Anxiety is bad, except when it’s a great to-do list app

To-do list software is a really personal thing. Some folks love the power of full-on GTD apps like Things and OmniFocus, while others prefer a plain text file. Personally, I’m a big fan of a little, free Mac app called Anxiety.

Here’s why:

Keeping it REALLY simple

All Anxiety does is allow you to add, view and check off to-do items. No reminders — that’s what Task.fm is for! — no email, no integration with web apps. Just a clean list.

Living in your menubar

Anxiety doesn’t have to be in the dock to function. It just sits in your menubar, waiting for you to pop open the attractive, compact HUD display. Keeping it out of the dock means it’s not distracting, but putting in the menubar means it’s there when you need it.

Playing nicely with others

Anxiety doesn’t replace your iCal or Google Calendar, but you can choose to have your Anxiety items listed as to-dos in either iCal or Apple Mail. That way, if you need to assign dates and times to them, place them on your calendar, add reminders, etc., you can do it fairly quickly.

Going easy on your system resources

Anxiety only uses 7 or 8MB of memory on my system, compared to 24MB for iCal and 55MB for Mail. It’s as if you don’t even have it open.

For me, Anxiety is basically a list of article ideas and pitches to send out when I have time. You could really use it for any kind of list, though. Certainly, it’s not going to be enough for some people, but it’s worth considering if your organizational style  is fairly loose and lightweight.

What’s your favorite to-do list app? Let us know in the comments.

Jay is a freelance writer based in Seattle, WA. He writes about software for Download Squad and contributes interviews to Geek Monthly magazine, among others. You can also follow him on Twitter and at his blog.

Tagged as: Apps, gtd, lists, mac, productivity