There is no dearth of to-do and task manager applications in this world. All boast a lot of features, and most of them get it wrong, Fancy UI is not the key point in such apps, but the workflow that it provides is.
If one has a look at the typical workflows of people with respect to tasks and to-dos, then it becomes abundantly clear, what are the features that these apps must be concentrating on.
Primary reason why people use to-do managers is that human brain is not designed to remember things and do it before the task becomes overdue. For e.g. if we need to buy new batteries for the torch, human mind will only remind us that we need new batteries, when the power goes off and not when we are near the shop. For this reason, people use to-do managers so that they can look at the shopping list when they are near shop to check if the need any purchases to be made. Thus, To-dos must be accessible everywhere, on all my devices.
Let us look into the anatomy of a "task" There are many types of task that one usually performs.
Kudos to the todoist guys !!
If one has a look at the typical workflows of people with respect to tasks and to-dos, then it becomes abundantly clear, what are the features that these apps must be concentrating on.
Primary reason why people use to-do managers is that human brain is not designed to remember things and do it before the task becomes overdue. For e.g. if we need to buy new batteries for the torch, human mind will only remind us that we need new batteries, when the power goes off and not when we are near the shop. For this reason, people use to-do managers so that they can look at the shopping list when they are near shop to check if the need any purchases to be made. Thus, To-dos must be accessible everywhere, on all my devices.
Let us look into the anatomy of a "task" There are many types of task that one usually performs.
- Something that one has to do on a given day. e.g. implement feature "x"
- Something that one does many times periodically. e.g. pay bill on 1st of month.
- Something to respond to. e.g. email, phone call, article on a browser.. etc
- Hierarchical to-dos, like sub projects under projects etc,
- Merging of calendar and to-do view to get a better view of the day
In my opinion, Point 2 is extremely important, If a to-do manager does not have recurring tasks, then it is not a good to-do manager. By not having recurring tasks with good customizable scheduling rules, it is only subjecting the user to a lot of manual scheduling and wasting the users time. Imagine a task/time management software wasting time !!!
This means, a good to-do manager, is one, which runs/syncs on multiple platforms, with features such as recurring tasks. It should have ability of importing tasks from various sources like email, phone, browser etc. It should also support hierarchical tasks and single view of calendar and tasks.
I recently discovered this great app called "todoist", which satisfies all the above conditions. It is a very nice app and developed by understanding the problems of the users instead of just a fancy UI.
Kudos to the todoist guys !!
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