Carpe Diem Daily isn’t one of those mobile apps that merely speeds some ordinary task or process you already do. No, not this app. Instead, Carpe Diem Daily, released by Nokia in mid-April, is designed to help you think – and act – outside the proverbial box.

Carpe Diem is Latin for “seize the day.” The reference comes the Roman poet Horace (64 – 8 B.C.), who wrote in one of his famous Odes: “Seize the day, put no trust in the morrow!” (Actually, Horace wrote his poems in Latin, but you get the idea.)

To help you seize the day, Carpe Diem Daily provides an unusual task for each of the year’s 365 days. Some of the tasks require only a light, spontaneous action. For example: “Try smiling at everyone today.” But others require a bit more thought, such as this recent one: “Write a message that would inspire you every day.”

The tasks are provided by the School of Life, a London-based social enterprise that, in its own words, ‘offers a variety of programmes and services concerned with how to live wisely and well’.

Most of the tasks on Carpe Diem Daily also require you to record some aspect of the task. Typically, you do this by writing something, taking a photo, or shooting a short video. You then upload your work to the Carpe Diem site, where other users can view it; you can also share your work over Twitter and other social networking sites.

Launch this app, and you start with the main screen. The important stuff is all on the far right — the navigation buttons. Select ‘Exit’, strangely placed at the top of the list, and you quit the app. ‘Settings’ lets you set your username and password. ‘About’ is, well, information about the app. ‘Album’ is your archive of past tasks. And ‘Task’ takes you to that day’s new task. Here’s a look:

Let’s start with the good stuff: Task. Again, there is one new task for each day of the year. You’re not required to do all 365, but it would be fun to at least try. Here, for example, is the task for 23 April:

Once you perform the task, you upload your work to the Carpe Diem site. My task was to write an inspiring message, and my choice was a quote from Dr. Johnson: “It is better to live rich, than to die rich.” I wrote it on a post-it note, then snapped a photo with my Nokia N97. Below, you can see I’m about to upload it…and I have the option of adding a comment:

It’s easy, and I even got this encouraging status update:

Next, I go to the Carpe Diem website, login, and see my task in my online Album:

I can also use the website to view other people’s response to the same task. To enlarge any image, I simply click on it. I can also share it on Twitter, Facebook or ShareThis; post a comment; or flag as ‘inappropriate’:

I like to share, so I went ahead and posted my task on Twitter. Here’s how it looked on that social-networking site:

You can also use the mobile app to view your archive of past tasks. Select Album, and you’ll go to a calendar that indicates the days on which you have posted a task. To view your archived work, simply click on the day. Here you can see I have posted a task for 22 April:

Carpe Diem has some convenient features. For one, you needn’t register to view other people’s tasks on the web site. In other words, even non-members  — and people without mobile phones — can view the site.

Another handy feature: If you already have an Ovi account, you can use your Ovi username and password to login to both the Carpe Diem mobile app and website. That’s one less username/password combination to remember!

The Carpe Diem Daily app is available for free on Ovi Store. It runs on Nokia S60 5th Edition devices. You will need some storage, as this app is fairly large at over 1.8 megabytes, and you’ll need an open internet connection to get the latest task and upload your contributions.

So try Carpe Diem Daily, and seize the day!