Structured is a minimalist timetable app by unorderly GmbH. It works with Android, iOS, macOS, and iPadOS. You can get the app on all platforms by subscribing to it monthly at $2.99, annually at $9.99, or by buying it once for $29.99. It also has a free version with some limitations, of course. In this review, we will be looking specifically at Structured for the iPad that we got for a single lifetime purchase. It seems that the Pro version of the app is the same whether you have a subscription or not. If you’re using the subscription package, please let us know if you notice any differences with our package.
User interface
The user interface in Structured is minimalist. You have an inbox section on the left sidebar where you can collect ideas you want to work on. You can toggle it if you want to work on a bigger screen. Your weekly dates are at the top, and your day’s timeline is below that. It’s structured well, in an intuitive way that makes it easy to get started. You can change the colour of your app and choose its layout, which can be very detailed or minimalist. For whichever look you choose, the timeline size remains the same, though. So, it doesn’t get minimalist enough, especially for those of us who might want to collapse the timetable to view fewer details. Is that something that’s important for you? Do tell.
Creating to-dos
Creating a new to-do is simple, but having a large sticker on the left side of your task name can be confusing. The reason being that when you create a task, the sticker is already set to @, which feels like you are being asked to tag someone or something. Without a doubt, the stickers are adorable; however, would it not be better not to display them until we have created the task? That would simplify the whole process, but if you use the app a lot, chances are you’ll probably get used to it. For some of us, the best-case scenario would be to disable the stickers completely and never use them. Let us know what you think about the stickers in Structured. They are such a prominent part of the app that’s in your face, which many minimalists will find off-putting (unless I am being ridiculous).
Stickers and suggestions
Once you get over the stickers, you can name your task, and the sticker changes accordingly. Structured gives you general suggestions for creating your tasks. These evolve the more you use the app, where the app starts suggesting ideas you’ve added to your schedule before. It would be more convenient to have date and time options located below the task name, though. Suggestions are great, but you probably already have an idea of what you want to add to your schedule before you even open the app. That said, they should not take up much space (if any), and we should be able to turn them off if we do not want them to interfere with our ability to create to-dos in the app. Unfortunately, you can only add the essential information about your task when you proceed, which seems like an unnecessary extra step. Imagine trying to add ten quick tasks in Structured—daunting, I’d say.
Time and date
On the second window, you can add the time and date for your task. We love how Structured allows you to specify how long it will take to complete a task. If you are not sure, you can set it for the whole day. The app includes time zone options, which you can quickly search for—the simplest way to find what you are looking for. It is significantly faster than scrolling through various cities and timezones. To save time, you can save some presets for your task duration to help you work faster when creating new tasks. The preset durations can be as short as a minute or as long as 24 hours. Structured has covered the whole day, and it is this unique approach to digital planning that’s made us classify it as a timetable app rather than a to-do list one. The app gives you more than just a list of items to check off; it actually helps you plan for every minute of your day. That is what a timetable effectively does.
You can choose a colour for your task from the four presets or use a custom colour. If we can use custom colours in an app, it’s always better if it allows us to replace the default colours with our preferred choices. So, we look forward to having that option in the future. To avoid the tedious work of manually adding routine activities to your timetable every day, you can create recurring tasks on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. However, there aren’t enough options for your monthly repeats. So chances are, you’ll mostly rely on daily and weekly repeats for the most accurate automation of your tasks. Still, we look forward to having more options for our monthly repeats.
Alerts and subtasks
In Structured, you can set up alerts for your tasks, with the flexibility to choose when you want to be notified about them, whether it be at the beginning, the end, or five minutes before the task starts. Default alerts are always enabled, which can mean plenty of notifications for a single task if you have many default alerts set up. The app also lets you set custom alerts for up to three hours before the task begins. That is more than enough time to get ready for anything, right? Subtasks are simple and quite handy when you need to breakdown big tasks into smaller chunks. You can also add some basic notes to your tasks that don’t have any kind of formatting.
The timetable or timeline
As you plan your day, your schedule takes shape in Structured. The app visually displays the duration of each task, as well as breaks between tasks and times that overlap. All of it is readily available to see, and you can quickly move around items on your schedule if you like. The only aspect of a timetable that the app lacks is the ability to see your week at a glance. Structured displays information for a single day. We would argue that there is enough room on the screen to fit at least three days. What do you guys think? Is it enough to view only one day? Or would you like to see several days?
The app shows the number of subtasks on your schedule, but you must tap on them to view and interact with them. If your task is a quick and short one, simply displaying the number of subtasks makes sense. However, if it is long, listing the subtasks beneath the main one is preferable. That way, we can tick them off as we complete them without any extra work of opening the popup window when we complete something. We would also love to see the notes for our tasks when space permits, not just the icon we currently have. The current setup isn’t bad, though. It just could be better. When you tick off items from your schedule, the app dims and strikes them out, but they remain visible on your timetable. That is the best way to track what you’ve completed and what you still have to work on.
Inbox
By far, our favourite feature is the inbox. Sometimes you want to do something but are not sure where it will fit into your schedule. Simply put it in your inbox on the left sidebar to help you remember. We wish they had made it easier to quickly add these ideas to the inbox, because they are unlikely to be fully formed when they first come to mind. But if they are, then you’ll really appreciate all the details you can fill in for them. The inbox is far more helpful than the suggestions. It would make more sense if the app showed your inbox instead of the same suggestions.
When you want to add an idea from the inbox to your schedule, it is very easy. Even making changes to the task is a walk through the park. You won’t forget important things you want to work on, and we love how readily available the ideas are in your inbox.
Integration
Structured integrates with both Apple Calendar and Apple Reminders. For both apps, you can select the calendars and lists you want to see in the app. Events from Apple Calendar are automatically added to the daily schedule because they typically have a date and duration. All-day events appear at the top of the daily schedule. If you have not scheduled a time for your Apple Reminders tasks to appear on your timeline, they will go to your inbox. With the two-way sync, your progress in Structured will reflect in Apple Reminders as soon as you tick an item off your list.
Tasks in Structured are less detailed than those in Apple Reminders. So, there will be times when you need to return to Apple Reminders to edit or double-check important details such as priorities, images, and so on. It makes us wonder if heavy users of Apple Reminders would benefit from using Structured. Maybe if there was a simple way to access Reminders with a single tap. What do you think? Apple Reminders is the most convenient way to add quick tasks to your Structured inbox, and that is likely the best way to combine the two apps. With calendar events, though, it doesn’t matter which app you use. You can edit your Apple Calendar events from within Structured and save the changes without leaving the app.
Structured Assistant
AI features are the main reason I stopped using GTD apps for 2024 planning, which I now do in my note-taking app (Noteful) and with our digital planners. At least you’re warned about using the feature in the app because anything you add goes to OpenAI servers. The developers are also committed to protecting our data, which is crucial for planning apps. They don’t sell your data or track you, and they also give you control over what happens to your data. We appreciate that.
The most efficient way to use the AI feature in Structured would be to dictate what you want. However, we discovered that typing was much faster because it had fewer errors that are also easier to edit than dictation. Because of how creating new tasks is set up in Structured, the AI feature will assist you in creating a daily schedule more quickly than if you were to manually enter each task’s details. The AI assistant is a lifesaver because it takes care of the tedious work, making it an effective assistant by noting all you’re saying or typing and setting up your day for you. We will test this more extensively to see how much planning the app can do for you. Our team rarely gets excited about AI tools, but this looks promising. We hope the developers can make it a permanent feature, as it is currently only in beta.
Completing your tasks
Structured has a focus mode for tasks you’re currently working on. On the timetable, the app counts down the remaining time for you to complete your task. Some might find this a little motivating, and we love it even more in full screen. You won’t need to look for another app to help you focus and count down the remaining time scheduled for your tasks. How fantastic is that? Completed tasks are struck out and dimmed, even your all-day events at the top of the timetable. Structured is fun to use, especially because it even supports live activities where you can track your progress without going to the app.
iPadOS support
Structured supports dark mode, which changes the colour of your background to black and all the black text to white. The other colours remain the same, though, but it’s a pretty convincing dark mode. You can open the app in multiple instances. It could make up for the app’s inability to display multiple days at once. For those of us who want to handwrite everything, Scribble works. So you won’t need to type anything, you can handwrite your schedule and notes.
The widgets are also exciting. You have three sizes for your timeline widget. So you won’t need to open the app to know the next task you’ll need to work on. It is interactive, which means you can check off tasks you’ve completed right from your homepage. The bigger widget is better. You can also add tasks from the widget. It takes you to the app, but it’s definitely the fastest way to get started. The inbox widget is also handy when you’ve completed a task from it. Simply check it off from the homepage. Our favourite widget is the task and subtask one. It displays the task you’re currently working on with a countdown. But, on the side, it lists your subtasks.
Sometimes you want to navigate through months, and it is easy enough to get there in Structured. You can then choose the month and year you want. The setup is simple, and it works, unless you prefer using the yearly view. But, usually, that’s a feature you mostly see in calendar apps. We could use a quick way that takes you back to today’s date when you’ve been planning for future dates.
Syncing and backup
Structured does not sync across your devices if they are using different operating systems. You can access your schedule from an iPhone, iPad, and Mac via iCloud syncing, but you won’t access the same information from Android. The setup has its pros and cons, depending on your workflow. For privacy issues, we don’t mind the setup at all. At least we don’t need accounts to use the app, and our information stays on our devices. So, the syncing setup in Structured is alright. However, the iPad app only backs up to iCloud Drive. We hope to have more options for this, because it’s usually best to sync and back up using different cloud services. You don’t want your sync and backup to be in the same place.
Verdict
We love how Structured gives us a clear visual presentation of our daily schedule. Aside from having an excellent AI assistant, it seamlessly integrates data from Apple Calendar and Apple Reminders. You can automate a lot of the work that goes into manually creating a schedule, whether you’ve been doing it in a note-taking app or on paper. Structured also makes it easy to keep track of your accomplishments. Although there is plenty of room for improvement, the app serves its intended purpose well as it is, and we look forward to seeing what the developers will add to it. Structured for the iPad is an excellent app for creating and managing personal daily schedules, and we don’t hesitate recommend it. What do you think of Structured? Has it been a useful app in your digital workflow? Do tell; we’re curious to know.
