Over the years I have loaned out assorted DVDs and books, then totally forgotten who has what. Indeed just 2 days ago a friend returned 3 DVDs and a book. And I swear I had no idea they had them.
I had flagged the idea of looking for a specialty ‘loan manager’ application for the iPhone (iPod Touch). One where I could record the key info (media type, media name, person, date loaned). With thousand and thousands of apps out there, surely there would be a little database one to do this.
And then it hit me. Why bother?
The very flexible Ultimate ToDo program I have already purchased can do exactly that. With its Tags, Project and Context item.values (in reality these are all meta-data) it’s really already a Database. And it can sync back to the web-based Toodledo. As a bonus, the Ultimate ToDo iPhone app now supports iPhone Contacts, so it’s easy to select the name of the person who is borrowing the item.
Basically I just have a new grouping (“Context”) called Loans Outbound. And a few new Tags like DVD, Book etc. Then I add the ToDo item with the persons Name (“Reference Contact”) and Date borrowed (as text in the “Note” value, only for reference…I guess you could use the Due Date if you wanted to), plus the Context and Tag. And all done.
Both the iPhone app and the Toodledo then let me quickly look at my Loans Outbound view. Smart stuff.