Some have found their perfect way to manage tasks, some are making do with the available solutions, but I know a lot who are still searching for that one thing that will change everything. The app I’m talking about here probably isn’t it, but it’s still an interesting approach to sorting out your life.

Alarms, by Stefan Fürst of Media Atelier, is something fresh. It’s a menubar alarm like no other. Here’s what it does: It allows you to effortlessly add tasks — be they text, links, or files — to an specified time, and be reminded of it by the buzzing of its menubar icon. You may say this is true of a lot of task managers, but it’s a workflow unlike any other.

The user interface of the app is fantastic. Wow-y core animation effects aside, the way the app is designed facilitates quick and logical entering of tasks. Drag a link from your Safari window to the menubar — you don’t even have to aim its icon — and down flies the time picker. The time picker is dynamic, moving toward the left. This makes your tasks move to the left, until they hit the “Now” marker, thereby triggering an alarm. This makes it very easy to create tasks based on your current time. If you want to be reminded soon, place it nearer to the left. Or far away, for more hours. You can of course hover over a date and choose a time in the future. In real world usage, adding tasks is a matter a second or two.

When the task goes into the to-do zone, the icon starts pulsating. Until you ‘check’ that task or move it back into the schedule, the buzzing won’t stop. I’d say an illuminated icon much like Tweetie would have been a more subtle way of reminding. Still, it makes you attend to that task. Oh, and if you quickly want to procrastinate on a buzzing tasks, simply shake the mouse and it’ll snooze that the alarm for a predefined amount of time.

Before I go any further, I should make some distinctions in the way Things does… things. When you drag an item into Things (or use the new task hotkey), it brings up a dialog box in which you have to act on that task. It’s two steps. With Alarms, you just drag it and drop it. The dynamic nature of the time picker allows you to choose a time that to you is ‘later’, rather than 7:30 p.m.. Alarms differentiates itself in other ways too. When you bring up the sheet to act upon the task, you can either click the done button, or the quicklook button. This will open up the file or link in a native application, but a tiny bar just below the Alarms icon lurks around so you can dismiss it or mark that task done.

Alarms also integrates with iCal. Unfortunately though, it only syncs with iCal todos, and not the calendar itself, so you’re not gonna see that transfer across to your iOS devices. I’m guessing that it’s way more difficult for a developer to sync with the calendar instead of the todos. What it does do is transfer your todos across multiple Macs.

Who is Alarms for?

Alarms is not a list maker, project manager, nor is it something that will accompany you on your iOS devices. Alarms is for those who require to be reminded of lil’ things on their Mac(s). Find an interesting link when you’re at work? Just drag it to 6:30 p.m. and your iMac at home will start buzzing. Pick up your brother from the airport at noon tomorrow? Done. Or maybe you just need to remember to turn off the stove 15 minutes from now. Of course, it can technically be put to a lot of uses; this is just how I see myself using it. Alarms comes highly recommended, even though it’s in beta and has some some wonky-crashy things about it. If you still like after trying it out, it’s $12 for early birds.

[Thanks @minimalmac for pointing this one out.]
For those interested, my desktop background is “The Apple Experiment” by Delta909.