«Aren't there, like, dozens of to do list applications?» Yes. And they mostly suck, unbearably. So much that we felt it worthwhile to spend months of our lives designing one that would not. Chekoff is an application we wrote for ourselves but felt compelled to share with the world.

We optimize Chekoff for speed and simplicity of use. Entering a task requires minimal amount of interaction; there are no menus or unnecessary actions - Chekoff eagerly awaits input right away and, one touch of the screen later, you are done. You can even dictate your task using Google Voice Recognition if your hands are busy. There are no complex menus, options screens, or convoluted user interfaces. Most actions require minimal effort and use compact, easy to digest interfaces.

We made it easy to compose a daily agenda in Chekoff. From a longer list of unfulfilled tasks, you can pick and choose the ones to do today. At the end of the day, you can review what you have done. This is the method used by Benjamin Franklin and many other productive people, and it works wonders for us.

Chekoff is the only task list managment application with the capability to delegate tasks to a person from the contacts stored on your phone. To achieve this, Chekoff communicates with recipients of tasks via SMS, which makes it compatible with just anybody's mobile phone and service plan.

Chekoff is also the only to do list app to be able to receive tasks assigned to you by other people. To add a task to your to do list, all they need to do is use this website, or send you a specially formatted SMS.

We are working hard on ironing out software bugs add new features, every day. Give Chekoff a try - we hope you like it and can tell us how to make it better.

Chekoff's main screen consists of four lists, each containing a specific type of tasks. The tabs and task types are available:

• The Heap list is, as the name suggests, just a pile of simple tasks, not delegated to anyone else and without an expiration date.
• The Due list contains all the tasks that have a due date. If they have a due date, they must be important, and shouldn't mix with other tasks. This list sorts tasks by their due date, soonest ones first.
• The Assigned list contains all the tasks that you have assigned to other people.
• The Agenda list stores the tasks that you want to focus on ahead of others. For example, the agenda list may store all the tasks that you want to get done today.

The numbers next to tab icons show the number of incomplete tasks in each category. You can also keep track of the outstanding tasks using the Chekoff widget on the phone desktop. to install it, long-press on some empty area on the telephone's desktop, then choose "Widgets" then select "Chekoff." A Chekoff widget will then appear on the desktop, showing counts of unfinished tasks in each category. Please note that the counts in the widgets update infrequently (once per hour) to conserve battery power, and therefore the numbers may not be immediately up-to-date.

To add a new task, simply type it into the input text field at the bottom of the list, and press an "Add" button at the bottom of the screen. A dialog may pop up to ask you to specify the due date or the person to whom you want to assign this task. Alternatively, you may use the "Voice" button to dictate the new task description using Google Voice Recognition (where available). The currently selected tab specifies which type of task you would be adding. After adding a task you can edit it to change its type, or even make it have multiple types at the same time. A task can be in many categories at once; for example, a task can have a due date, be assigned to a person in your contact book, and also be on the agenda.

You may only delete completed tasks. After you mark the task as complete (by pressing its "completion" check box), an trashcan icon will appear to the left of the task description. Pressing it will remove the task. You may also remove multiple tasks by choosing the "Delete all completed" option from the app menu.

To edit a task, simply touch its description in the list, and the way the task is displayed is going to change to an edit view. The edit view allows you to edit the task description, move the task up or down the list using the arrow buttons, and set its properties using the property check boxes. Aside from changing the task position in the list, no other changes are applied to the task until you press the "Save" button.

The Due Date check box allows you to set, unset or edit the due date and time for the task. Pressing the check box repeatedly may cancel the due date or bring up the date selection dialog. When a task is due, you will receive reminder notifications a year, a month, a week, a day and an hour in advance.

When the due date of a task is set, you may also make the task recurring, making it re-schedule itself on the days and months you specify. Pressing on the Recurrence check box will bring up the recurrence pattern dialog, where you can set up weekly or monthly repetition of the task. You can also specify both weekly and monthly recurrences. In this case, the task will repeat only on the days of week you specified during only the months of the year that you chose.

To create a new task that you wish to assign to someone, simply add it from the "Assign" tab. To assign an existing task to someone in your contact book, start editing the task and then press the Assign check box until the contact selection dialog box pops up. Pressing the same check box may also cancel an existing assignment of a task.

And finally, adding a task to the agenda is also very simple. To achieve this, press the star icon next to the task description. Pressing it again, from any tab, will remove a task from the agenda list.

Chekoff sends SMS messages to the phone number of the person you assigned a task to at the following times:

• when you create an assigned task
• when you assign a task or cancel assignment while editing a task
• when you edit the due date of an assigned task
• when you erase an assigned task

The messages are of the form "< task description > / < due date and time (MM/DD/YY HH:MMam) > / chekoff"

If someone sends you an SMS message formatted in the same way as we describe in the previous paragraph, Chekoff will append a task to your task list, and notify you of the new task. Alternatively, people may use the front page of www.etalon-mobile.com/chekoff to add new things to do to your list.