Todoist automatically synchronizes your tasks across all your devices - smartphones, tablets, laptops, desktops - so you always have up-to-date access. Innovative HTML5 technology combines the convenience of a desktop app with the seamless updating and data synchronization of a cloud-based app. When you set both a due date and a time for a task, Todoist automatically sets a reminder for you. For example, when you create a task for tomorrow at 4pm, Todoist will automatically send you a reminder 30 minutes beforehand.

• Todoist Export
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• Todoist Ios
• Todoist Excel

Todo lists are boring. I have used all of them: here is what I have learned.

tl;dr:

• If you like organizing, use 2Do.
• If you like having a score, use Todoist.
• If you just want a list, use Clear.

Things

Things is one of those pieces of software that has been painstakingly improved over years and years of hard work by brilliant people. It’s a relic of the age of Panic and OmniGroup: companies that would build beautiful user interfaces for Mac users who would gladly pay significantly more than 99 cents for their perpetual licenses. This was before flat design homogenized interfaces, before the Mac App Store gaslighted downloadable software.

Things is a good piece of software that got lost on the eternal quest to sync: they started on a sync solution over 6 years ago and are still working on a solution. Their early implementations were what drove me away - sometimes todo list items would disappear, or on sync turn up empty.

I don’t use Things now because there’s no web client. Not that I love web clients for interfaces, but seeing my todos in a web interface is a solid guarantee that those are synced and real, whereas hoping my MacBook and iPhone find each other on an unreliable home wifi network makes me worry something will be lost in the void.

Viscerally, I didn’t like completing tasks in Things that much: the task became grey, and to get rid of it you actually need to click a button. The satisfaction of getting something out of the way was tempered by this UI. While Things supports a Dock badge representing a number of tasks to complete, the number within the UI is pretty de-emphasized.

2Do

2Do is the spiritual successor to Things, in my book. While Things circles around the target of sync, 2Do has grown features in every other direction: scheduling, search, spatial, an Android client in addition to iOS. Its search interface rivals that of an SQL client. It has everything you need for the patented-and-proven GTD method.

Before the flat redesign, 2Do was much less attractive than Things. After it, the interface is perfectly fine, but still lacks the hours of pixel-perfecting that Cultured Code has clearly thrown into Things.

I don’t use 2Do because it’s too complicated and pushes me too hard into the GTD direction. The vast majority of my tasks don’t need a specific category, or spatial triggers, or anything: they just need to be in a list. It’s a tough balance for a UI to be able to handle that complexity when needed but downplay it when not.

Clear

Clear is the archetype of gesture-oriented minimal todo lists. In its first implementation, tasks were only text: you could put them into sub-lists, but there was ability to schedule, prioritize, or tag tasks. Eventually Clear acquired the ability to schedule tasks, and got a companion app on OSX that would sync with the mobile app via iCloud.

Completing tasks in Clear is really satisfying: the animation of the task sliding away, an X appearing, and the list sliding up is really good.

OmniFocus

My OmniFocus phase didn’t last long: I used a trial version of the software since it’s rather expensive - $40 each for the OSX & iPhone apps. It felt like a superset of all software I had used before, and tried to introduce habits, like “reviewing” that I don’t have much need for. At the time, its sync and backup processes were clunky and loud, with dialog boxes asking me to schedule backups. I’ve heard this has improved since.

TaskWarrior

Somewhere after using Clear, I used TaskWarrior, and even built an OSX app to provide a taskbar count of my tasks.

It’s different from every other todo list I’ve used in that it’s open source, which is awesome. And along with that comes some cool points of simplicity: it stores tasks in a readable data file, it’s fairly customizable and controllable using shell scripting.

That said, the command line sucks for todo lists. Adding todos was simple and fun, but completing todos meant running task list, reading the list, figuring out which number the completed thing was, and then writing something like task done 10. This wasn’t fun.

What TaskWarrior lacked in terms of completing tasks it somewhat made up for with statistics: it had a few commands that would give monthly, daily, weekly charts of tasks completed. That was cool. But the annoying process of completing tasks killed the vibe.

Todoist

Todoist is the todo list I use on a daily basis. Unlike the others, it has its roots in the web - the first and main version of the interface is a website.

Todoist does the most ‘gamification’ of any of these interfaces: it grades you with a ‘Karma’ score, provides lots of graphs and statistics, and has a prominent count of tasks in the UI. In my blurry memory of the past, the effect of an overdue task was more dramatic - instead of the task count turning a light red, it would acquire a bright red background. That probably distracted people and is thus lost in the sands of UX time.

Todoist also has a very satisfying effect when you complete tasks: clicking the checkbox immediately nixes the task on OSX, and in the iPhone app there’s a Clear-like swipe gesture.

Originally I wrote that TaskWarrior doesn’t support sync. It does - it can sync with Taskserver-compatible services like Inthe.AM and FreeCinc

Due to marketing shenanigans, 2Do’s website doesn’t list the price for the Mac version, so it’s ?

Also Ran

Todoist Export

In-between all of these I’ve used Gmail’s task list, Apple’s Reminders app, TaskPaper, and tried to use GitHub issues for all of my tasks.

I use GitHub issues more than any other website, but it’s not designed to be a task list: I feel like it’s designed around the queue never becoming complete, and it heavily de-emphasizes scheduling. And the only satisfying way to complete a GitHub issue is by closing it from a commit.

Take-aways

To-do lists do not make you productive.

Having a good digital tool to help you organize your Getting Things Done system is essential. In this post, I’m showing you my Todoist GTD setup.

This is part one of a two-part series describing my Todoist GTD setup. You may find the next part here: My Todoist GTD setup – Part 2: Weekly Review and Focus Horizons.

I know that it is possible to do GTD on paper, but in my mind, having a good digital tool to help you organize your Getting Things Done system is essential. With today’s fast pacing and constantly changing priorities, I seriously do not see how people can manage this on paper. I find that 70% of my action items come from, or at least involves email. Going for a paper-based system would be a nightmare.

Getting Things Done (GTD) – What is it?

My GTD tool: Todoist

I think it is safe to say that I have tried most of the GTD tools on the market (as of summer 2016) I have ended up with Todoist Pro. This tool is not perfect, but with some tweaking, it works really well. My final reasons for choosing Todoist was the following:

• Flexibility: Todoist runs on every major platform. Windows, Windows 10 Mobile, Android, Android Wear, OS X, iOS, and web.
• Integration: Outlook Gmail, Chrome, Firefox, IFTTT, to name a few. See full list here: https://support.todoist.com/hc/en-us/articles/205143181-Integrations
• Todoist Karma. (It really works!)
• Trust: With more than 5 million users and a good customer service, I feel that this is a service I can literally build my life around.

Want to sign up for Todoist Premium?
In that case, I would appreciate if you use the below link. If you do that, I get two months Todoist Premium added to my account – with no extra cost for you. Thanks!
Sign up for Todoist Premium here

My Todoist GTD setup

Part of Todoist’s success is due to its flexibility. The downside of this flexibility is that you have to figure out how to set up Todoist as a GTD tool. I don’t think that my Todoist GTD setup is the one and only way to do this. It all boils down to how you have implemented GTD in your life. What I do know is that I’m in some way or another using most aspects of the Getting Things Done method, so I think that there will be something to learn for most GTD practitioners by reading this Todoist GTD setup guide.

[bctt tweet=”Remember this about GTD: The app comes second, the approach comes first.”]

Projects

According to Davin Allen, a project is anything that takes more than one step to complete. For all practical purposes, a project can be as defined by David Allen or used as a parking place for action items related to the same issue, project or type of work. Personally, I tend to use both types of projects.

In part two of this post, I will show how to use Todoist projects for managing Weekly Review and Focus Horizons.

Contexts (Labels)

(Please be aware that in order to use Labels, you must have a Todoist premium account.)
Contexts are maybe one of the most useful features in Getting Things Done. Used correctly they can multiply your productivity and turbocharge the way you work.

I define contexts as something both physical and mental. It can be the physical place you need to be. Some types of work can only be done at the office or at home. Some things can only be decided at the next department meeting or the next time you have sit-down time with your boss or customer. Because contexts have to be tailored to both the way you function as a person and the nature of your work, this is maybe the area where you will have to adjust your Todoist GTD setup the most.

It can also be useful to define important tools like computer or internet as a context. In periods when I travel a lot, I will have flight or offline as a context. This enables me to sort out the type of work I can do when flying with no access to WIFI.

A context can also be a mental state or role. I use a context called Work for everything work-related, independently of where I decide to work.

My contexts

Be aware that since Todoist does not have Next Action or energy levels defined as separate items in the software, you will have use Labels for this.

• Work
  Anything work related that does not involve having to meet with other people. This is both a mindset context and a physical context.
• Private
  Anything private that can be done anywhere.
• Home
  Anything that I need to be physically at home to get done.
• Cabin
  Anything that I need to be physically at the cabin to get done.
• Next Action
  Just that. All of my next actions viewed in one place.
• Phone
  This context can be very handy in between two meetings or when driving a car.
• Work.Ag.Mngr
  Anything I need to discuss with my manager when we have time together.
• Work.Ag.Team
  Anything I need to discuss or inform about the next time we are all in the same room.
• Follow-up
  Any emails or delegated actions that are critical enough to warrant my time ensuring that it has been answered or done.
• Low Energy
  Things that I can do Friday afternoon or on a lazy Sunday morning.

Filters

This is probably the feature that I use the least.

• Next Action Work
  All of my next actions for work-related projects.
  This is what I choose from when I have done everything work-related on my Today list.
• Work projects
  All of my work-related projects in one place.
• Home
  The two contexts Home and Personal.
• Cabin
  The two contexts Cabin and Personal.
• Next Actions @Home
  This is what I choose from if I’m at home and have done all the private stuff on my Today list.
• Next Actions @Cabin
  This is what I choose from if I’m at the cabin and have done all the private stuff on my Today list.
• Overdue
  I better not find anything here.
• Priority 1
  What is most important in my life right now.
• No due date and No context
  I use these to do a “quality check” in my Weekly Review.
• Next 30 days
  What is in the way for my vacation or when doing long-term planning.
• Compleated today
  -No longer supported.

The ultimate guide to Todoist filters

Capturing tools

As a part of my Todoist GTD setup, I use the following tools and methods to capture information into Todoist.

Automated:

Todoist Linux

• Using IFTTT, I get action items for unanswered calls and SMS messages on my cell phone directly into my Todoist inbox.
• Using IFTTT and the local weather forecast, I get an action with priority 1 in the morning if it will rain or snow during the day.

On the move:

• Todoist shortcut on my Samsung Galaxy Note8
• Newton email integrates email with Todoist on my phone and tablet
• Braintoss captures pictures, notes and audiosnippet and sends in direcly to my Todoist inbox.
• Livescribe 3 smart-pen + App. Send notes to Todoist
• Mont Blanc ballpoint pen and a small Moleskine notebook

In the office and at home:

Todoist Ios

• Todoist Outlook add-in
• Square bank paper notes

Do not miss my next blog post: My Todoist GTD setup – Part 2: Weekly Review and Focus Horizons.

Todoist Excel