Productivity Tools Review: Pocket

In this post from the series of reviews of productivity tools, I'll review a list-based productivity tool called Pocket.

Pocket

Pocket is a list-based tool made to quickly add news articles, webpages and videos to read or watch later, you can add those news by multiple (and interesting) ways using native or extensions for integration (such as Google Chrome plugin, for example).

Pocket web interface for desktop, showing your added links in a nice tile view mode

Pocket's minimalist look helps you to easily learn how to use it (even without watching the tutorial) and the content you store is available to read offline, along with a "beautifier" to enable easy reading while using your smartphone or tablet with a small screen.

And one of the powerful Pocket features is using this service to read news articles made only for desktops in your smartphone, using the Share feature (in the next image) and reading the news in the Pocket app using the beautifier.

Easily capture news links to read later or in your smartphone (using the beautifier)

In the web version, you can use keyboard shortcuts to navigate and make actions quickly (you can show the list of keyboard shortcuts using Shift + ?). In the mobile app, you can navigate and use the same actions using swipe and touch features.

Pocket mobile app

A major plus for Pocket is that most of these features are available in the free mode, because the premium mode boosts the performance and add some features like tag recommendation and quick search.

Pros:

• Quick to add news articles.
• Simple and intuitive interface.
• You can read your news in any device (even offline).

Cons:

• You can take some time to organize your lists if you have dozens or hundreds of news articles.
• Sometimes it take too much time to sync.
• Pocket's API does have small hourly usage limits.

That's it! If you want to quickly store news articles to read later, give Pocket a try!

Productivity Tools Review: GQueues

In this post from the series of reviews of productivity tools, I'll review a to-do list productivity tool called GQueues (yes, their interface is Google-like).

GQueues

GQueues is a to-do list tool made to quickly add and view your activities in a very colourful and simple interface with some powerful features like nesting and easy integration with other tools (such as Google Calendar, for example).

GQueues is a neat looking to-do list tool with a Google-like interface

You can create groups of activities using only the keyboard (in the desktop version) to quickly add activities, set-up deadlines and write some notes for a particular task. You can share or delegate tasks to other users, being very interesting for use in a project or group setting.

And using the mouse or your touch screen to drag and drop activities to move them to another queue, set some info for a task and set a task tree.

GQueues mobile version

The mobile version works exactly as the desktop version, but the features are capped in the free mode.

Pros:

• Quick to add tasks (either via keyboard or mouse).
• Simple and intuitive interface.
• Collaboration features and delegating tasks are very simple to do.

Cons:

• Free mode is very restricted in the mobile version.
• Doesn't escalate with complex projects and dozens of tasks, the interface gets too confusing with much data to show.
• Managing your queues may take a lot of time if you have lots of queues to look for.

That's it! If you like to manage to-do lists in a simple way, give GQueues a try!