Instead of app switching to find the perfect workflow, why not try smoothing out the workflow instead? That new power drill I bought means nothing if I don’t know how to use it. I have to learn what drill bits are appropriate for the material (wood, metal, plastic, etc.) I’m gonna drill into. Then I have to figure out the drill setting. When I can figure out what I need and when, I’ll be able to use a drill effectively.
I’ve made checklists for my daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly reviews. I just run through the checklists to make sure I have everything covered.
Once every 3-4 months, I’ll refine each checklist. The more I use a checklist, I can identify rough points, or steps I skipped because it was no longer needed.
The daily review sets my workload for tomorrow. The weekly review lets me figure out the goals for next week. The monthly review helps me figure out major milestones to complete my quarterly goals.
My task manager would be a mess because it is just a collection of tasks. The secret sauce is in the planning stage where I do the daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly review. I saw that if I could figure out what to review when, that made my task manager easier to use.
You can set custom views for “today” on Todoist, and make that your default screen when you open the app. But you still can’t rearrange the tasks I’m afraid.
My today view is sorted by project, but you can’t move the tasks about within that.
You’ve mentioned an app I’ve not heard of (sunsama) but I’m going to be restrained and not Google it…
It’s not easy to do. You have to initiate the share sheet on a note, then change the sharing options to be for “anyone with the link can view”. Then you can copy the link and paste it into a task in Todoist.
I think what the OP was referencing is the “remind me of this” Siri command between Reminders and Notes. This is such a powerful feature in the Apple ecosystem.
Open any note and invoke Siri and say “remind me about this”. This will create a reminder with a little Notes icon in it that will link the task to the note.
Nozbe Personal: very low friction, multi-platform, bulletproof. But projects are single-layer (no sub-projects), no fancy look, and costs about $100/year. Every time I try a different GTD app, I come back to Nozbe Personal edition.
Used it in the early days before they kept doubling their prices like Noteplan. Great app, but way more than I’m willing to pay and I don’t trust their pricing policy.
Sorry for the delay, here is the video I used showing how to connect Apple Notes to Todoist tasks. It’s a little fiddly but once you know what to do it’s not too much friction, and it’s very convenient having a clickable link.
Wow. Forgot all about Nozbe. I used it for a while about 10 years ago before I switched to Todoist. I remember it being quite good but I can’t remember why I changed.
I have just within the last couple of days started using ClickUp.
Why? Because I am entering a phase of life where I will be delegating tasks, and need to manage people and their completion of these tasks. And while I have used OmniFocus for my own tasks, It always felt wanting somehow. A good application, and the review function is great. But to collaborate with, well, a whole different story!
I experimented with tasks in Obsidian and Craft, but the system doesn’t scale to my soon coming on board EA, and other software developers and admins that I am probably going to need. One of my pursuits uses Jira, in fact, I administer the platform for them, but it isn’t all that great either.
Clickup has a feed, which is very handy! You can email into a task, and it appears in the feed. You can add custom fields, do some automation, and have full access to the API.
I just started using it, so I am not sure if it will stick (pretty sure that I will make a commitment to try it for 3-6 months anyway) - But if you need collaborative task management, it could be a good way to go.
I did look at Astana briefly - It is great at this as well! It really looks like Clickup is advancing pretty quickly in its development, and it seems to have more views if you need them.
I am sure that I could make either one work quite well, so it was more about landing on one, and just digging in. For me, that happened to be Clickup.
We use Trello, but it’s a constant source of friction. We’re basically making it up as we go (my colleagues are a blend of tech savvy and tech averse, we’re 100% remote and using different OS’s, so it’s a constant challenge to find a system that works for everyone), but Trello we’ve found good for a couple team related things:
We do a weekly team check-in that is led entirely by Trello - all team work is on relevant team board, and we check in on each card, discuss problems, assign tasks, etc. We love this as an agenda: it stops talk drifting, it forces people to make sure projects are on the board and all tasks are listed in the card checklist, and it means we don’t need to set an agenda in advance. The meeting leader shares their screen of Trello, and away we go. Each project area has its own board, and all staff have access to all boards except personal ones. This means you can check where another team is on a project without having to ask.
We’ve also recently started colour-coding cards to link them back to our 5 year business plan. This is interesting as when a new task comes up we have to discuss how it adds value and links to one of our goals. Good way to eliminate nonsense tasks that feel good but don’t move our work forward!
Trello links easily with other systems, and it’s easy to assign tasks to people. I’ve left my email alerts on for Trello, but I also have a Zapier link that creates a new Todoist task each time I’m assigned to a card. (As I’m no longer using Todoist for work task management, I move these to NotePlan once a week - NotePlan doesn’t have an integration, but actually I’ve found value in looking at these properly and moving them myself. If you’re wondering why I don’t just do this weekly review on Trello, it’s because I’m lazy and the Todoist integration makes a link to the Trello card that I can copy and paste )
The use of columns means you can fit quite a lot on screen. One of my bugbears in task management is long vertical lists with loads of dead space, so I really appreciate Trello’s card and column system that maximises space horizontally and vertically.
This makes me sound like a Trello fan. I actually really dislike it and have to make an effort to remember update it (hence not using it as my personal task manager!) but I can’t deny its utility for team collaboration and knowing what everyone is focussed on.
I always maintain that team task management AND personal task management are two very different things. While some maintain a personal system, others don’t. And it is good for people to have the flexibility to manage their personal workflow how they see fit…
Of course, many don’t manage it at all, which is why it is good they can use the company tool.
With iOS 16, I switched from ToDoist to Reminders. It took me several hours of data entry to migrate my tasks over, but now that it’s done I can say that it was worth the effort.
Reminders is fast, lets you group tasks, and has a good feature set for the price. I don’t miss ToDoist at all.
)