It’s been asked numerous times in the support forums of Toodledo, people want a way to have a grocery list. In essence, the requirements are simple. I need to have a list with 3-state items in it:
- Not needed.
- Needed for next grocery shopping.
- Item is in shopping cart.
This becomes extremely useful because before going to the market, I can review the list of everything I’m ever purchased (the “Not needed” items), and check what I’d like to add to my list today. Then as I make the purchases, I cross those out until I’m done shopping.
The customer support of ToodleDo said that they did not wish to program this functionality in ToodleDo because they feel it would make the application too complex. While I normally agree with such decisions to keep software simple and efficient, this is just dumb. 3-state items doesn’t bring complexity in the program. SplashShopping has been doing it for years and the application is simple.
I’ve come up with a way to do something very close to that with ToodleDo on my iPhone. Here’s how.
- Go to Folders, and tap Add Folder, name it “Groceries”.
- Go in the Groceries folder, tap the Sort button.
- “First sort”, select “Star”
- “Then sort”, select “Alphabetical”
Add a few items (Milk, eggs, etc) to make up an initial list of items to purchase.
Whenever you want to make a list for shopping, go to that folder, and add a Star to everything you need to buy. Just bo back to Folders, and then back into your Groceries folder to re-sort the items. Every starred item with be on the top. This is your shopping list.
As you make your purchases, check the box.
When you’re done shopping, it takes only a few seconds to remove all the stars. The resulting list of checked items with no stars becomes your list of previous items for next shopping trips. Just uncheck and star the ones you want for the next trip, and so on.
I realize this is far from perfect, but it does the job for me just fine, so I thought I’d share it.