OPTED Magazine

We all have dreams: the visions and lofty aspirations that we hope to achieve in our lifetimes.  It’s important that despite the everyday, mundane tasks that we are required to plod through that we don’t lose sight of these dreams, and in an ideal world, we aspire to dedicate time each day to work towards those visions.

As promised in our earlier announcement, we received notification of the release of LifeCentric’s new goal app, Getting Dreams Done and are providing readers with a first-hand review of the app here on OPTED Magazine.

The Basics

Getting Dreams Done by Life Centrics, was submitted for purchase on August 17th, 2009 and as of the date of this post, is selling for $9.99 in the Apple app store.  The app is marketed as a way to facilitate the achievement of your dreams in five key areas of life (finances, health, personal development, spirituality and relationships).

Where do I start?!

First, let me get this out of the way: the interface is fantastic.  I love the themed screens for the three step process of the app.  The system is divided into three distinct levels of aspirations: dreams, goals, and practices, with each screen displayed with a different set of graphics that are pleasing to the eye and convey the imagery of what we hope to achieve when we pursue each level.  Each step that you log in the app gives you the option of selecting a topical icon next to the listing, which adds to the organization of your entries and enhances the viewing experience.

I firmly believe that a smooth, streamlined interface is integral to the desireability of an iPhone app.  Just as iPhone users are drawn to the cutting edge technology of the iPhone, users seek apps that have impressive interfaces and design, which the Getting Dreams Done provides in abundance.

How this will help you

Many of our readers seek ways in which they can improve and enhance their lives and fulfill their wildest imaginations.  While we all have a different vision for what our life should/could be, the commonality is that we seek improvement, enhancement and a challenge to ourselves to seek something better.  Our dreams give us hope, and we need practical ways to take small steps to achieve the big picture,

The three step process of Getting Dreams Done provides a system where you establish the dreams and biggest aspirations for your life, assign goals for each dream that will help you reach that vision, and for each goal you establish incremental practices that help you achieve the goals.

For each of these steps, the app provides a variety of options for customizing settings.  For example:

• Dreams: tap the cloud category that your dream falls under and determine a target date, description and topical icon to assign to it
• Goals: pick the dream your goal should be assigned to, describe your goal, and indicate when you want to achieve the goal
• Practices: select the goal this practice relates to, say what you will be doing for this habit (i.e. exercising in the gym), scroll through a menu to determine how much of this practice you will be doing (the menu is customized for different types of practices, i.e. exercise, and you can also create your own category — I created a “minutes” category), select how often (which can be daily, every other day, or a particular day of the week) and again, select your topical icon

A seperate statistics section tracks your progress and assigns you a score based on your progress.  For each stage of the app, there is a notes section where you can document details of your progress over time.  For instance, if I am tracking weight loss progress, I could document particular repetitions in the gym (although the app ALSO provides a function for that!) or I could note starting weight and goal weight, or even some inspirational quotes.

A couple initial complaints

With less then 48 hours into the initial release of the app to the public, I have a few pieces of constructive criticism.  First, the app gives you no option to change the topical icon for a goal or practice once you have already selected one.  While this isn’t a deal-breaker for me, as a lover of visual presentation and options for customizing iPhone apps for my goals and life, it would be a great fix for the next release.  Second, the statistics feature is not as robust as the other apps out there in terms of graphing and providing statistics to visually represent progress and could use the same level of visual enhancement as the other aspects of the app.

Overall assessment: it’s worth the money.  While a number of the productivity apps out there might be selling at rock bottom prices, you get what you pay for.  I felt no buyer’s remorse, despite paying $9.99 for the app.  As a long term iPhone user, I’ve downloaded dozens upon dozens of apps and many of them haven’t been long term fixtures on my phone.  Getting Dreams Done is no novelty, fad app — it’s a wise investment in improving your life.  You will ENJOY the interface and customizations, as well as the parallel to aspects of GTD.  This app is already a fixture of my iPhone, which I’ll be using to help me lead a productive and fulfilling life.

Have an iPhone app you’d like us to test and review?  Contact us and we’ll add it to the queue!

This post is part of OPTED Magazine’s “iPhone Tuesdays” series, where we’ll feature a new iPhone app that helps with productivity, tasking, goal setting, or organization.  These posts will include a review and all the information based on a personal test and evaluation.  Watch for the series again next Tuesday!

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