Real Simple magazine often inspires creativity in making your everyday tasks a little easier, so it’s no surprise that the lifestyle mag offers up the Real Simple app for iPhone and iPod touch. Structured solely around lists and organization, Real Simple is a good, free solution for people like me who can’t seem to get anything done around the house unless it’s written down to be checked off after completion.
To get the most out of Real Simple, users can either create to-do lists of their own, or rely on the 30-plus task lists integrated with the app. Six categories — cleaning, organizing, household planning, travel & style, entertaining and weddings — offer up five or six to-do lists centered on common tasks, such as cleaning the bathroom and what to pack for a vacation. These are great jumping-off points for getting organized. Saving a list to your saved folder enables you to check off items or add additional tasks to further customize your needs.
Of course, if a pre-written list isn’t a match for you, users can create their own task lists from scratch, and even add deadlines (today, tomorrow or a specific date) to prioritize the workload. Real Simple is missing the ability to reorganize the order of the items on your list, and the fact that the “Save” button is in the top left corner probably will take some getting used to. You can delete items if it’s “never going to happen” or you can delegate chores to people pulled from your contacts list. To add someone to your delegate list, you add them through the “Delegate” tab; however, you will have to have an email address on file already. I would like to see Real Simple add functionality for adding email addresses directly to the app instead of relying only on your contacts list. When you’ve got a list of chores ready, you can send it to your family member or friend through in-line email.
A previous iteration of the Real Simple app was rife with ads, but I saw nary a one in version 1.3.
Download the free Appolicious iPhone app
