My “GTD” hacks part 2 . . . aka Review: Grocery IQ

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A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about my “system” for productivity and it has quickly become my most popular post on this blog to date. It literally TRIPLED my traffic.

But anyway . . . that’s not really wanted to share with you. What I actually want to write about is that one of the programs I use on my iPod Touch called Grocery IQ just had a major overhaul and it knocked my socks off! This app simply ROCKS! I liked it well enough before the revamp but now, it’s legions better, if that’s even possible.

Before, you could sort the store by aisles, add new aisles, delete aisles, keep lists of favorite items, show a history of past purchases and of course, check off things as you put them in your cart.

What’s better than that?

Well, the new app allows you to create lists by STORE! Which is so cool for those of us who shop at more than one store. Now, I am not one of those crazy people who clip coupons and shop 10 different places but I do buy certain items at certain stores because the others don’t carry them.

For example, I can only buy RAW local milk at the Food Co-Op because they’re the only ones who carry it. I can only buy the brand of Hemp Milk I like at one store and I can only buy the brand of non-dairy ice cream we buy at yet another store. So, the ability to not only arrange the list by aisle but also by store, is fabulous.

And the other new thing that makes it legions better than before is the ability to move your checked off items to the “checkout” without having to discard the whole list. This was annoying before because I didn’t ever get a true reading of my shopping “history” since sometimes I would buy 10 things at one store and not go shopping at the next store for a week. Plus, you couldn’t make different lists for different stores. So, it was all on one list.

This was annoying for 2 reasons – first, because not all stores have their aisles arranged the same so I’d be scrolling through the list all the time and invariably miss something. And second, because once I checked something off, it just sorta disappeared. If I wanted to add those things to my history, I couldn’t do that until everything on the list had been checked off. If you shop at only one store, that’s probably not a biggie. But since I don’t, it ended up confusing at times.

With the new app, I can make lists for each store, check the things off as I add them to my cart and then when I get to the checkout, I can hit “checkout” on the app and it adds those items to the history. Oh and you know what else? You can also add the price of the item to it’s details page so you know how much you’re spending and can compare prices at different stores! How cool is that??

I LOVE it! It’s fabulous.

Seriously. Get an iPod so you can have Grocery IQ.

Oh and PS – that’s not a pic of my actual list – it’s a screen grab of the app’s listing in the iTunes store.

In the arena,

If you regularly shop at 10 different stores and clip coupons to get all the stuff on your list, don’t worry – I don’t really think you’re crazy. No. I just think maybe you’re a little OCD than me.

Annie Anderson is a freelance copywriter and graphic designer specializing in the small business and real estate markets. Her tagline “Making your business, my business” means that she’ll take the utmost care when creating words and images for your business – just as if it were her own.