I keep thinking about different things while messing with my
phone. I have a Motorola DroidX for
work, and it feels somehow incomplete.
It's kind of like the framework has been built for what I want, but what
I want out of the device just isn't there.
But it could be. I keep thinking
of the smart phone as a life management tool, not just a phone.
The parts are all there, but it's a disparate system where
nothing matches up and tells me anything I want to know. For example... there's a GPS in there, and I
want to know where I've been all day.
Did I just wander to the office and stay there or was I out hitting
dozens of stores?
I want a task list. I
do something like this with Outlook and GMail calendar, but that's not quite
what I want. I can't necessarily dictate
what I want to do at every moment in the day, but I want to know what I need to
do. Let's say I have four tasks: T1, T2,
T3, and T4. These are things that need
to be accomplished, but there isn't anything relating the tasks. There may be a T1.1 in there, but T1 doesn't
have to be completed to work on T4. So I
drive around and finish T1, and mark it off my list. But then I have broken stuff to work on, and
I end up just a few feet from where I need to do T4. So I complete that task. Now, T1 and T4 are complete.
With gmail calendar and Outlook, if I finish the tasks out
of order, I still get notifications about needing to go do T4 at 2PM. I also have to go back at the end of the day
and mark tasks as complete or incomplete.
I guess gmail and Outlook are more time oriented than task
oriented. But in my job I need task
orientation and something that works towards task orientation.
And if I create something that's task oriented, why can't I
make something that has multiple subtasks for each individual task? Example: T1 now has T1.1, T1.2, and
T1.3. These are all dependent on each
other, and T1.1 has to be complete before I can complete T1.2, and T1.2 has to
be complete before I start T1.3. Now, if
I finish T1.1 with the system I'm using now, I have to head back to the office,
look through my task list table, and add T1.2 into my calendar. That's not very efficient.
What if I add GPS capabilities into the device, and map a
task to the GPS location? So I need to
buy milk, and I decide I want to buy it from Wal-Mart. Next time I drive within a few miles of
Wal-Mart, my phone yells at me and says "hey buddy, go to Wal-Mart and
complete task T1, 'buy milk'". Now
that would be a smart phone.
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