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This is the third installment of a several part series about how to get things done using a Mac and iPhone.  In this article I will share how I use iCal and Address book to organize my calendar and contacts.

In my two previous articles, I talked about the general workflow of “getting things done”, then I followed that up with a review of Cultured Code Things and how I use it to manage my tasks and projects.  Now I want to move on to iCal and Address book.There are several very sophisticated calendaring and contact applications, and I have test driven many of them.  However, I have found through experience that the most important thing to me when it comes to calendars and contacts is syncing.  My calendar and address book is only good to me if it is current and accurate on both my computer and my mobile phone.  Many of the programs I was using had too many complications when it came to syncing.  I eventually found myself most satisfied with the native apps for Mac because of their near perfect syncing with the iPhone.

The “Problem”

I need to point out that the only reason that I havent stuck with other calendar and contact programs is because of the iPhone.  The iPhone is wonderful, but obviously, its contacts will only sync with Address Book.  All calendaring programs also have to sync through iCal in order to be recognized on iPhone’s calendar.  If iPhone was more open, this post may not exist.

iCal

In iCal, I have created several different calendars for the various “areas” of my life.  Areas, meaning life categories greater than projects because they cannot be completed.  My calendars include, work, school, business (meaning, not my regular job), personal etc.  Really, the only benefit for doing this (in my opinion) is I get a multi-colored iCal display.  Shallow isn’t it?  I have found one real benefit is that if I ever need to share or print a particular calendar with someone, it is nice to be able to not have personal appointments mixed with work, school, etc.

iCal’s interface is very simple and easy to use.  Quite frankly, I dont have much to complain about with it.  After all, a calendar is only for putting things down that must be done at a specific time, according to the principles of David Allen’s Getting Things Done.

Address Book

I think this is Apple‘s weakest link in its productivity suite.  Address book is terribly simple when it comes to contacts.  Fortunately, I have simple needs when it comes to contacts, but friends have complained that it doesn’t have the ability to create categories!  Sure, you can create different folders for groups of contacts, but that information doesn’t easily get shared if you are transferring contacts to another machine or syncing with Google (which I now do).  At the end of the day, it keeps my contacts names, phone numbers, emails, addresses, and notes.

Weaknesses

Although I’m happy with Apple’s suite, there are some things I’d like to see.  First of all, the todo list in iCal are very awkward to me.  It’s no wonder so many todo apps are popping up for the Mac platform.  Second, I miss the ability to link contacts, appointments, tasks, and projects to each other.  Someday, there will be a perfect program which does this, but until then, I’ll have to use my brain to remember who worked on which project (heaven forbid, not my brain!).  I’ll mention Apple Mail here.  I actually like Mail’s integration into Mac’s suite of tools.  However, it just can’t beat Gmail, which I’ll talk about in another post.

Syncing

I used to plug my iPhone into my computer and let it sync, until I discovered that Google can actually become an ad-hoc exchange server.  Mac OS X 10.6 or Snow Leopard’s versions of iCal and Address Book have native syncing with Google apps built in.  This means that iCal goes to Google Calendar, and Address Book goes to Gmail contacts.  This sounds really lazy, but its been really nice to not have to worry about whether or not I have recently plugged my iPhone in to the computer.  I like it!  Its also nice that I dont have to pay for it, like I would with MobileMe.

I’d be interested to hear if anyone else has any better apps for calendaring and contacts that still sync as well as iCal and Address book.

Read part 1 of this series – The Workflow

Read part 2 of this series – Things

Related articles by Zemanta

• Harmonize iPhone & iCal with Google Calendar (iphone.appstorm.net)
• Sync data with Macs, iPhones using Google (macworld.com)

Related posts:

1. Getting things done with a Mac – Part 2, Things
2. Getting things done with a Mac – Part 1, the workflow