeline and helps you visually block your time. By planning a day like this, you’re much more likely to complete your tasks because they’re now tied to a time block. Additionally, you may want to remember to position them so they don’t overlap (which the app will warn you about).
Structured starts with a visual timeline of all your tasks. When you first set up the app, it will ask you when you wake up and when you go to bed.
You can add tasks in two different ways. If you don’t know when exactly you do something, go to your Inbox to add a task that won’t appear on your timeline. When you’re ready, you can move the task to the timeline.
To get the most out of the app, you should add tasks directly to your timeline. Click the Plus button, give the task a name, and Structured will automatically give it a smiley icon. You can change the color (this helps differentiate personal tasks from work tasks). You can then choose when the task will start and how long it will take. Structured shows preset time frames (from 15 minutes to 1.5 hours, which you can edit or customize).
You can then make this a recurring task if you wish, or set a reminder. The free version of the app only gives you one notification, but if you have the Pro plan, you can create multiple reminder notifications. Finally, you can add additional notes, meeting links, or any notes you want.
Once a task is created, it appears on your timeline, which itself is quite flexible. You can simply long-press on a task and move it up or down to change the time frame (as we all know, things can change quickly). Structured does a good job of showing you how much time has passed by coloring the timeline itself. Once you complete tasks on your calendar, you can mark them off, which is very nice.
Structured Pro makes things a little better
One of the app’s strengths is that it works well even on the free tier (a rarity these days for productivity apps). You can use the free tier to add tasks, move them around your timeline, and receive reminders just before an event.
Structured Pro takes things up a notch. First of all, you can enable Reminders and Calendar integration so that your reminders and calendar events (either created by you or your invitations) will automatically appear in Structured, saving you time. The Pro plan also allows you to set multiple reminders, so you can also receive notifications 30 minutes before the event.
New is Structured Assistant, which is still in beta and works as if it were still in beta. It uses ChatGPT to convert plain text into a schedule. You can use your keyboard or voice (much easier) to tell the app what you plan to do for the day, and with a little processing it will show you your schedule, which you can then approve and add to your timeline. . This extra step is useful because, in my experience, Structured Assistant doesn’t always get everything right.
However, it works more than half the time, and if you’re going to dictate something like, “I’m picking up my kids from soccer practice at 9 a.m. today, then I’ll work from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.” , and I will cook dinner from 18:00 to 19:30″, everything will work fine. However, after testing the app for a few weeks, I found myself returning to the good old ways of manually entering tasks – that way I knew it would work.
Overall, I would recommend trying out the Structured app for yourself. Don’t bother with the Pro until you really feel like you need it. Structured Pro costs $2.99 per month, $9.99 per year, and $29.99 for a lifetime license.