Question
What's the best to-do list app in 2021?
When you've got too many things to do, how do you keep track of them all? Have you started using a new to-do list app recently, or found an old one is still doing the job well?
The last time we discussed to-do list apps, it turned out some of the most popular options weren't to-do list apps at all. @dharmesh stars emails to save tasks; @NBNite and others used Notion to list tasks in notes.
What's your favorite way to organize the things you need to do today?
Mentioned
#Things #Todoist #Notion #Project Management #ClickUp #Trello #OmniFocus #Evernote #Google Keep #Done #Capiche #DropboxShare
Used to use ToDoist, never loved it. I won't list out the reasons why unless someone is really curious. š Even while using it I still occasionally used reminders from Google Keep (it's just convenient to have a note pop-up for direct, immediate use vs. clicking a link in a task), and I also still use Google Calendar a little.
I've tried tons of other options, but one thing I realized I needed was really good calendar functionality built-in to my task manager. Most people seem to feel GCal integration is all they want, but I actually feel like GCal is a pretty mediocre, outdated, clunky tool by modern standards (the last "major" update was merely a visual redesign to bring it up to other Google app design language). So I wanted to find something that had that integrated. I tried many options, ClickUp, TickTick, and more.
Currently seem to have settled on the surprisingly little-known Amazing Marvin. It's a bit daunting to configure at times as it is incredibly flexible (you can implement a much better GTD workflow in it than in ToDoist, for example, but also Eisenhower Matrix and much more). But that same configurability means I can make it do almost exactly what I want. And I find it in general far more pleasant to use and less clunky than ToDoist in most respects. It has its share of rough edges, but unlike many other larger ToDo apps the developers are highly available and responsive, e.g. in their Facebook feedback group. So you can very often get answers directly from someone on the (very small) team.
Like I said, for some reason it's not a very well-known tool. But I think it's worth a look for anyone who has yet to find a tool that works they way they want it to.
Btw another interesting potential aspect of the discussion is personal vs. professional tasks. Do you intermingle them, or keep them separate? If separate, what apps do you use for each respectively? If together, how do you keep them organized in your app of choice?
This is fascinating: All the top replies so far mention wanting tasks tied more closely to calendars.
Iāve tried an insane number of to-do list apps (literally installed >50 different ones when writing about to-do list apps and project management tools for Zapier) and somehow this is the first Iām hearing of Amazing Marvin. Somehow the core concept of simple tasks tied to dates reminds me of TeuxDeux, though then the sections and time blocking go way beyond that. Curious, do you remember where you first came across Amazing Marvin?
On work vs personal: I typically manually add work tasks to my personal to-do list, and so end up tracking work in two places, but Iām sure I donāt have the best system here yet. We should spin up another discussion about that!
Yeah, wow, that just confirms my feeling that AM (Amazing Marvin) is not as well known as it should be. Even simply setting aside that it's a crowded field, there are just so many really run-of-the-mill apps that are much more widely known, for whatever reason. While AM really is incredibly powerful and flexible and has apps for most platforms, where many do not, or are not offline-capable. So many things people often ask for in task managers are in AM, or can be enabled/configured. I don't entirely understand why it isn't more popular, but I'm sure marketing has a part to play.
If I recall correctly I think I discovered Amazing Marvin after I had been testing ClickUp and was looking around on Reddit for some other options. I had finally identified that I wanted calendar functionality in my task manager, and was finding it hard to discover options specifically for that. I had found a few, but figuring out if a given app supported it basically involved sifting through feature lists, support docs, or even 3rd party test videos to see. Some would say "built-in calendar" but you couldn't actually edit anything from that view, which I needed. What I ultimately thought I wanted (and haven't yet tested, but can now that I'm in Amazing Marvin) was time blocking. But not just generic blocks, the ability to assign tasks into blocks of time.
Anyway, I think I was just getting back to that search that had been ongoing for months (or years even), and trying to explore new ways of searching for what I wanted. It seemed like the thing to do might be to find communities that were not tied to any one app, places where people made and discussed recommendations, and then look for people with similar needs to mine, or post a new thread if necessary. I didn't know about Capiche at the time (and actually I'm not sure it existed or at least had enough traffic, this was in late 2019/early 2020 I think). There were surprisingly few places that weren't app-specific, and e.g. ProductHunt, G2, etc. weren't really doing it for me.
So Amazing Marvin turned up in a few Reddit threads around tasks+calendars, and finally I checked it out. I was a bit concerned about the price, as I think many are when they first find it, but ultimately I think it is well worth it. Though I do wonder if they should adjust their strategy to get more reach/attention as that may well be part of the reason they aren't more well known...
Yeah, Capiche launched late 2019, but didnāt have most of its features until early 2020. On being āapp-specific,ā Iāve always had a tough time there naming-wise, as Iāve long referred to all software as apps (web apps for SaaS, for example). Thereās a weird space there where to some, āsoftwareā is for work/desktop and āappā is for personal/mobile, but Iāve found itās very category dependent (accounting software sounds right, to-do list app also sounds right). And you touched on a good point with reviews; lots of software have all the features, seemingly to check the box in comparison lists, but the nuance comes in how they implement them.
ClickUp was popular here last year for sure; I know @iCanAutomate was a big fan.
Pricing is tough. So many to-do lists start out free that the barrier to entry to get people to pay is high. Same with notes; youāve either got free personal plans paid for by the professional/team plans (say with Notion), or tools like Roam that embrace the high price and skip free altogether. The latter might make it harder to get known but likely makes it easier to actually build the business in the first place.
Re: market share, user base, etc. I just noticed something rather interesting. I think it's fair to say ClickUp is one of the biggest, most well-known, and probably widely used of the newer crop of task/project management apps (Asana being more of the previous generation (and there are many prior even to that of course). It has a pretty big user base and I see giant billboards for it around the Bay Area, and I know they've got plenty of VC, heh.
What I noticed in checking out the Amazing Marvin subreddit just now is that it has over 1000 members. The ClickUp subreddit only has a little less than 2000! Honestly I was more surprised that AM even had 1000, but 2000 for ClickUp also seems really small. Granted ClickUp has a more open official community space, but still. I noticed that AM also has over 3500 members in their official Facebook group, and while ClickUp has 8.5k, the ratio is not that far off from the Reddit one: a little more than 2x in this case. Clearly the user base of ClickUp and its team size are leaps and bounds ahead of AM, so what is going on here?
Perhaps AM is less visible in comparison to the true size of its user base than ClickUp and other tools may be? If so, why? If there are 3000 people in the AM group, and remembering that AM has no free version, that suggests it actually has a fair number of users. Maybe AM is just not discussed on very SEO-friendly platforms as much (FB being a prime example).
This is all very interesting to discover as part of the puzzle of AM's apparent lack of visibility... But at least it seems like they're not totally hurting for users.
Amazing Marvin needs some tender loving marketing. Not only towards to aggressive users but the casual users. They should call a marketer (me?) lol
Todoist has a great feature that allows you to sync your tasks with google calendar. I can see all my tasks due for the day. Its a great feature.
Disappointed with AM. It's so flexible I couldn't start using it. I know a lot of people love it, and the developers seem really amazing ;) so "it's not them, it's me" :) :(
I can absolutely understand that, and I think this is probably its biggest "Achilles heel". In truth, though I still use AM as my main task manager, I don't use it optimally (I use it in a fairly "dumb"/simple way) because I look at improving my AM setup as a project/job/work to do and so ironically I put it off in favor of everything else. š I do take advantage of enough AM-specific functionality that I am glad I use it, I just know my setup could be way better.
Wow -- thanks for introducing me to Marvin :-) I am also a todoist person at the moment, but I have also found some things to be more difficult than they needed to be :-( Based on a quick look Marvin seems to have some strong and attractive differentiators.
Probably the best thing about todoist are the many places you can access it -- plug ins for chrome & gmail as well as iOS app and integration flexibility... have you found that to be a limitation at all with Marvin? Ubiquitous capture...
What I found myself doing was jumping from app to app since nothing seemed to be the perfect match. Ultimately, this approach was flawed. What finally clicked for me was discovering the Getting Things Done (GTD) methodology and then configuring an app following that approach.
As one commentator mentioned, Amazing Marvin is truly an incredibly powerful productivity app. The whole premise behind Marvin is that you can reconfigure it any way you want - even having it mimic the workflows of other popular productivity applications. Which is just...brilliant. It's a fabulous product as well. Fan of Omnifocus but on a PC?
Marvin has that configuration. Like Things or ToDoist but want to change one or two things which aren't ideal? Marvin allows for that.
Why this tool ultimately has been the One for me is that when I find myself struggling with one workflow aspect, I can modify it. OR if I get bored, which I do frequently, I can reconfigure the layout such that it feels new. I have not needed to rip and replace - which I have done a fair number of times.
However, if you do not have confidence in whatever approach or system you are implementing, ultimately it will fail. This is why GTD has been so pivotal for me. It solved that precise problem and I've literally never been more productive or on top of my game with GTD + Amazing Marvin.
This is the classic problem with productivity tools, it seems, especially to-do list and notes apps. Thus the wide variety of tools in the replies so far!
Did you find Amazing Marvinās default configuration was enough to hook you, or was it only when you took the time to personalize it that it clicked for you?
I could definitely see āOmniFocus but for Windowsā being enough of a selling point though!
As another commentator mentioned above, I found Marvin through Reddit although it was through the GTD sub.
When I first started with AM, I went with their Ultimate GTD workflow. This workflow failed me, not because of the configuration but because of my own productivity habits. Iāve actually recently started using their basic Daily Planning workflow and quite like it. Iām incorporating smart lists and tags to pull the frequently referenced lists forward. The whole GTD list methodology has been a god send. Iām a controller and also filling our cx need right now so my organization has to be leak proof.
They do offer a 30 day trial and it was so good right off the bat that I went with premium. When my year is up, Iām going to swing for the lifetime plan.
I have made a few feature requests and they are highly responsive to their community. Iāve even seen some enhancements based on this. All things that make my product heart sing.
Before Marvin I had tried TickTick, Nirvana, Microsoft To Do, and a few OneNote tries.
@VV_Sea
I feel identified with your opinion.
I have been with GTD for about 3 years trying to apply the workflow defined by David Allen (sometimes with success and sometimes with failure).
I've tried options like Facile Things and Nirvana (two tools are excellent flow for GTD but I can't get used to their layout and UX).
My vote is for Amazing Marvin. Very flexible, with many options but you can keep it simple. Excellent support and community.
My job is as a product manager, I work remotely and I use the computer approximately 80% -90% of the time.
Before looking for and testing tools, I think that the first step is to know and define "what you need" to work, depending on your job position and the place where you do the work.
When you have the above defined, in my opinion, the most important thing is to have a simple, agile and clear system (that is not subjective, that allows you to make decisions and place tasks without thinking too much).
Although I do not have the perfect system (I think it does not exist and can always be improved), currently these are the tools I use:
Braintoss (from mobile) and paper notes (everything else) as capture tools.
Amazing Marving: It is my main tool to manage lists in this order *:
Inbox, all my captures are processed here. I decide on all the elements (what they are and what degree of commitment I have or adopt towards them)
Maybe someday. Place where I have reminders of decisions that I have put off to make later.
This list has the sublist "not this week." This sublist is shorter (tasks or projects that I want to start soon) and makes the weekly review faster and more efficient.Waiting for, everything I delegate to anyone.
Projects, for any result that requires more than one task
@people, any task that I can only do with a specific person (only the most common people)
Next actions, I have 8 contexts # (Focus, Web, Office, Email, Calls, Apps, Home, Street,)
Tickler, tasks that can only start from a future date.
List with links to applications and software that I use **
- For me the order of these lists is important to avoid having many tasks assigned to me. With this order of lists, I can "incubate" and "delegate" more tasks and projects. This way I only do tasks and projects that are really important to me. ** It allows me to access applications quickly and avoid opening "non-productive" pages in the browser.
Google calendar, (sacred territory). For me task and projects, with specific day and time (always external, I don't decide them)
Evernote for the reference file. Everything that "does not require action but could serve me." I do not classify it in folders, I only write titles and text that allows me to store it in such a way that it is easy and fast to access it if at any time I need to.
Dropbox Paper and Craft.do for the support material. Documents that contain only support material for my next actions and projects (everything I need or can be useful to complete a next action: checklist, email links, pdf, notes, templates, etc.)
Other tools I use in my workflow:
Craft.do and Readwise- Knowledge Management
Fellow.app: Team meetings
Trello: Team Projects
Gmail: 4 accounts. (personal, company, home, test). I hate email
Sanebox: Makes me hate email a little less
Can't go past todoist really. I usually don't go for tools that try to do EVERYTHING (eg outlook), since usually they're a compromise in some areas. Instead, I tend to go for tools that have a dedicated function (and do it well) but also have GOOD INTEGRATIONS with other tools, to create a workflow.
Todoist has a seamless 2-way sync with google calendar, which in turn works with gmail, so email, calendar, and todos get all synced up automagically.
Plus todoist has amazingly powerful filters where you can write your own conditions, once you're used to that no other conventional todo app can compare (I've used it to create my own version of the 'Getting Things Done' methodology, and its great!)
Fascinating, yeah, Todoist really is powerful. It somehow has always reminded me of OmniFocus with a less confusing UI and that works everywhere.
On the calendar sync: Is that showing scheduled tasks directly as events on your calendar? Do you then use that to schedule what time youāll work on tasks (as @rhogroupee mentioned wanting to do with time blocking tasks)?
Also curious: Do you find the Todoist points/gamification something that you actually pay attention to, or do you end up ignoring it over time?
Correct, I use the calendar sync to do time-blocking.
The gamification isn't something that I'm interested in, no. However on gaining levels, you get free premium time , so that's a perk.
I recently started using AmazingMarvin, and it is such a gem. Gone past the configuration stage. I absolutely love it.
I've tried them ALL. To do lists are my jam, and I'm the person who adds something to the list after I've already done it, just so I can mark it done. I'm currently using NotePlan to combine notes and tasks, and love the simplicity as well as the syncing to both iPad and phone. it also shows little green or red dots for each task when you're looking at the calendar view, which feels good and shows you tasks you left undone from a week ago.
That said, I'm also experimenting right now with a "straight to calendar" approach. The idea is to just schedule any task that takes longer than 10 minutes to do. It clutters my calendar a bit, so it needs some refinement, but I like the concept so far. Anyone else doing time blocking rather than to do lists?
For the straight-to-calendar approach, check out Motion (https://usemotion.io). RE: calendar-cluttering, we felt the same pain with calendars we tried. None of them had great support for to-dos, so we built a calendar for to-dos. In fact, it's even the first thing on our site :).
If you're interested, mention "Capiche comment" in the referral section and I'll hook you up with an invite.
NotePlan really seems like something Iād love, being more of a writing app tied to a calendar than a traditional to-do list. Do you find yourself going back and looking at what you accomplished and/or wrote down over time much?
Just using the calendar is tempting, though. Iāve finally hit that point where Iāve got just enough meetings to be a bit tough to juggle, and actually slotting in time and forcing myself to work on that one task only during that time really might be a good idea. Almost a Pomodoro system combined with a calendar.
I do go back periodically, although I've started peeling out things that I know I want for future posterity into their own folder for that purpose.
Iām desperately trying to figure this out for myself. Right now Iām defaulting to Things 3 for notes, Notion for knowledge management and schoolwork, ClickUp for software project management, and a hodgepodge of Apple notes + Bear for everything else.
Ideally, I would at least want tasks, notes, and my calendar in one app, but I canāt find a hybrid that has all the features of Things 3. š
Check out Noteplan, it has a great notes experience, tasks built in, and calendar compatibility as well. I use it to manage my tasks, all notes since migrating from Evernote last month, and to monitor my calendar :D
I tried it in the past, but it didnāt work for me because I need to separate my ādoā dates from my ādueā dates for each task.
@taylorfay You and me both. We collaborate in Notion at Capiche, so thatās where we default to organizing work tasks, and then I use Things to list personal tasks along with some personal work tasks. Notes ... are widely scattered :D
Things is so nicely designed, and its Apple Watch integration is great, so thatās generally what keeps me using it. If only it had a full API instead of only being able to email tasks into the inbox...
The very very basic Microsoft To Do works well for me. I have different lists for different parts of my job and it's simple to add new to-do's and mark them complete. It makes a satisfying little "ding" when you complete a task, and then shows it crossed off below the active list so you can refer back to it. I tried Trello but it didn't work for me- the simpler the better!
My favorite thing about To Do is My Day. I moved from a very nice project manager (Teamwork) to To Do + Planner. Planner is powerful but something frustrating. To Do is basic but effective.
Agreed- the more basic, the better, from my perspective. I keep it open at all times and it keeps me sane! I need to start using the "My Day" functionality more often, thanks for the reminder there!
Neat, Microsoft To Do is pretty nice! Were you using Wunderlist before Microsoft acquired it and turned it into To Do?
My favorite app right now is "Dalo" - in conjunction with Timestripe. Dalo for all kinda tasks, using a simple but imho very clever time-management system by Mark Foster. Timestripe for keeping an eye on the big picture / projects. This arrangement needs sometimes some extra time, since some stufff needs to be on both of them, but that also helps from "accidentally" forgetting something.
Ohh hadn't seen Dalo before, that looks nice! Reminds me a bit of the Clear to-do list app from Realmac software.
Yeah, it does flawlessly what its supposed to do. Clear i hardly remember, i think they stopped updating for it for somw while now? I found it always a bit distracting if i rember correctly, Dalo is in contrast quite clean and basically a simple list mimicking a paper-notebook in some of its behaviours.
I have been with GTD for about 3 years trying to apply the workflow defined by David Allen (sometimes with success and sometimes with failure).
I've tried options like Facile Things and Nirvana (two tools are excellent flow for GTD but I can't get used to their layout and UX).
My vote is for Amazing Marvin. Very flexible, with many options but you can keep it simple. Excellent support and community.
My job is as a product manager, I work remotely and I use the computer approximately 80% -90% of the time.
Before looking for and testing tools, I think that the first step is to know and define "what you need" to work, depending on your job position and the place where you do the work.
When you have the above defined, in my opinion, the most important thing is to have a simple, agile and clear system (that is not subjective, that allows you to make decisions and place tasks without thinking too much).
Although I do not have the perfect system (I think it does not exist and can always be improved), currently these are the tools I use:
Braintoss (from mobile) and paper notes (everything else) as capture tools.
Amazing Marving: It is my main tool to manage lists in this order *:
Inbox, all my captures are processed here. I decide on all the elements (what they are and what degree of commitment I have or adopt towards them)
Maybe someday. Place where I have reminders of decisions that I have put off to make later.
This list has the sublist "not this week." This sublist is shorter (tasks or projects that I want to start soon) and makes the weekly review faster and more efficient.Waiting for, everything I delegate to anyone.
Projects, for any result that requires more than one task
@people, any task that I can only do with a specific person (only the most common people)
Next actions, I have 8 contexts # (Focus, Web, Office, Email, Calls, Apps, Home, Street,)
Tickler, tasks that can only start from a future date.
List with links to applications and software that I use **
- For me the order of these lists is important to avoid having many tasks assigned to me. With this order of lists, I can "incubate" and "delegate" more tasks and projects. This way I only do tasks and projects that are really important to me. ** It allows me to access applications quickly and avoid opening "non-productive" pages in the browser.
Google calendar, (sacred territory). For me task and projects, with specific day and time (always external, I don't decide them)
Evernote for the reference file. Everything that "does not require action but could serve me." I do not classify it in folders, I only write titles and text that allows me to store it in such a way that it is easy and fast to access it if at any time I need to.
Dropbox Paper and Craft.do for the support material. Documents that contain only support material for my next actions and projects (everything I need or can be useful to complete a next action: checklist, email links, pdf, notes, templates, etc.)
I use OmniFocus. It's extremely robust. Specifically for "What to do Today" I use a custom perspective that combines tasks with due dates of today, tasks in the "Today" project, or tasks tagged with a "ā" tag. This allows me to pin tasks to my Today perspective from anywhere. So I use a combination of scheduled tasks and a "Time Sector" approach. I can go into "This Week" and just star tasks to pluck them out to keep them in my attention. There are two other important aspects of OmniFocus that make it work for me. One, its inbox, and sync is excellent. You can capture in many ways from many places, including your watch, share sheets, email. I use it as a universal inbox. The other is its review system. Everything comes up automatically for review. One quick review for the week ensures nothing slips through the cracks.
Having a "Trusted" system, and a "Single Source of Truth" is essential. I know if it needs to get done it's in OF. I also know if it's not on my "Today" page I don't even have to think about it. If I think of something that needs to get done, I just use OF's quick entry macro or quickly record it on my watch. Done.
I have a hard rule, if it's an action that needs to happen, it's in OF. Period. This includes recurring routine tasks which are all in a "Routines" project and scheduled ahead of time.
OF has been able to adapt for me overtime to work the way I want it to work as my process has evolved.
OmniFocus is where I started; I think I dropped off because I always used it more as a basic to-do list after customizing it to hide much of the UI.
On the universal inbox aspect: Curious, how do you separate what should be notes and details and what should be tasks you add to OF? Iāve found the advantage of using a notes app for tasks and notes is that you have a fully universal inbox (albeit with the added burden of needing to figure out where to file stuff away).
The review system does seem to be the biggest advantage of OmniFocus. Was it hard to build the habit of reviewing tasks every week?
With the universal inbox I mean OmniFocus is the one place where I send everything initially. From there I process the inbox. For example, I say, okay here is an article that got my attention. Do I still care about it? If not, delete it, if yes, send it to Evernote. So I will actually load the URL and clip it to Evernote. If it's a note or an idea or something I need to schedule on my calendar I will process it or create a task to process it later.
The habit of review is easy. Just clear out your inbox once a week, and step through the review process. I find I always find a few things I can drop, or prioritize or groom, etc. I just do it every Sunday, it takes me about 20 mins.
I use the default Reminders app a lot and have some collaborative lists that I share with family but I find it pretty limited so I did some research and found Goodtask which I LOVE. It is excellent, has a really active developer, ties directly into the Reminders database and allows for subtasks, advanced scheduling, color theming, and a lot more, plus it is available for iOS, iPadOS and MacOS. And since it ties into Reminder, you can even access the tasks on iCloud if you lose all of your devices in some tragic fashion :P
I also like to use Fantastical so I can see my reminders right in my calendar, and it plays nicely with Goodtask. If you mark something done in Fantastical, it appears checked in Goodtask and Reminders as well, since they all share the same information.
This has worked for me for years. I have explored Things, Notion, To Do, Wunderlist etc but this set up works the best since my wife only uses Reminders and I share household task lists with her and she definitely does NOT want to use other apps š¤£
Oh thatās nice. That means you can basically just use Reminders via Siri, say, and itād show up both there and Goodtask. Sharingās an overlooked thing in most personal to-do list apps, too. Sounds like a really good setupāand manages to tie in calendars, which seems the recurring theme of everyoneās to-do list setups this year!
Yea, siri works perfectly and tasks show up in Goodtask and Fantastical as well. We had gotten a Homepod (RIP š) last year and setting reminders and calendars by voice has been great!
It took me a while, but I ended up using Roam Research. And I ended up loving it!
I used tu use Notion, which was more than decent at managing To Do lists.
But since I spend already a bunch of time inside Roam, I found that Roam has a both powerful and effortless way to add ToDos, assign them to a date, find, and organize them.
I love how you can add any todo anywhere (but most often in a daily note) without having to think too much where to put it/how to tag it, etc.
Nice, I was looking for people using notes apps for tasks! Bardia Pourvakil from the Roam team had mentioned on our show how he tags notes at least with future dates, and then when he opens Roam on that day it shows the note ... which seems like it could be a super powerful to-do list, with tasks tied to the notes about them and such.
Do you have any specific system to manage Roam tasks?
Nothing more specific than, just as @ambrstr said, simply adding a date to any todo item. Since I have Roam constantly opened, any task linked to a day automatically shows up in that daily note.
Itās really about the velocity with which you can add todos without having to think where to put them.
Enter task, date, done.
What I find cool about tasks in Roam is that you can drag tasks from other pages into your daily notes as block references so they essentially exist in two places at once. I ultimately decided to stick with OmniFocus though because Roam does not have any reminders and it's also hard to capture on the go. I do however copy and paste OmniFocus tasks into my daily notes which gives me a to-do in Roam, but I consider that just a scratch copy and for journal recording only.
The ones that are not yet available, Amie, Superlist and Symphony are for me the most promising products in the productivity space.
And donāt forget Glue āš»
Looking for a better way to plan remote meetings across time zones, and keep up with events. What software is doing that best today?
I'm so happy to read that there is another Amazing Marvin fan in the Capiche community. Why this app is not better known is beyond me. I truly love their product and their entire approach. It will be fun to watch their product take off as more people discover it. A quality product like Marvin is bound to be successful.