Alarms is the reminder app I've been waiting for

If you're like me, you forget stuff. Emails to reply to, files to work on, phone calls to make. We all have stuff we need to do but the human brain isn't the best at reminding us to do our stuff. Alarms is a simple yet powerful way to stop forgetting and start doing.

This app hides away in your menu bar, only showing up when you actually need it to. Drag a file or email to your menu bar and Alarms slides into view. I'm usually not a fan of app animations but this one is so smooth and beautiful that it doesn't detract from using the app at all. Once Alarms has slid into view, drag the item along the timeline and drop it on the time you want to be reminded. (You can also drag over a date in the calendar to schedule a reminder on a different day.) That's it. When the time comes, Alarms indicates this with a menu bar bounce and a short beep. Open up Alarms again, double click the thing you need to do and the file associated with the reminder will open up and you can begin working. Once your done, check the item off and it disappears.

Here's the app in its open state:

I can't begin to describe how useful I've found this app to be. I have tried a ton of todo list apps but nothing is as simple and unobtrusive as Alarms. It's a killer app for email processing. I start my day by going through my emails and dragging any items that need something done into Alarms. This allows me to schedule my mornings and email replies throughout the day and I never forget to get back to a client or research a bug. You can also just double click on the timeline to enter tasks that don't have a file associated with them.

Digging into the preferences you find a nice option set for customizing the way Alarms works. You can change your start and end times for your day (great for those of us who don't work a standard 9-5 job). Changing the alarm sound and snooze time are available here as well. You can even sync Alarms with iCal which, although I haven't played around with this feature too much, seems incredibly useful. Since I use Todo for task management on my iPad (which syncs with iCal), it looks like I can finally be reminded of tasks from my iPad on my laptop and vice versa.

Here's what the preferences look like:

All in all, I've found Alarms to be one of the most useful productivity apps I've used in a long while. Since I'm poor, I have to wait until next payday to purchase a license (my trial ran out today as you can see in the screenshot above) but the app only costs $15 which is a steal in my opinion. Check this application out. You won't be disappointed.