Amazing Marvin - On the Go

Marvin is fantastic. I’ve been hunting and hunting for an app that could do everything Marvin does. Plus, they have a web version and apps for all the major platforms. I love that I can take my list to any of my devices (which are more numerous than I’d like to admit). I love that you basically make the app what you need. It’s about as customizable as any app I’ve ever seen of its nature. (More so on the web or desktop versions than mobile... ) It’s certainly not perfect, and there’s a bit of a learning curve. But I can tell they’ve got a wonderful concept, and that improvements will continue to come.

This is the productivity app I have been searching for! I have tried them all and nothing else has all the productivity tools that Amazing Marvin has wrapped into one. Not only do you create to-do lists in an organized manner but you can also schedule those tasks so they don’t just sit in a list getting stale. It provides tons of ways to help you become more efficient with strategies like “eat the frog”, time-blocking, labels and lots more. With so many choices on how to organize my tasks, I can customize my experience to best fit how my brain works. I’m in LOVE!

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I use Marvin every day to manage work tasks, household chores, personal projects, etc. It's fantastic—the customizability via enabling strategies makes Marvin incredibly valuable. However, the iOS app is far behind parity with the web/desktop version. Syncing takes several minutes, few strategies are enabled, the interface is clunky, and it's never updates. If the app worked 2/3 as well as the desktop version I'd be ecstatic but as it stands I cam barely check my daily todo list effectively on my phone. I've just added a shortcut to the site since it's significantly more useful but the login state doesn't maintain. To reiterate: I'd love to give this app 5 stars, Marvin is the best system I've found for managing multiple projects and tasks but the iOS app itself is barely usable.

The First thing to note is that the wonder of Amazing Marvin is in the web app. The iOS app is a companion to that. I’ve tried several planning systems over the years (all the way back to Franklin Planner and Day Runner days up to Planplus, Things and several other modern apps). Amazing Marvin’s uniqueness is in the use of “strategies” which the user can add or take away on a whim making the planner customizable with the way the user works. If you like GTD you can set it up for that. Time blocking. No problem. Agenda or no agenda. Pomodoro, timer. Does this sound overwhelming? Then you can just leave all the strategies off and be a minimalistic task planner until you learn which strategies work best for you. There is no penalty for deactivating a strategy either if you change your mind. Christina and Mark have done an excellent job. So saying, I think they will continue to improve the app as they continually work on Amazing Marvin.

I’ve been searching for a productivity app like this for years. I’m impressed by its thoroughness, emphasis on workflow customization, and speed. Unlike almost any of the 50+ productivity apps I’ve tried over the last few years, it doesn’t feel like it’s working against you, or spying on you. Quite the contrary. And it’s available on desktops and as a web-app! For anyone serious about productivity and getting tasks done, this is the app for you.