What other todo apps have you used? Why did you switch?

[joshuarobison]

@Andrei

Evernote

It’s strength (and weakness) is that it can truly do everything

Evernote would be my favorite if they’d had a decent mobile app.

Their mobile app cannot filter tasks based on multiple tags like their desktop app can and I am predominantly a mobile user. I need both the desktop and mobile and MOSTLY MOBILE.

The ability to filter your workspace by tags with & operator IS A MUST HAVE in the mobile world.

That means I click the following tags <30min> and have all of the tasks within that sphere of tags show up in one space.

Evernote only lets you select ONE TAG AT A TIME in the very place you need that multi tag functionality — the phone.

I can’t be clicking back on forth toggling tags on and off.

Only two other apps in the past for mobile have recognized this issue.

1. Swipes app (discontinued)
2. Todoist (paid features)
3. Springpad (discontinued)

Everything else is pointless to use on mobile.

[joshuarobison]

• Evernote
• Nirvana
• 2Do
• Todoist
• Wunderlist
• Ticktick
• Swipes app
• Countless others

I have demoed every single task app in the Play store for months at a time, leaving them on my phone and coming back to them from time to time to check if they have upgraded them with the necessary features.

Before the mobile phone erra I was a David Allen fanatic. I’ve read GTD several times taking extensive notes and at that time I used a pocket pad of paper for several years but I found that the trouble was…

There was no way to link next actions from the same project across different contexts. If I want to make a gadget and I can design the doohickey @garage or @work and I can research gadget dooickey stuff @commute then you will run into problems because you will need to copy the same task to @garage and @work and then when you have three next actions in 3 different contexts it is hard to remember that they all belong to the same project. This is where the mobile app can really thrive.

This is why we need systems like Swipes app and Todoist that let us apply more than one context to the same task and then a quick touchable filter that lets us toggle on more than one tag at a time to get to our specific context quickly. Todoist and Swipes app alone can do this on mobile.

Everdo cannot filter by more than one tag but it gets around that by splitting tags into six different categories (Areas, Contexts, Contacts, Time, Energy, Labels)

Which is useable. At least we can assign more than one context to the same task , otherwise I would be in a panic.

My favorite was Swipes app but that was discontinued. I was forced to switch to Todoist because NO OTHER MOBILE APP HAS MULTI TAG FILTERING!

Another app that is being developed now and is really beautiful but still in alpha stages is Blitz on Android. The developer has made an interface that is extremely simple and intuitive but it still lacks sync and webapp and timed reminders.

[Andrei]

@joshuarobison

Everdo cannot filter by more than one tag

Everdo does have multi-tag filtering if I understand you correctly.

On Android - open the filter area, then select as many tags as you want (long tap on tags to negate)
On Desktop ctrl+click on the tag in the filter area.

I find this most useful in the “Next” list, as it should contains everything that is actionable. So filtering by a set of tags makes picking the next action easy.

[joshuarobison]

Yes, essentially, it is doing it.
I like the implementation. It’s very clean.

[alexpro]

I used to use Todoist extensively, and Asana a bit. I made the switch because I wanted to host the Todo app myself.
I also tried Taskwarrior, because I wanted a low footprint command-line app, but I found it non-intuitive.

[dalewking]

I’ve tried about everything going back to the days when I had a Windows CE smartphone and not one app has been the sweet spot enough to really feel comfortable calling a “trusted system”. Currently I am evaluating Facile Things and leaning that way. Was trying to use ClickUp lastly before that, but have not done anything for a couple years now since Toodledo went paid.

Rather than focus on what I have tried, I would focus on my list of must haves or at least doables (which encompasses that I am not afraid to code something up to do what I want if the system allows for it).

First and foremost is a correctly working idea of a start date. So many systems omit this or get it totally wrong. Some systems focus on due dates and not start dates. Almost no task has a due date, lots of tasks have start dates. I could live with a system that does not have a due date but not one that doesn’t have start dates. Some examples:

• Todoist has no start date. How did this app get popular without start dates?
• Outlook only lets you set a start date if you set a due date.
• ClickUp has start dates but tasks with start dates and tasks without start dates are considered different things which makes it unusable since their filtering rules are too basic. E.g. There is no way to say show me tasks that are today or earlier including those without start dates AND some other criteria.

Part of start dates is also a correctly functioning repeating task implementation. There was promising app several years ago that is now defunct that had start dates but the implementation with repeating tasks was unusable.

I am into automating my workflow and I receive many emails that directly need to become tasks. I have written software that will search my inbox and tasks to my system. For this to work the GTD system must support adding fully clarified tasks, not just throw something in the inbox for me to re-process after the software already identified what it was.

I also find the ability to add tasks hands-free (often while driving) crucial. The system doesn’t have to support it directly as long as it has an API or email to inbox feature. I currently have set up in IFTTT a way to say “Hey, Google, create task for ______” and it emails it to my Facile Things inbox.

I also find that simple easy to use projects a necessary feature. Most systems have projects, but many are cumbersome to use and that leads to friction causing you to avoid creating projects unless absolutely necessary. In reality we should create projects all the time or best yet, just let you create a task hierarchy so any task can become a project based on adding subtasks. I would say that Everdo is OK in this regard, but could be better.

[Cito]

I’ve used different todo-apps in the past, but as a very critical user something was always not right for me.

At a first glance, it looks like there is an overabundance of todo management tools available. Most of them brag that they are “simple”, and the problem with most of them is that this is painfully true. E.g. they would only support a single date field (due date), if they have date fields at all. I want to keep scheduled date and due date separate like Everdo does it (ideally there should be also a start date for projects/tasks that should not be visible and schedulable before that date). In short, 99% of the available apps are too simplistic. And most do not support the GTD methodology very well, while Everdo was obviously made with GTD in mind.

I also like to keep my tasks under my control and be able to work locally. Many todo-apps are cloud based, and require Internet access, and protection of privacy is often a concern.

One app I used that was not too simple (quite to the contrary) was MyLifeOrganized (MLO) which works differently from Everdo, and supports not only GTD but also other methodologies. I like the idea behind MLO that you enter your tasks in an arbitrary deeply nested tree (like in an outliner) and then create flat to-do-lists for various areas or contexts from that tree. Using a “computed score” you can in principle sort these lists automatically with the idea that it will always find the most important task at the top. It has many features like context based on location and time, mobile apps, LAN sync and sync via central server.

The problem with MLO was that though the idea with the “flattened tree” sounds good in theory, it did not work well for me in practice. It was simply too complex. The “computed score” algorithm had flaws that were never fixed. But I think it is also an illusion that it is possible to derive any meaningful single “score” in the first place. Particularly if not all fields like “priority” and “urgency” are always entered, or not entered properly and consistently, as it happens in real life. That’s probably also the reason why nobody seemed to use it and the flaws were never fixed. I still think MLO is a great product. But I felt I needed a more minimalist approach that fits the undisciplined way how I work better and requires less attention.

The older I get, the more I feel the need to simplify my life. I’m using the switch to Everdo as an opportunity to de-clutter and simplify my old task list. Because Everdo has less features and does not support deeply nested tasks, it forces me to keep things simple. On the other hand, Everdo is not simplicistic, it is well thought-out with the right amount of complexity that is appropriate for real-life todo management.

I also like that the mobile apps have the same look and feel as the desktop app. In MLO the desktop app was very complex and desktop-centered, so the mobile apps there work differently.

[chrisjrichards]

I used MyLifeOrganized from around 2011 (just the desktop version) and started using the synced Android version in 2016 before switching to Everdo in mid 2019, switching back to MLO in early 2020, and back to Everdo again in late 2020.

MLO is a hefty piece of productivity software. Highly configurable to how one wants to work. However, as Cito said, it can be very complex.

I tried using MLO for my household, work, and art (areas in Everdo) but found it hard to fully switch focus between the areas. You can use different ‘workspaces’ I think and ‘zoom’ into certain folders, but it wasn’t ideal.

Also, making active task lists (next actions) was a case of trial and error in defining the different logic parameters. MLO has an intriguing way of auto-prioritizing tasks based on a range of factors, but it didn’t always work. I also found sometimes items on lists with the same logic on the desktop as the Android app displayed different tasks.

Where MLO does beat Everdo hands down is with reminders. They were very easy to set up in the desktop. Then, when triggered on the Android app, you have the option to snooze the reminder or dismiss it. It also had a list of ‘upcoming reminders’ which I found very reassuring to glance at showing me I had set reminders up properly.

I switched to Everdo because I much prefer the simplicity. Andre seems really serious about keeping the software as streamlined as possible. I love being able to use Everdo at work (by having the area set to Work) but still being able to throw anything into the Inbox using the keyboard shortcut. But when I’m at home, a simple switch to the Home area and I don’t have any of my hundreds of work tasks cluttering my workspace.

The strict Inbox, Scheduled, Next, and Someday lists actually make things simpler than the nested tree of MLO. I found that to bring too much decision making into the todo list. Maybe a ‘view all tasks’ feature in Everdo would be useful, maybe not.

I find the readily accessible notebooks great to use at work. I often use them to store information such as regularly used phone numbers, or things that I may need to reference and relay to clients while on the phone (or via the app when out on appointments).

Finally, it’s the GUI itself. I think if software looks and feels good, you’re more likely to use it. Everdo looks fantastic on both desktop and the app. Unlike MLO, I never feel overwhelmed by what I’m seeing.

There are couple of things that I’m hoping for in the development of Everdo to make it perfect for me:

• project tasks blocking the next action when set to scheduled or someday
• reminders configuration in desktop
• sorting of the next list by urgency (I would like late items to be at the top, followed by tasks with due dates

[Hemanti]

Home

Tools I’ve tried

For many years, I used Evernote for general purpose lists (mainly ideas, that came to me, and I wanted to keep, packing lists, ideas for presents, what I should buy later, …). Then, over time, the mobile app (Android) introduced more and more bugs over time. I tried to use org-mode, but I was lost with the many possibilities, so didn’t really get warm with it. Then I found Joplin. I like how new and useful features keep being introduced, but with its many, many possibilities, my Joplin file is now getting more and more cluttered and I haven’t yet found a good system to organize my stuff in there. Still much more happy with it than with Evernote.

For organizing tasks, I tried and used many tools. First and foremost, lots of post-its, which kept flying all over my desk. I also used Wunderlist for a while some years back, but somehow, it got soon very messy, as well. I tried tools like “Remember the Milk”, Todoist (actually kept installing and uninstalling that like at least 3 or four times over the years), and any.do (actually used that one for quite a while) but always gave up sooner or later.

Then I found the app ChaosControl, which seemed really nice (also like the name ) . It introduced a concept to me that reminded me of GTD; most notably I noticed that start times are a really important feature for my organizing system. I had already heard about GTD and bought the book more than 10 years ago (at that point, I was still in high school), but never actually read it - until recently (actually, still stuck in the last chapter ). As nice as ChaosControl was, I hesitated to buy a subscription because there was no desktop client (and I’m resistant to monthly license fees in general - prefer to buy once ). Then - in the beginning of last year I believe - I found Everdo.

My first impression of Everdo

I immediately liked the clean interface of the native Linux app and the inline commands are just a brilliant feature. It was a really good feeling to just “dump” my mind in the inbox completely and later organize it. However, at that time, I had still not read the GTD book, and didn’t know how to use projects, e.g., so I stopped using it after some weeks to read the book first. I also remember, that I really missed reminders at that time because I was so used to them from other applications and I didn’t know about the importance of regular reviews (and how they make reminders quite unnecessary - at least in theory).

While I read the book, I noticed more and more how important the capturing phase is. To simplify this, I was now looking for a tool to which I can just send any input right away very easily. As David Allen writes, tools should be fun and easy to use. I tried many, many tools from the Play Store, but most failed one of my two essential conditions: support of start date and attachments. Then I found Trello, which seemed perfect. Attachments could be easily included (also shared by email or from another app) and using custom fields, I could add start date, priority, energy level, and waiting for.

Trello

As Trello is a general-purpose tool, nothing was pre-set, so I kept postponing most of the set-up and only used Trello to capture new tasks in my inbox - until yesterday. Yesterday, I seriously wanted to set my system up in there and make my inbox items into actions, projects and so on. However, I met several issues:

1. In general, Trello being a web app, it was acting not really smoothly. The Android app is native and so works without issues, but using the Web app is really not fun at all. Probably I could have get used to all the other issues, but this was a show-stopper for me. Also, I had to use the mouse all the time. This made moving a task from inbox to new actions even more cumbersome.
2. I chose to manage projects by creating one card for every project on a “Projects” list, and then adding an action card for every project to my next list and then link them to the project. In theory, this sounded nice to me, but I faced two problems when I started to try it out in practice:
   1. If the project is sequential, I don’t want the non-actionable actions to clutter my “Next” list.
   2. The linking of cards works via attachment and then selection from a dropdown. This has two downsides for me:
      1. I need to create all action cards for a project first, then link them to the project. By that time, it felt quite stressful to not forget one of them in the linking process.
      2. It always took a few minutes for a new card to be available for linking. This makes downside 1.2.1 even more severe as I have to remember adding the new card later (after already having processed further inbox items - possibly even more projects with the same issue).
3. I couldn’t find out how to nicely filter the cards by energy, time estimate, priority, due date, labels (which I used for contexts) and so on. There were some workarounds like applying the label filter (labels seemed like the only criterion where it was actually possible to filter) and then sort for the other criteria. However, sorting for several criteria was not possible or at least not very clear. However, it is one of the biggest benefits of GTD for me, to be able to at any time answer questions like, “I now have ten minutes time, am at home with my computer and also have my phone, have low energy and want to do something with a high priority or upcoming due dates. Only show me tasks that are actionable right now, though.”

Everdo, the 2nd

So I decided to give Everdo another try and the minute I started using it and capturing some tasks, creating projects, delete some overdue tasks from when I used it last year, it was so … much … fun! In particular, it addresses the issues I had in Trello. Let me address them one-to-one in the order of the above list:

1. Using Everdo in the Linux app is such a smooth experience. The interface is simple and very reactive and the inline commands are just brilliant. Speeds up creating and organizing tasks a lot!
2. Projects are an essential part of GTD and you notice this is a core feature of Everdo.
   1. Everdo automatically puts actionable items from the projects to the Next list. Although, I’m not 100 % happy with sequential vs. parallel projects (many of my projects have both - I’ll ask a question about it in another thread), I just love how clever Everdo is here.
   2. I like that I can - mostly (I will create a different thread about this, as well) - create projects in one go.
      1. I can - mostly (see above) - create a project and its actions in one go.
      2. Again: One go!
3. Filters and sorting are essential to answer the above question and Everdo makes that process really accessible.

New workflow based on Everdo and Trello

I have now decided to combine the benefits of Trello and Everdo. While Trello performs poor for organizing tasks, I need more functionality for capturing than the one that Everdo provides. In particular, these are the features that make Trello so valuable for capturing for me:

• Create a new note quickly via Android Widget. For me this is just faster than open Everdo, using the navigation drawer option (as I will need to use a second hand to drag that down comfortably on my big screen and then scroll through my many notifications) or using the option to create a new note after long-pressing the Everdo icon (I might get used to the third option, though).
• Create a new note by sharing from other applications. This could be solely text-based, but the real value is when I see some advertisement for an event I might want to go to on the street, quickly take a picture and share to Trello create a new card (this is even faster using the Trello widget option to take a new picture). When later processing my inbox, I can then decide to add the event to my calendar or not. Another use is recording a task by audio (e.g. while driving) and sharing the file to Trello. (I’m not a big fan of Speech-to-Text). Sometimes I might also turn a letter, that I get, to a PDF (using my phone’s camera and a tool like Genius Scan) and send that as an action reminder to my inbox.
• I can simply forward an actionable Email to Trello and it will be added to my inbox.
• I can have several inbox for different kinds of inbox items, but they are still accessible in one place, which is my Trello inbox board.

I haven’t really tried this system in reality yet, but I could imagine it to work like this:

1. Forward picture with action support to Trello. This serves both as reminder for task as well as its support material.
2. In Daily review, add task to Everdo inbox.
3. In Trello, move card to action support board.
4. (Now, it would be great to be able to link the card in Everdo).
5. Do that for all other inbox cards in Trello.
6. Organize inbox items in Everdo or do <2-minute tasks right away (or actually better, do them while they are only in Trello and mark them as done right from there).

As you might guess from this, one of the features in the backlog, that I look most forward to is the IFTTT (or similar) integration. For a start, it would surely help to link files in Everdo. I think, I read somewhere on the forum, that Andrei is thinking about adding that functionality by using markdown. I would like that very much.

Work

At work, I can’t use Everdo, however I have access to Microsoft Office 365. I have used OneNote for a long time to capture reference material and meeting notes. For tasks, I used unstructured, flat lists and later (to make things worse) mainly post-its. I then used Microsoft To-Do, but found it terribly unflexible and lacking a lot of features I need. This week, I set up Outlook tasks, mostly following the official GTD Outlook guide. I changed it in a way, that I didn’t set up any task folders for contexts (as 99 % of my work requires only my computer), but made a few folders based on the time estimate (as I figured, that that is my main criterion to “filter” for tasks I could do right now).

In OneNote I created a new section “Agendas” in my GTD notebook and also a section called “Inbox” which I assigned to the “Quick capture” feature (Win + N). I really love that feature, as I can just dump anything really quickly the second it comes to my mind and then forget about it. I also see the potential to dump my paper notebook for taking notes during calls and meetings , because I can just use that OneNote inbox the same quickly (just need to get faster at touch typing before ). Now, I just need to start making a habit of the daily review to not clutter my inbox. Let’s see how it goes.

[manu]

Wow, great write up of your journey. I got a few inspirations from it, although I need to re read this a few times, to digg out all the nuggets. .
Similar to you, I complement the text only capture feature of everdo. When text isn’t sufficient I usually use the braintoss app to collect to my email inbox or if things get complex I use Microsoft lense / One note and collect inside one note. But then I usually add a text capture to everdo like “process meeting note in one note regarding xyz” I’m still hesitant to add a one note notebook as a standalone inbox because I’m already overwhelmed with my existing ones (email, everdo, work in-basket, home in-basket) one more inbox will blow my fuse.

[chrisjrichards]

I used to use Evernote and got fed up of it. I recently discovered UpNote and really enjoy using that at the moment.

[dandv]

I’ve been using MyLifeOrganized for over 5 years.

The hierarchical task structure in MLO is a key feature that prevents me from switching, since it’s not going to be implemented in Everdo. MLO does have several features I don’t use, but I can see how they can be useful to others.

Unfortunately MLO doesn’t have a Linux build, but it does work via Wine, albeit with occasional glitches. Its lack of end-to-end encrypted sync is a problem, so I only use the higher-friction local sync.

[chrisjrichards]

Welcome to the forum. I get where you’re coming from about the hierarchical view.

I was a long time user of MLO but switched to Everdo for about a year, then back to MLO because I felt that I needed the hierarchical list to organise myself better - I think it was because I wanted to see an overview of everything I had in there. I switched back to Everdo a few months later because I found trying to organise everything into folders and sub-folders actually made things more complicated and took time away from actually doing the stuff I was trying to organise. It’s almost like I had too many decisions to make about where to put things which kind of interrupted workflow.

I love the simplicity of Everdo which allows me to spend less time organising my todo list and more time doing tasks. This really comes into its own when I use it at work dealing with a fast-paced range of phone calls, emails, customer visits to the office and outside appointments.

What I did really like about MLO was the reminders implementation, and the Review list was a good idea.

[Cito]

@chrisjrichards You’re pretty much summing up my experience with MLO as well (see also my posting above). MLO might work, but you must be really disciplined and revise and re-organise your task tree regularly so that it matches your real life, which can be difficult if plans and priorities change frequently. Also, since I was a undisciplined user of MLO, I could never be sure that my focus list really contained all the important task, so I abused reminders to make sure I didn’t miss anything. Which was totally annoying. And the review list was so huge that I never really processed it. Everdo is a more lenient, pragmatic solution that currently works very well for me.

[chrisjrichards]

Exactly. You had to adjust a lot of the boxes on the right-hand side and like you said - be really disciplined. What frustrated me was setting up the logic parameters for the Active lists for work and home. It’s so much easier with Everdo where you just switch areas and then have Focus,Next,Scheduled etc.

[arete]

Never used MLO but can comment on preference for extensive hierarchy.

Everdo is a fantastic and pureist implementation of GTD. The key is in the name - Getting Things Done. It is a system designed for task completion and therefore works from the bottom up, with less consideration for how well does something link to higher horizon goals - or not.

In contrast the more hierarchical approaches are top-down and lean towards “Dropping things that shouldn’t be done”. Take something as simple as an Eisenhower/Covey matrix - 75% is about stuff that you should delegate, delay or drop altogether rather than do. When you throw in folders/projects on top of that, then all the fiddly bits and needs to rejig increase dramatically with the amount of “fluff” i.e. the more stuff that does not have a direct link to Horizon 5 or 4 items.

One is more about efficiency the other about effectiveness. They both have a role

[Mateusz]

@Mateusz

I used Nozbe for many years. Unfortunately I don’t like they current direction. Now I am using Nirvana(a few months) and Everdo. Nirvana is my primary system and I love it. Everdo is used for special projects with high security level. Nonetheless if everdo implements most of things from the road map it will not have real competitors on the market. Very very promising project in a long run.

I just wanted to say that since today Everdo is my only one task manager app. I’m happy

[bepolymathe]

@Andrei

Got it. That’s a really nice feature. Hopefully someday we’ll get to it.

An idea to wake up ?

[Almut]

Tried many, many tools. …
Started with Thinking Rock and used it for years. It is such a great piece of software and I deeply wonder why is not that much supported / known. Those Australian guys did indeed a great job on the idea of implementing gtd. But unfortunately they lack a designer. I had quite some troubles with the synchronisation between pc and smartphone and lost my new input data several times. That feeling of unsecurety made me finally think of searching for a different tool.

After a long search I went to Todoist because I really liked the interface and therefore I DID actually use the software on a daily basis, especially on the phone. The interface kept me motivated because it was easy to use. I left it because it is very much build on the idea of putting things on a certain date. I found myself loosing a lot of time for changing dates. I didn’t find a good way of making it easily work with the gtd idea of putting as less things on a specific date.

What I would like to have in Everdo is the implementation of “goals”. Right now I will keep myself reminded on my goals with in a notebook. But I deeply miss the way the people at Thinking Rock solved the integration of thinking about the “WHY” of the actions.

Greetings,
Almut

[tudousi]

For note taking apps similar to EverNote, have a look at OneNote, Notion, Obsidian, Joplin, Google Keep and more.

20 Best Free and Paid Note Taking Apps in 2023 - pctechtest