I tried the Todoist app several years ago and immediately disliked it so much that I deleted it within days.
Oh, how the tables have turned.
I now open and use Todoist all day, every day and have for 3+ years. It’s my brain’s external hard drive! (And I don’t even pay for it.)
What changed?
How Todoist Can Change Everything
Todoist is a to-do list app that can sync across devices (I use it on both my smartphone and Mac). It holds your to-do list in a neat, organized format that is not only easily accessible but fun to use!
Categories
Pop tasks into specific lists (or “Projects”) designated for long-term or short-term goals, or do like I do and use the “Projects” feature as a way to categorize life arenas. I use the following categories:
- Personal
- Work
- Home
Every few months I play around with these categories (for instance I combined Personal and Home into “Offline” and made an “Online” project that funnels all of my Work sub-projects).
You can color-code all projects and sort your day’s to-do list by project (or anything else!) so you can easily recognize what you should tackle next.
Quick Add
This is my favorite feature! You can quickly add tasks within the app via the Quick Add feature which allows you to hit the + and just start typing. Type a hashtag to delineate the project/category right from the same screen. Don’t forget to type a date; Todoist will know you’re scheduling that task and pop it onto your desired day. Don’t want that date after all? Just click it away and the task will auto-assign itself to today so you remember to remind so-and-so of that event coming up on the 20th before the 20th.
Recurring Events
Not only is Todoist intuitive enough to know when you’re scheduling a task for a specific date just because you’re typing a date, you can also get fancy with your scheduling. Type “every Thursday” or “every other month” or “every two weeks on Monday starting in October” to set up a recurring task so you never forget to change the air filter again (ahem).
This in my opinion is what makes Todoist better for my brain than a paper planner, because I don’t have to keep track of recurring tasks in a different collection. I enjoy more of a calendar view (by day) and Todoist gives that to me!
Also, more features are unlocked when you pay for the Premium membership, but I find I don’t need that level of awesomeness. I don’t yet use the smaller number of free labels, and although I do have a few filters set up (Workday, Workweek, etc.), I don’t use them every single day. I mainly live in the Today view and I look over Upcoming once a day or so to see what I can get ahead on in my task list for the rest of the week or even month!
Todoist is the #1 app from this list of my favorites that I’m constantly recommending to friends. See all these features and more and download Todoist for yourself right here!
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