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Sciral Consistency: Track Fuzzy Interval Tasks

Gordon Meyer recently recommended I check out Sciral Consistency, a neat little app that’s somewhere between an event calendar and a TODO list manager.

It lets you track tasks that need to be done on a regular basis, such as watering plants, changing kitty litter, or washing your car. While Entourage (and, I assume, Outlook) can do something similar with interval-based events, Consistency adds the novel ability to set a range of days over which a task can be completed. So, for example, you might want to change your water filter every 30-60 days or rake the front yard every 5-9 days. Consistency presents your tasks in a scannable Excel-like grid that makes it simple to see which items are in the current “do” range.

It also looks useful as a way to track your progress toward a goal—you can quickly see how close you are to your plan of hitting the gym three times a week or calling Grandma twice a month. It also would be handy for Getting Things Done nerds who want to pull repeating items from their hard landscape calendar and get them onto a list where they can be reviewed and completed in context.

I do wish this were just an integrated function of full-on PIMs or even that Consistency had a basic alarm functionality. As is, the price is just a skosh high for me, but it does provide a clever solution for a fuzzy problem.

Sciral Consistency [Download]. OSX & Windows. $25.00. “The unregistered version is fully featured, but has a few limits to encourage you to register if you like it.”

I'm a GTD newbie. ... by Abrogaticus (not verified)
Ever looked at Life Balance... by Ronald Pottol (not verified)
I agree w/ Abrogaticus--integrating repeating... by Snorg Blorgelson (not verified)

About Merlin

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Merlin Mann is an independent writer, speaker, and broadcaster. He’s best known for being the guy who created the website you’re reading right now. He lives in San Francisco, does lots of public speaking, and helps make cool things like You Look Nice Today, Back to Work, and Kung Fu Grippe. Also? He’s writing this book, he lives with this face, he suffers from this hair, he answers these questions, and he’s had this life. So far.

Merlin’s favorite thing he’s written in the past few years is an essay entitled, “Cranking.”

 
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