Good stuff. I have an electric heat pump tank heater myself. It runs about $150/year cheaper than an equivalent natural gas tank. Likewise, blessed to be able to invest in a unit that cost more than the bare minimum up front.
I’m with @MereCivilian on this one in relation to the ‘looks’ of an app.
From a subconscious level if your immediate reaction is you don’t like it, even from a UI perspective, I believe your fighting with yourself before you even begin!
Why do some people have photos as a wallpaper and others have a single colour? It’s just part of who you are… my thoughts anyway, I just don’t try and fight it anymore lol!
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Agree and so somewhat disagree…
I am one of those who believe that one also eats with their eyes and enjoy red wine through their nose before taking a sip….…. None of these is necessary and it’s certainly an added luxury.
Thankfully, I do not require the impressive feature set of Omnifocus. It’s too much for me…while things is just right…and happens to be beautiful. I could use Reminders but the pure joy Things provide is hard to beat.
Therefore, yes I am spoilt for choice. We all are… the Apple ecosystem has something for almost everyone.
For me personally, software needs to be functional but also beautiful…
beauty is subjective… to my eyes, Omnifocus and Obsidian is not beautiful…I appreciate and respect those who feel otherwise
I get enough crappy/ugly software in my corporate job lol 
I’ve used many different task managers over the years, including Omnifocus, but I’ve stuck with Things the longest for a couple of reasons. 1) The UI is probably the best of any app I use on a daily basis. More than just the beauty of it, everything is designed so well it is a joy to use. 2) It has just enough features and no more. I struggled for years with Omnifocus hiding things and endless fiddling that I felt I was spending more time on setting up Omnifocus than working on my tasks.
What keeps me on track is religiously doing a weekly review. But on top of that I also create a weekly plan. Each day gets 1-3 big rocks that I plan to do on that day. Each morning I look at that plan and make sure I do the items I scheduled or change the plan if life has thrown me something unexpected. Usually if I finish all the items I put into that weekly plan, I’ve done the most important things.
Things will hold most of the details related to these big rocks. So my weekly plan will have an item like Condo setup. That’s a pointer to a Things project that has a bunch of tasks related to getting things done in my new condo.
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Is this just a tank that you keep hot water in, or something else? I think this might be an American thing? Most houses in the UK just have hot water heated directly from the boiler. Most of us don’t have tanks and also don’t run out of hot water. But I guess a lot of U.S houses don’t need boilers at all, whereas you’d have a miserable damp 6+ months of the year if you didn’t have a boiler here!
(This isn’t really relevant to this thread, but I find the difference in how different countries heat/cool/water their houses interesting!)
I agree that the design of an app should matter. Why make things ugly when you can make them nice. The measure of a society is the quality of its art, etc. But it is often quite subjective. For example, I use DevonThink and lots of people don’t like the interface for that software, but to me it’s fine. It’s a serious interface for serious work (It reminds me of old Microsoft design).
I do use colour a lot in my task manager though - in Todoist I change the “theme” regularly, and in Reminders each list is a different colour. No-one wants to look at their task manager, it should at least be pleasing when we do!
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I think the relevant quote here is from Steve Jobs:
‘‘Most people make the mistake of thinking design is what it looks like,’’ says Steve Jobs, Apple’s C.E.O. ‘‘People think it’s this veneer – that the designers are handed this box and told, ‘Make it look good!’ That’s not what we think design is. It’s not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.’’
As I mentioned above, the thing I appreciate most about Things is not just how it looks, but how it has just enough features to keep me organized. Omnifocus has too many features in my opinion and they clash with each other and make it difficult to use. There were many times when some perspective was hiding tasks from me and I didn’t realize it. Now I realize the perspective is something I customized and did something wrong. Things is more opinionated in how you should organize your projects and tasks. It does not allow for so much customization, but I see that as a good thing. Don’t let me shoot myself in the foot with a too fancy view of tasks that are hiding things that I didn’t intend to hide.
I understand why CAD/CAM software needs to be complex and have a steep learning curve. Designing buildings and aircraft engines is a complex process and all those features are probably necessary. I think a task manager should be a relatively simple piece of software, keeping you organized, but getting out of the way as you work on your actual work.
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In a way a task manager is harder than a engineering tool, because the CAD/CAM tool has a clear objective, which is designing a thingy through some techniques or steps. Its function follows a technical practice. --and a very complex one, of course. You would not expect the CAD tool to build an engine for you, but we expect a productivity tool to magicalle solve the problems we have with our chores and tasks. It is supposed to design our workflow and there are as many workflows as users.
What works for you may not work for me. And we are only two persons 
, how can Omni or Cultured Code or Doist try and make a living about that?
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This is a tank you keep hot in, yes. Instant on things are prohibitively expensive in North America.
I just wanted to pull your two quotes out to illustrate something: I felt the same way at first and that’s why I tried going whole sale on Things. I did exactly this weekly review methodology, with the tasks written down for the week and the big rocks, etc.
What I found is the opposite of what you both found: Things buried my tasks. This is how I ended up nearly having a panic attack. Without perspectives or the longer Forecast, I found myself missing things that otherwise never would have slipped through the cracks.
For a long time, posts like yours were very convincing, because Things is gorgeous and really good at convincing you its way is the best way. But it’s just one way, and it’s the Cultured Code way or nothing.
I would never call Omnifocus beautiful (in its current state), but I have never once lost tasks in it. Between the built-in Review, all the perspectives, and the 30-day Forecast view, it’s basically impossible for me to miss things. But YMMV! That’s kinda the whole point of this thread, really. What’s working for you? All I can say is Things did not. It was disastrous, sadly, because I like spending time in it.
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Somehow missed this. Clearly, given the interest in discussing water heaters, we need a new thread (lol). We looked at heat pumps, but in our part of Ontario we just had the most brutal winter in a zillion years, so putting something in our basement that relies on atmospheric heat felt… not like a good idea. (Our local installer was like “I mean, if you really want, but you really, really don’t want to…”)
But heat pumps look great! They’d apparently be a great choice for a furnace for us in a few years.
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Yes, this is basically true. You have to accept their method of organizing tasks or it just won’t work. Omnifocus is much more flexible in supporting many different workflows.
One more tip that helps me in Things. I have a tag with an exclamation mark 
which I use for the really important tasks that must get done. I look at this tag every day, often several times a day. I limit to 3 or 4 tasks that get this tag. If it goes above the limit, then I have to work on one of the tasks to make room for the new task.
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If OF would simply roll over tasks that were deferred to that day in the forecast view, it would make a world of difference.
This is what Things gets right (other than design)
For me, it’s what makes the forecasts view so much less useful.
I think
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This is my reason for using it. I’ve changed my workflows over the years, and OF can adapt to them. Other apps impose a workflow.
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I had the same response. ‘Maybe I should check out OF again!’
But you’re right, it won’t fix all my problems. No tool will. But they each hold the promise that maybe, just maybe, this tool will be ‘the one’.
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I’ve used 2Do for years and even though it has a sole developer, it’s still outlasted some of Google’s products!
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No app can overpower my willful blindness when it comes to tasks I am absolutely loathe to do.
But I actually like the way Omnifocus looks and don’t find Things as pretty as all that. I keep test-driving Things, and I keep coming back to OF.
Omnifocus is my task / project inbox and organizer. When it’s time to take up a given task, I add it to my Obsidian Daily Note for that day.
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And yet, I keep looking for one that will.
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Heck, I keep looking for computers that will do the work for me. That’s sadly not happening either.
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I keep looking for the computer that will do what I want it to, not what I tell it to. 
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