In recent weeks I’ve made a shift in my Productivity Path. While I still love what The Omni Group is doing with OmniFocus, I am using another application for my task management these days.
Actually, I’m using two.
For the past six weeks, I’ve been using Asana for my larger team-oriented tasks and projects and Todoist for my individual and smaller team task management.
Why the switch, specifically from OmniFocus to Todoist? There are several reasons behind the move:
1. Ubiquity
Ultimately, most people want a task management solution that they can use anytime, anywhere. Unfortunately OmniFocus doesn’t provide that unless you are using iOS or Mac devices. But the fact of the matter is more people are using Android these days, and the only real solution that Android users have to get their stuff to OmniFocus are third party apps like Send-2-OmniFocus and OmniFocus Mailer. They can’t actually work with OmniFocus on the go, unless they’re also carrying an iPad or even a Mac notebook with them. That limits the accessibility of the app, and that is less than ideal.
Todoist, on the other hand, has a slew of platforms it is developed for:
- Android
- Chrome
- Windows
- iOS
- Mac
Todoist even integrates with Gmail, Outlook, and Postbox. No matter what device you’re using, you can access Todoist (as long as you are able to connect with the Internet upon launch). With integration for three major email clients, you have the ability to have your task manager at the ready while processing your email inbox. Very nice. And with the Todoist chrome extension, you can access your Todoist setup on any site.
Now that’s ubiquity.
2. Pricing
Longtime readers know that I don’t have a problem paying for products and services. I’ve dropped lots of cash on different applications that I’ve abandoned long ago. But I know that I am in the minority when it comes to paying for applications that many consider to be simply a “to do list” and nothing more. There are hundreds of free applications like this out there, but you get what you pay for in many cases.
I’d suggest that Todoist strikes a nice balance in this space, offering a limited free version that will work for many people, and a more robust premium version that scales up exceptionally well.
The free version of Todoist will suffice for people who are looking to add a task management component to their digital workflow for the first time, or for those who don’t need a lot of bells and whistles and yet still want a pleasing user experience. Todoist Premium is only $29 per year and you get a lot for your money. If you’ve been using a task management solution for a while and need to be able to customize things to better suit your approach to productivity, then you’ll definitely want to “go premium” with Todoist.
Todoist Premium offers a ton of features (productivity tracking, enhanced label system, project templates, file attachments, etc.) for what amounts to less than $2.50 per month. That kind of pricing is a lot easier to swallow than what other applications cost – OmniFocus included.
3. Flexibility
There are a few areas where I find Todoist’s flexibility to be another major selling point.
For one, Todoist also offers something that OmniFocus doesn’t: team task management. For the purposes of my virtual assistant experiment, I know I can create a project in Todoist and share items in there with my VA. I can’t do that with OmniFocus.
Now I know I can do this with Asana as well, but I actually prefer the ability to keep my own stuff separate from larger team stuff…and Asana is where I keep my larger team stuff. So I have a project that I use for things I work with my VA and as things come in I can actually drag them to that project from other projects that I’m not sharing. This process will help me offload some tasks I’ve got in my Inbox to my VA seamlessly. (Note: I’ll be sharing how I use Todoist with my virtual assistant more extensively in a future blog post.)
Todoist’s labelling is also helpful, in that I can decide whether I want to use “labels” as contexts or not. I can actually use them in a number of ways, and because I can apply multiple labels to a task I can really hone in on what I want to do at any given time.
I can also flag tasks with “priority levels,” allowing me to mark off my Three Big Rocks for the next day if I want. Todoist allows users to mesh their own approaches to productivity with well-known methodologies like GTD, The Agile Way, and even Kanban to a certain degree (largely through the use of colour). It’s incredibly flexible and versatile…which is what I need in a task management application.
Roadblocks Along The Way
There are a few things that I’m going to have to trudge through as I get used to using Todoist:
- No direct path from Drafts. Here’s hoping they get some URL schemes happening here. In the meantime, I simply email tasks to my Inbox and then process from there.
- No direct path from Dispatch. See above.
- No Weekly Review function…sort of. Todoist has Todoist Karma, which allows you to track your productivity, but I do miss the reviewing capabilities of OmniFocus (specifically on the iPad). I hope Todoist looks at adding this functionality in the future.
The more time I spend in Todoist, the more comfortable I’m getting. I’ll be writing more about my experience with it as the weeks and months progress.
I’ll still be keeping my eyes on what other options are out there, including OmniFocus, because that is part of my job. But Android is on the rise (again, OmniFocus is Mac and iOS only) and I want to help people get comfortable using task management solutions. The pricing of something like OmniFocus can be a deal-breaker for those who don’t even think they need a tool like it in the first place. I’ll still be writing about OmniFocus from time to time, but there are a lot of great folks out there who write abut it regularly and focus specifically on it. Sven Fechner of SimplicityBliss, Tim Stringer of Technically Simple and Learn OmniFocus, Shawn Blanc, David Sparks, Kourosh Dini (who wrote the great Creating Flow with OmniFocus), and Asian Efficiency (who offer OmniFocus Premium Posts to help you get the most out of the app in its various iterations).
I can say unequivocally that I’m a Todoist user now. I like what they’ve put together and I like where they’re headed. Asana is great for larger teams and I’ll continue to use it (and recommend it) for that purpose, but Todoist is now my personal task management application of choice.
Thoughts on Todoist? Have another task management application of choice? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.
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Thanks Mike, the timing is great as I was looking to integrate a simple to-do list into my workflow and already use Asana for larger projects. Much appreciated overview!
-Harry
No problem. Glad I was able to help…and I’ve got more Todoist stuff coming!
If price weren’t a problem and if you’re only using apple stuff, would u still use todoist? It seems to me that todoist is missing a crucial feature. The forecast feauture of omnifocus
The thing is that I’m also using an Android device now, albeit not that often. And the Forecast feature is a nice one but as you apply a due date to something in Todoist you can see how many tasks you have on deck on the dates in the calendar. (I’ve also found a bit of a workaround for start dates, although it isn’t exactly pretty.)
I’m encouraged by the active development of Todoist…and that went a long way in my willingness to leave some of the features that OmniFocus had behind. I’m hoping they keep it up – and I’m pretty sure they will.
I’ve looked at Todoist before, but the lack of a URL scheme held me back. Interapp communication is huge for me. Have you contacted the dev about the possibility of adding a scheme?
I have mentioned it, and there’s a "Votebox" that Todoist offers for users who want features added (http://todoist.com/Vote/). URL schemes are important to me as well, and the Todoist team isn’t averse to integrations from what i’ve seen so I’m hoping URL scheme support is on the horizon sooner rather than later.
http://matthewlang.co.uk/2014/09/03/ten-tips-for-todoist/
In this blog post, Matthew Lang highlights Todoist url functionality. I haven’t explored it yet, but plan on doing so in the immediate future.
The part I hate about Todoist is that when I flick through my list of items with my thumb, it inevitably marks things as done. They need a longer swipe to complete instead of a barely swipe to complete.
Good point. Why not drop them a line to recommend this? http://todoist.com/Support/?platform=ios for iOS and http://todoist.com/Support/?platform=android for Android.
Are you sure your sensitivity settings aren’t in need of adjustment? I have not experienced this, and I use todoist extensively on my android device. Just a thought.
If you add an “* ” just the star and then put a space afterwards before starting to type your task, it won’t have the checkbox thing and you won’t run the risk of accidentally checking it off and losing your work. It’ll stay there permanently till you edit the task title and remove the little astrix star. Try it out! 😉
I’ve been using Todoist for 1.5 years. I started it along with a new job thanks to the excellent Outlook plugin. A year later I integrated all my personal Gtasks into Todoist. Working well for me across all the platforms. And I love that I can now assign and track tasks.
Can you you tell me what you mean by URL schemes?
URL schemes allow apps yo integrate with other apps somewhat seamlessly. Drafts uses it, as does Launch Center Pro, and Dispatch. I don’t know how to specifically describe them, but perhaps this link will help: https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/featuredarticles/iPhoneURLScheme_Reference/Introduction/Introduction.html
If Todoist supported URL schemes then Dispatch could send tasks to Todoist directly, as could Drafts and LCP. It would really level the app even more, as several task management solutions support them right now (OmniFocus, Asana, etc.)
Hope this helps…even a little.
For drafts integration, you can just set up drafts to email the Todoist inbox link that Todoist gives you.
I’ve been struggling with OmniFocus in that it’s limited to the Mac and iOS platform. Though I use a Mac at work, I work for a pretty MS-centric company and they gave me an Android phone for my work smartphone. I needed something that’s cross platform but still feels elegant and so I decided to give Todoist a try and I’m liking it a lot. There’s a couple of things I still need to iron out in my workflow but for the most part I’m happy with the move from OmniFocus to Todoist.
Glad to hear it. I’ve still got some moving to do, but i’m pretty happy with things so far and am confident they’ll keep developing Todoist so that it can reach even greater heights. Thanks for reading and for sharing your thoughts.
I am using Todoist because of its cross platform capability. I cannot understand how OF and Things have remained on the Mac only platform. They could earn a decent revenue stream and their slow pace of development has been driving fans of their software insane.
It’s a pity as they are two great apps. Like you, I love the OF review on the iPad and love the Things workflow but the lack of a windows app or web version means it’s a non runner for me. I think it’s a snobbery thing to keep it Mac only. People prefer small incremental updates with new features which OF and Cultured Code have failed miserably to deliver and are falling too far behind. iOS 8 is on its way and CC has yet to bring out Things 3 for iOS 7. However, when they do, no doubt it will be good but still Mac unless they surprise us with a web version.
Michael
Thanks for chiming in, Michael. I know that The OmniGroup is heavily focused on the Apple platform because they develop more than just OmniFocus, so I can appreciate that. They are, after all, a big fish in a smaller pond as a result. As for Things, I gave up on that app when the sync took forever to arrive on the scene.
As long as Todoist keeps adding functionality and keeps levelling the playing field, I think they’ll see a definite jump in users over the long haul
One of the big reasons I too switched to ToDoIst. I was a heavy OF user and also used Things in the past, and it took forever to get new functionality, often what seemed liked simple tweaks fell on deaf ears. After starting to use ToDoIst, I was surprised at the rate of updates. There are some ui changes I would like, but all in all, I’m getting used to the app. J
I’ve migrated to Todoist from Wunderlist lately and I don’t regret it.
So far, so good for me as well! (I didn’t spend a lot of time with Wunderlist. Wasn’t a big fan of the UI.)
Switched not that long ago and like you I’m happy to pay for the ‘extras’. What a great service.
The Karma area does allow you to view past completed tasks across filtered date ranges, I’ve asked if they can make those saveable in the future (for easier reporting).
My thoughts on why Todoist is a great app mirror yours: http://www.gordonmclean.co.uk/2014/03/24/tackling-tasks/
Thanks for sharing the link…and for the tip on Karma!
Mike thanks for reminding me about todoist. I had this on the backburner from launch and have been pleasantly surprised since revisiting upon your recommendation.
I would love it to integrate with evernote tasks. I see that taskclone converts uncompleted evernote tasks into a list on wunderlist but wunderlist is nowhere close in sophistication to todoist.
I have clients using evernote for meeting notes and recording tasks which then often get lost. I understand we can use the link from the note but that’s not the most attractive result right now.
I happily upgraded to premium and consider my long relationship with things a thing of the past. I also love the way I can convert a web link to a task… it’s very slick.
Helen, there’s quite a bit of ideas behind linking Evernote to Todoist that are available at Todoist’s help area. Even services like TaskClone and Zapier are able to pitch in somewhat. i’ll be exploring these options further over the next few weeks as well.
Great piece, Mike. Thanks to you (iirc) I got started on using Todoist last year, and have been very pleased since – I migrated over from doit.im at the time (concern about export capabilities, though that too is a fine app).
One minor editorial point; the $29/month comes out to less than $2.50/month, not per day ("what amounts to less than $2.50 per day.").
The todoist folk even did an entertaining comparison
https://todoist.com/blog/2014/03/30-things-you-buy-that-are-more-expensive-than-todoist-premium/
around this topic. As far as I’m concerned, worth every penny!
Thanks, Eric. I think I was going to go with the cost per day model (which is like 8 cents or something) and simply forgot to adjust it accordingly in the final edit. Appreciate you correcting it for me.
I read that post by Todoist and when put into perspective the price is more than justifiable. I also explored Doit.im and almost went that route, but ultimately went with Todoist and could;t be happier about that.
That is actually the yearly price – though I think i has now gone up to $34 per annum. Refreshing when quality products are available at such a reasonable price.
I think I have very similar requirements, but I went for an alternative setup.
I use Toodledo.com as backend. I rarely log in (except if I absolutely must use a web interface). Otherwise Toodledo is just a sync backend I pay around $ 20 per year for.
You can find a multitude of apps that are able to sync with Toodledo. I went for 2Do on OSX, iOS and Android (each costing a little as a one-time fee).
Now I have a super smooth, very reliable sync across my two Macs, my two iOS Devices (iPad & iPhone) as well as my Android HTC One and my Android Tablet (Asus Fonepad). That is what I would call ubiquity 🙂 Good, usable and pretty native apps, everywhere. (Just a tad too much skeuomorphism, but otherwise fine).
Just in case somebody was looking for an alternative (I am in no way affilliated in any of the above mentioned, just a happy user)
ToodleDo is a great alternative for sure, but Todoist caught my attention and I prefer the UI. Still, there are things ToodleDo does that Todoist doesn’t do (at least not yet), so it’s worth exploring. Cheers, Oliver!
I’ve been using Toodledo for years and over the past year or two have tried moving to Todoist. What keeps drawing me to Todoist is the clean interface…it’s easy on the eyes! However, Toodledo is easy on the brain due its superior 3-tier sorting capabilities AND better consistency between the web and mobile apps. I also have some filters for 2 weeks and 1month views which are extremely confusing in Todoist since they just repeat the day headings. In some cases, you be looking at tasks that look like their coming up on say Wednesday, but upon close inspection it’s actually the Wednesday two week from now.
Still the clean Todoist interface beckons and I find the Karma feature strangely intriguing. Also, Todoist’s integration with Sunrise is calling me to try Todoist again.
What I want is a ToodleDoist!
I was looking tot a taskmanager that could measure itself with OF, because I’m on the Mac. I chose Todoist because of its UI. However the lack of start date is really disappointing. Maybe you could write about your workflow wit Todoist. How you do your weekly review with it etc. Would be very interesting.
I’m actually working on a fairly comprehensive post that goes over what you’re looking for, Jeroen. I should have it ready in the next week or so, so be on the lookout for it!
jeez, how do u deal with the utter lack of keyboard shortcut? clicking with a mouse for 2 days and i’m tired
I’ve been doing fine with the keyboard shortcuts Todoist offers… https://todoist.com/Help/KeyboardShortcuts
yea, i’m aware theres some keyboard shortcuts. its just not enough for me, maybe i’m spoiled from using the hit list, and 2do.
it feels so slow moving my mouse and clicking project to project and filter to filter.
I see where you’re coming from. Maybe head to the Todoist Votebox and ask for them to add more keyboard shortcuts… http://todoist.com/Vote/show/6776/
An odd omission from their supported platforms is Windows Phone, despite providing an excellent plugin for Outlook and a Windows Desktop app. Visually, windows phone has the most in common with their design theme. Despite being egregiously ugly, Toodledo.com (and a 3rd Party app Ultimate To-do on Android which is just as ugly) are substantial cross platform alternatives to Omnifocus. GTD functional but flexible however you like.
..forgot to add. Todoist isn’t a true offline program on the Mac (I think it requires a connection first before going offline) which is why I also run a Toodledo account for when I go travelling. For collaboration/projects Podio.com has some decent chops as a workflow tool for projects and teams in mind which surpasses Asana’s project to task focus.
Great point, Pixel. Todoist does require a connection first. But since I use the Todoist mobile apps I can always use them when I don’t have a wifi connection for my MacBook Air.
I’ll have to look more into Podio. Admittedly I haven’t spent much time in it at all.
Cisco bought it. I don’t believe that development is continuing.
Not Cisco – it was Citrix!
Thanks
Hi Mike!
Great work in general, been following you for a while, bought some of your stuff as well.
When you write:
"No matter what device you’re using, you can access Todoist (as long as you are able to connect with the Internet upon launch)…"
My deal breaker to move from Omni Focus and Asana to Todoist was the offline feature. I almost wrote "offline" because there’s a catch and that’s what I’d like to point out.
It’s true, you do need to go online the very first time you start Todoist on the web (Chrome, Safari in my case) but then you can continue working with it even when you go offline, the browser’s cache will take good care of your Todoist data. I’m using a pinned tab for Todoist in Chrome (right click on a tab , then choose "Pin Tab") and it stays always to the far left in the Chrome window.
I’ve stopped using the Todoist Mac App because it’s using Safari’s engine to store data and that didn’t work flawlessly.
The support staff is working on a move to using Chrome’s engine/cache in the Todoist App because of this.
Anyway, don’t want my comment to be longer than your original post ;-), just a remark for this modified offline mode that saves my….. and since I’m on a Mac, Windows, Android Todoist is a blessing.
Omni Focus is retired from my system now and Asana is also in my case being used for collaborational projects where we’re more than 3 persons. Todoist just came out with a Business version but you need to be at least 5 to register.
All the best!
I have been working on some of my clients to move over to todoist if not for their entire task/project management then at least for our combined work. It’s a struggle to persuade them to sign up to premium for todoist so I clearly need to read their blog post about pricing and also your thoughts on the affordability, Mike. I agree totally. I think that it’s a good price for a lot of wham. I was a little annoyed when I just found out that if I share a project with a non-premium user they are not able to attach files. The premium-ness of the project which I initiated doesn’t carry over as it does sometimes in other apps.
Now I really have to get my sales pitch on as this was one of the benefits – to stop emailing attachments backwards and forwards!!!
I made a comment and put it in the vote for section but have already received a reply that it is unlikely this would be approved. Oh well…. onwards….
I know this is an old comment, but I was wondering if there is another comparable task management software that does allow you both the share-r and the share-ee to attach files? Short of a shared Dropbox folder. I’m trying to simplify for my team and have as few places as possible for us to visit.
My email inbox is a mess because of all the file sharing back and forth and there must be a better way. We need affordable because we are a startup website. Not a large team – just 4 of us. Ideas?
Further to my post earlier today I’m considering changing over to business and then paying for the client $3/mth if they are reluctant for the duration of the project. I’ll report back and see how that goes.
I’ve used Omnifocus on my iPad and while I like it, I wanted something available across all my platforms, Mac, Windows, Ubuntu, iPad, iPhone. I tried toodledo for awhile and it’s useful, I just wasn’t that enthralled with the interface. I started using Asana which I like for a variety of reasons, but I don’t like using a third-party tool to access things off-line. I do like the new interface on the iPad, but off-line access is lacking. Trello doesn’t appeal to me very much. In the corporate world I used to run IBM connections which I really liked, but I don’t have that at my current employer. Last week I started using todoist and have paid the subscription fee. So far I’ve found it very useful. I’m still finding the best way to use it. I also started looking at an app called Flow which has some interesting workflow tools, but I think I’m going to stay with todoist for awhile. I also used basecamp, but I’ve been having problems with the iPad app and will be abandoning it.
I’ve used all of the apps you’ve mentioned, but Todoist is the one that I think offers the best solutions for my workflow needs. Glad I’m not alone!
I’ll give gqueues a look, Kai. Thanks.
Mike,
I’ve been traveling nearly the same path as you with productivity apps. I started with Things, but switched to OmniFocus because I needed more power. OF has been a workhorse for me, but lately I feel like I’ve been spending more time managing OF than actually getting stuff done.
I’ve tried using Flow & Asana for group tasks/projects. Flow was missing some features, but had a nice interface. Asana is powerful, but I just can’t get into the interface.
I’m slowly switching to Todoist & love it so far. I’m actually excited about working through my tasks & projects. I haven’t moved everything over from OF yet, but I’m only moving things that really need to get done. I’ve found several items that should be in Evernote instead of my task manager.
Thanks for helping me find Todoist!
Bud
Have you considered using a combination of Todoist and a shared Dropbox folder? It might help with the attachments.
I’ve started to do that, and it’s made a difference. Thanks!
Mike – Zapier actually has several automations that let you move/copy tasks between Asana and ToDoist. I just did the same thing. Basically I have it set up to let me create tasks in ToDoist. If in a specific project and labeled with a specific label, it will create the matching task in Asana. As far as moving tasks from Asana to ToDoist, that was a bit trickier, as ToDoist doesn’t allow for a bulk import from CSV (despite many requests). Instead, I set up a Zapier to trigger a Gmail whenever I added a new project in Asana, using the email to project functionality in ToDoist. Then I moved all my projects/task to another similarly named project to trigger them as “new” tasks and then Zapier generated gmails to send the projects with subject, due dates and notes into ToDoist. Hope that helps.
“Why I ditched Todoist?”
I thought this was an excellent article and Todoist is a nifty little app. I especially liked their point system called Karma, which is a great motivator and it gives the ability to graph your performance.
But, after trying the application, I found the tiring. What I mean is that it was counter-intuitive to get to notes and to add them. After fooling around with Todoist for about 15 minutes, I finally figured out how to move tasks into “projects”. Setting up filters did not quite jump out either. The super-minimialist interface really was not all that pleasing, but that is a personal choice.
Where I could not budge, though, was in paying for a To-do manager that opened elements that that worked in free versions of committing software, such as Wunderlist, Asana, Apple Reminders and Swipe.
I do not mind paying for something, but I find it hard to swallow this app. For a personal To-Do Manager, Apple Reminders and Wunderlist would be my top choice. Wunderlist 3 is super simple and can do more than the free version of Todoist. I Like Apple Reminders because of Siri integration, but Wunderlist is a well thought out app with the best UI functionality. I do wish it had the point and graphing of To-doist, but that is ok.
I tried Swipe, which is on the road to improvement and its integration with Evernote is why I am keeping my eye on things.
I use Asana for work and it is rock solid.
I am not a fan of this multi-tool approach to productivity because the more you have to manage….the more you have to manage. This can make one less productive.
A little rigid on your 15 minute evaluation. I gave it a few days. Went back to how I did it prior and went back and purchased premium to give it 30 says.
It’s really not that difficult to move a task to a project. Is it?
I mean if you just didn’t like the app there’s not much debate. But I would suggest allowing more than 15 minutes. You may be missing out something.
John
Could you explain the workaround for startdates? I found it hard to use Todoist for GTD.
I’m actually working on a post for this, which should be up in the next few weeks (late January/early February).
Hi Mike, did yo ultimately post your blog on this topic? There’s some great things about todoist (i..e cross platform capability) but the seemingly missing capability to utilize a “defer task” feature like I can in Omnifocus 2 is an almost non-starter for me. Would love your feedback.
The deferring of tasks can be a chore for some but since I use filters it helps immensely. Filters are like Perspectives in OF, but far easier to set up (although admittedly less robust). Since I use Todoist almost exclusively through filters now I don’t fret the lack of a defer option.
(By the way, I’m looking to do a deeper comparison between OF and Todoist but not until October as I’m knee deep in big projects right now…)
The Todoist integration with Postbox is tremendous and leaves me with a single screen that captures most of my workflows. If you include Taskclone or a Zapier patch you can forward to do items from Evernote into Todoist as well which for me pretty much covers everything.
I have used Remember The Milk (RTM) exclusively for several years now, but their lack of managing projects – nesting tasks – has been a HUGE drawback. It’s enough that I’m looking for other alternatives. The biggest issue with other options is the functionality on the android phone. RTM is feature rich and they make is super easy to enter tasks.
I’d looked at todoist before, but RTM’s android app gave me second thoughts. Your posts for todoist is inspiring me to look at this again.
I am in the same boat. I personally enjoy working across platforms and need something robust for both personal and occupational workflow. Being a productivity novice, it sounds like todoist may have the lowest bar to entry and quickest learning curve. Good stuff.
As far as a ulr scheme I started using ifttt it is if this then that.
It will create Todoist tasks from email, Google Calendar, other apps and missed phone calls among a myriad of other ideas.
I currently have around 8 recipes, they call them, to automate creating tasks in Todoist.
If you can think of it ifttt may do it.
Have fun. That’s all I’ve got so far.
John
I’m struggling, can you help? 🙂 I use Asana with a fairly large team and Asana is rock solid. But, I am having a hard time getting my team proficient with Asana because the UI is a bit on the complex and confusing side. I’ve been trying Wunderlist for Business, which is a good app., but you cannot assign subtasks to individuals without sharing the entire list with him or her.
Do you think Todoist could replace Asana? I won’t bother you with a massive list of our needed features but here are a few essentials:
1. Create and share projects with one or more team members
2. Assign projects and/or tasks within a project to others.
3. Assign tasks and/or subtasks to individuals without necessarily sharing the entire project with them.
4. Add comments, files, and/or links to files to projects, tasks, subtasks
5. Set reminders for tasks/subtasks
6. Add descriptions
Asana does all of the above and more. Wunderlist does all of the above but has two limitations that I’ve discovered:
1. You cannot create subtasks for subtasks and you cannot assign a task to someone within a list unless that list has been shared with that same person. Sometimes, I only want to share a task / subtask in a list but not the entire list (for security and confidentiality reasons)
2. I discovered that the size of comments in Wunderlist are limited
Any help will be greatly appreciated!
Barrett,
Todoist does allow for what you’re looking for, albeit it is lacking in the “descriptions” area that Asana does well. It will take some setting up as you need to invite teammates to individual projects (Asana does handle this better), but the UI is cleaner and the feature set is solid. I’d test drive it – or check out the course I developed with Steve Dotto (Task Apps Made Easy) – and then see if it will be th best fit.
Hope that helps.
Mike, thanks for the reply. I’m giving it, and Wunderlist, a test drive.
I look forward to reading your blog. Perhaps you you be interested in writing a guest post on my blog–which is targeted to school administrators in the US, Canada, Australia, and a few in Asia. I’ve written several on productivity for leaders-particularly on how to work paperlessly. If interested, let me know. I’d be honored to have you share an article and a link to your blog.
Sure…drop me line via the Contact form and I’ll work on making it happen.
Mike,
Thanks for taking time to respond. After some research, I decided to move my team to Wunderlist for Teams. In some respects I like Todoist better the recent purchase of WL by Microsoft was the deciding factor. With upcoming deep integration with Office 365, and OneNote, we decided that the consolidation of platforms will be more efficient than proliferating platforms across our teams. This is the reason we also dropped Slack after a pilot of the program. We determined that Slack just added one more “inbox” to deal with. Rather than adding another inbox, we are training our staff how to manage email better. Thanks again for the good input.
Hi Barret,
As an avid Todoist user as well as an Asana struggler (I do feel your pain there), Todoist will certainly do all you are describing, with a much cleaner and easier to maneuver interface.
However, with the PM side of things, Todoist is going to be somewhat limited in the variables often involved in that arena (budget, contact management, etc.). Have you checked out Podio at all? It also has all of what you are describing as well as a build to suit interface. You can literally list out what things you need to track in a project and build your project management interface, with calendars, tasks, delegation, single point of communication, chat, and more built right in. I moved away from Podio to Asana because a lead tech of mine wasn’t doing well at tracking his time, and Asana/Toggl was able to do that, but now, with a program called TimeCamp, that issue is addressed and even improved on as well. Oh, and I almost forgot – a missing component of Todoist that is integral to project management is any sort of reporting. Podio has that covered as well.
I have a strong feeling that Todoist is cooking up some better reporting options in order to keep pace/enhance things…
I sure hope so! All they’ve committed to as of yet is that they will take those recommendations under consideration. Currently, the only option is the weekist.com api to report on completed tasks.
I am an Omnifocus user and was reading here about Todoist with lots of positive comments. Thought I would give Todoist a new try but remebered instantly why I deleted it on my first try. I couldn’t set a reminder without Premium. This is something that I don’t understand. A task organiser without (free) reminders? Deal breaker for me. Or am I doing something wrong? If so I would like to know what I am doing wrong.
OmniFocus isn’t free, so I am not sure what the issue is in terms of a “dealbreaker” with a lack of reminders in Todoist unless you pay the annual fee (which is less than OmniFocus in all forms other than iOS). I think that, much like OF, the price for Todoist Premium is well worth it – even if it doesn’t offer reminders in the basic version.
Walter,
I like OmniFocus but it does not have a team component so I cannot use it. I have a large team with multiple complex projects. I need the ability to assign, track, and communicate within projects with my team. OF does not have the capacity.
Walter, I do understand looking to be able to get as much as you can for as little as possible, but I’m with Mike – a “dealbreaker” – at only $28 a year? Let me assure you, the value that this little app brings to the table is well worth the nominal investment.
Also, on a side note, for those of you using multiple solutions (I must admit, I am guilty of the same – Todoist, Asana, Podio), and wishing you did not have to check this interface and that interface, I just stumbled upon a Microsoft app (don’t shoot, yes, Microsoft) called Sunrise that is a calendar app that has an API interface built in to connect with and automatically pull data from just about anything you could use. You can tell which app it came from, and you could actually turn off notifications/alarms in those apps, and just have a single reminder interface.
Todoist good but Wunderlist is better. Todoist lies within the limitations of the free service. The major problem is there are no task reminders in the free version.
My biggest problem with a non-paid service (or a service that has not enough of a compelling reason to pay for it) is that it can shut down without the support of customers. Examples of this would be IQTell, Springpad, and many more. I’m not comparing free vs. premium here, I’m comparing the overall product…including how long it can last in its current state. And since Wunderlist was purchased by Microsoft we don’t know what future it has, either.
I’ve had a much different experience with Todoist. They seem to be a productivity killer and don’t understand data integrity.
They’re a little upgrade crazy with ads and nudges to upgrade. I like what I see in the feature comparison so I click upgrade. The upgrade banner and click site sends me a you’re not authorized internal 403 error twice. This is not very secure so I used a different credit card and I feel like I have to have the original card cancelled and order a new one. I get charged twice and I still have no upgrade. I order a 3rd time on a different card and the process works error free.
The next day my iPhone version of the Todoist app won’t sync iPhone to web or any other platform. Support instructs me to uninstall the app and then re-install but tells me I will need to write down on paper all the input I have in the phone.
I’m not exactly impressed by this experience so far. I’ve had the app 3 days and have phantom credit credit card charges twice, uninstall and re-install but lose all my data.
That’s odd. I have never had these problems with Todoist, even with the constant iterations. I encourage you to reach out to Todoist support and share this experience with them.
Hi Mike!
I stumbled upon The Productivityist Podcast by a coincidence and I have been hooked since! Kudos for a very good Podcast!
As a productivity novice I am introducing small changes in order to develop the habit/mindset in order to copy e.g. your method with filters and labels in the future. I have a question for you. Do you ever review your old tasks and redo/edit them with e.g. new labels so they fit your recently developed labels/methods/workflow?
Best wishes from Sweden!
Producteev is the world’s best task management software for teams. It’s more than … Productivity in Your … One of your favorite group to-do management tools.
I’ll give it a try. I like this simple design. Hope this one will work for me, I have too many to-do-lists 😉
The only problem with todoist is the lack of duration for task,
And the possibility to create a dependency between the tasks.
That’s it.
Hi, thanks for your self experienced article. For me, a GTDer for many years, OFocus is just the perfect tool, but having Windows at work with Outlook, PCs and Macs and iOS devices at home + now a new Android phone makes my life miserable to always have to check all my stuff on a Mac or iOS. If they would realize how much marketshare they are and will loose for not opening to other platforms!! Thanks, I am now another Todoist.
Regards
Martin
I really disliked Todoist, after reading your post i tried it. It’s horrible for me. There are not subtasks, i need to do more clicks than normal, not that intuitive, and kind of ugly design (minimalism in extreme). I’m still using Wunderlist and i love it! But i’m looking for a replacement as it’s now a Microsoft app… i wish an App to be like mixing Wunderlist and Any.Do, that would be amazing (Any.Do has some killer and great functions but still lacking)
Hi Rouyt, I’m a Productivityist team member and I’m helping Mike out as he’s traveling right now. Sorry you didn’t like Todoist. You can actually add subtasks but it’s not a very intuitive feature.
As far as Wunderlist alternatives, I think your best bet is to go through the list here. http://alternativeto.net/software/wunderlist/ Hope this helps you out!