• This is a basic guide to Getting Things Done inside of Todoist. This is my own take on the process using the 5 steps with Todoist-optimized features to order.
• Has implemented a cloud-based application called Todoist to create, assign, and monitor the daily activities of the structural engineer and technicians. Work within the units is usually conducted in relatively large batches and iterations are avoided, as these are.

1. Todoist Vs Things 3 Reddit
2. Todoist Team
3. Todoist Vs Things 3
4. Todoist Tags
5. Todoist Foundations Vs Things 3
6. Todoist Vs Things
7. Todoist Oder Things 3

For many years, I have been using David Allen's Getting Things Done (GTD) productivity app. It is simple and easy to follow. All along, I tried nearly every to do list possible - Outlook, Notepad, Wanderlist, Onenote, Excel. They all felt clunky and against the beauty and simplicity of GTD. When I finally found ToDoist, I was in ecstasy.

Join 25 million people and teams that organize, plan, and collaborate on tasks and projects with Todoist. 'The best to-do list' by The Verge.

ToDoist is everything I could want in a time management app and productivity management tool - simple, elegant and quick. It gets out of your way. It has just the right amount of customization without being everything to everyone.

If you haven't used David Allen's Getting Things Done, review this quick reference chart as I walk through my process. Here are my top 10 tips on how to Get Things Done with ToDoist!

1. COLLECT EVERYWHERE USING TODOISTS MANY INPUT METHODS

One of the main reasons I love ToDoist is that you can put it everywhere. Install all the clients. Keep it open on your desktop. Have it in your mail client. Have a quick email to your main projects. Here are the ways that I input my tasks using ToDoist:

1. I enter most of my tasks using the PC client with Ctrl-Alt-A (which is the quick add shortcut on PC - I am sure it is similar on Mac)

2. I add tasks on my mobile and iPad when I am on them (usually when out or doing the reading) using the great iOS application.

3. I add tasks to my favorite projects with add task via email.

4. I add tasks in Gmail with the great ToDoist Gmail plugin. Got an email with a task? Just hit the ToDoist button.

5. I add tasks while browsing for a web page I need to remember via the chrome and firefox plugins.

2. SET YOUR TODOIST PROJECTS TO BE THE MAIN CATEGORIES IN YOUR LIFE

Don't go too deep on your ToDoist Projects. I like two levels. This is because you can still group related tasks into subtasks to do grouping inside of a ToDoist Project. I have three main projects: Work, Home, and Shared (for shared projects). Under Work, I have Sales, Marketing, and Operations. Under Personal, I have Career/Coaching, Chores, and Shopping.

3. REVIEW TASK LIST EVERY DAY / EVERY WEEK USING THE IPAD APP

I love the iPad app the most for reviewing my ToDolist. I have to confess that I do this before I get out bed every day. I have found doing my review in the morning avoids the end-of-day decision fatigue (this is a real thing!) When I am reviewing, I am trying to do a few things. Reprioritize my list, move things out of my inbox to correct projects and get items that are old to the right dates. The iPad application works best for me because not only is it small and great for my pre-morning blanket wrapped to do a review, but swipe left is the quick method for moving to a new date with an awesome interface to move something to today, tomorrow, next week, next month or custom. On Sundays, I usually try to look at the whole list, not just the stuff that has fallen into today 'pile'.

4. USE FLAGS AND DRAG TO ORDER TO PRIORITIZE IN TODOIST

Task Priority is one of the difficult things in any to-do list management system. How do you keep from having 20 top priority tasks? The red, orange and yellow flags will automatically default to the top of your list if you are using priority sort (which is the default). Thus, I use the colored flags to set my top priorities. I usually set one red flag for my main thing I want to get done that day, and it is usually customer related. I set 2-3 orange flags of important tasks that should get done that day. Finally, I have a few key habits that I leave yellow. My next priority is done via the drag and drop order. Inside a flag color (including no flag), you can just drag and drop to change the order.

5. SET CONTEXT AND TIME REQUIRED USING TODOIST LABELS

This may be one of my favorite things about ToDoist is the label/tagging system. This is where most people fall down on the GTD system. If you can set the context (where you are) and how much time you have (5 minutes or 60 minutes?), then you can always look at your to-do list in a 'gap' time and not have to think about what to do next. This is the key to productivity. Reduce your decisions. Know exactly what to do next. I have created color-coded labels for a few time frames from 5 to 60 minutes and a few contexts (PC, iPad, Home). You need to make your own, but as an example here is what my label bar looks like:

6. USE TODOIST'S LABEL AND RECURRENCE FEATURES FOR MANAGING HABITS

It is so easy to setup the Habit tasks in ToDoist. I try and do certain things like exercise and meditate every day. I set up a recurrence on these items using ToDoist's recurrence feature. If you want a task each day, you can just type in the date field 'Every Day starting today' or for a shortcut 'Ev Day start Today'. In fact, ToDoist can recognize most English dates like 'Each Weekday' or 'Every third Tuesday starting' or 'The first of every month.' I also use a label for my habits that is in red (see above) which easily lets me see my habits at a glance. I created a filter that shows my habits still left to be done today as follows: @Habit & (today | overdue):

7. DEFINE A SYSTEM FOR THE 3-D'S - DO, DELEGATE, DEFER

One of the key points of GTD is to be able to continually parse the flow of your life. To me, this is mostly email. I try and read my email multiple times per day (I know this goes against the convention). I have found continually parsing to be easier and less stressful to me. I try not to be interrupt driven, but when I first sit down in a gap, I process. Emails are either done in real time (if less than a 2 minute action), delegated to someone else (I use ToDoists shared projects with some of my team to assign a task. Otherwise, I just fire off an email and star it to review later), or defer it (create an action for the future in your ToDoist). At this point, if it is trash, spam or FYI, I usually just leave it read in my email box for later searching (search to me is better than filing). I do set up a tag for a future task that 'NeedsProject' or 'Someday_Maybe', as you can see from above. These are both GTD categories on how to defer items that are not tasks, but instead are containers (projects) for several tasks and items that you may eventually get to respectively.

8. NOW USE YOUR PRIORITIES AND FILTERS TO DECIDE WHAT TO DO NEXT!

Now that you have tasks in and you are ready to sit down and start working, use your filters and priorities to decide what to do. Do you only have 5 minutes? Filter for just 5-minute tasks. Sitting at your computer, filter for your computer context. Stuck at the doctor's office with only your iPhone? Filter for just your tasks labeled phone. Are you ready to just do the next thing? Pull up your Today tab in ToDoist and do your next task. Try to finish your red and orange tasks every day. Go back and look at your completed tasks on Sunday and you will be amazed how much you are getting done.

9. HERE ARE SOME OTHER RESOURCES ON TODOIST AND GTD

No system is perfect. You have to find a system that works for you. Before I found my system, I had read many books and tried many different things. Here are some other links to resources about ToDoist and GTD:

• Some of my methods were based on this ToDoist article on GTD.

• This article helped me with some of my contexts and filters (note that ToDoist does not let you use labels with the < symbol anymore).

• Here is a great blog post by Becky Kane (@19Kane91) about how she uses ToDoist and GTD.

• Here is one more GTD and ToDoist Method.

10. BONUS TIP: USING A POMODORO TIMER

A Pomodoro timer is a method for driving flow - the ability to get lost in deep concentrative work where time seems to disappear, and you get tons of work done! Pomodoro is the best way I have found to get flow. The way it works is you set a timer for 25 minutes and work without breaking. Then you set another timer for 5 minutes and goof off on anything you want. You do this for four cycles and then take an extended break. Here is a quick and dirty Pomodoro Timer.

I hope your new year starts off great! But more importantly, I hope these tips will help you build a habit of organizing and attacking your tasks that will make 2016 your most productive year yet!

If you like this article, listen to Dialexa CEO, Scott Harper, on Custom Made talk to the business opportunity of custom development:

Listen to all episodes of Custom Made for insights and perspectives from industry disruptors and technology leaders on iTunes or search 'Dialexa' on your favorite podcasting app.

Todoist was the first to-do list app I started using seriously.

After trying out and failing at so many to-do list apps, Todoist was the one which made sense to me.

But, around the start of 2020, I switched to another to-do list app called Things 3 and had been using it for months.

That was until I finally moved back to Todoist last week.

In this post, I’ll talk about what pushed me towards using Todoist in the first place, why I moved to Things 3, and why I switched back.

Let’s start with:

Why I chose Todoist in the first place

My long-standing problem with to-do list apps had been the inability to organise a task on my list quickly.

While every app made it super easy to add a task to my list, organising the task into a project, priorities and timing was a multi-step process.

For each task, I had to jump through multiple hoops to get it adequately organised in popular apps like Any.do.

On Todoist, however, the natural language input was a complete game-changer.

I could naturally type in and organise a task the way I want, like this:

Organising by typing shortcuts is way faster than having to click ten buttons on the screen.

This increase in speed is prominent when I’m listing down tasks in bulk.

I can add and organise a bunch of tasks in a matter of minutes.

Although Todoist offers a ton of other useful features like filters, this one feature was the main reason I stuck to Todoist for so long.

Looking at my stats, I completed around 3600+ tasks with Todoist in one and a half years:

Now:

Although I had been satisfied with Todoist for quite some time, I was blown away:

When I met Things 3

The main problem I had with Todoist was that the macOS app didn’t feel polished.

It felt like the same web app wrapped inside a container and published as a macOS app.

When I installed Things 3’s trial version, I immediately fell in love with the design.

It was beautifully simple.

What stood out to me in the design is the ability to segregate tasks based on the time of the day.

I work on my personal projects in the morning and during the evening — before and after my office hours.

This layout allowed me to look at tasks based on the current half of the day.

Although a similar segmentation is possible in Todoist with a filter, it’s not as natural and beautiful as the one in Things.

Another subtle UX I liked in Things 3 is that unlike Todoist, overdue tasks get pushed to the next day without any bright red warnings.

Finally, keyboard shortcuts are wicked good in Things 3.

I can control and navigate the entire desktop app with just the keyboard.

Todoist’s desktop app has some keyboard shortcuts, but they are nowhere near what Things 3 supports.

However:

Things 3’s charm started to wear off as I continued using it

Things 3’s UI based organisational features started becoming annoying after some time since I was accustomed to Todoist’s swift natural language input.

Initially, I thought I could get used to this new flow, but as I started adding more and more tasks to Things, the difference started to show up.

Let’s watch a demo of what I’m talking about here:

I’ll add a task to “Write an article on best to-do apps” to both Things 3 and Todoist.

Things 3

I’ll add the task and organise it into a project called “Article Bank”, and schedule it for tomorrow:

Todoist

I’ll add the same task into a project called “Articles” and schedule it for tomorrow:

See how easy and fast it is to add and organise a task in Todoist compared to Things?

Also:

Things 3 is an Apple ecosystem-only app.

Although both my personal and office laptops are a MacBook, they are signed in using two different Apple IDs.

This meant I couldn’t use Things 3 on my work laptop unless I sign in with my personal Apple ID because I had purchased Things with my personal Apple ID.

To use Things 3 on my work laptop, I would’ve had to repurchase it using my work Apple ID.

Since Todoist is available as a web app as well, I can easily log in to Todoist on a browser and use it everywhere.

But, the most influential factor that brought me back to Todoist was:

Todoist’s ability to integrate with various services

Recently, I wanted to build a flow where when someone supports the Hulry project, the service should automatically add a task on my to-do list like this:

Since I was using Things 3 at that time, I checked IFTTT if there were some integrations for Things.

And as expected, there weren’t any.

So, I installed Todoist and created an integration using IFTTT and Todoist to do the job.

That was the moment I realised another thing I was missing out by using Things over Todoist — amazing Todoist integrations.

One thing to note, though:

Things 3 does allow creating a personalised email address where you can email a task to add to the inbox.

Download onyx for mac sierra. And we can make use of this feature to automate the addition of tasks to our inbox via services like IFTTT or Zapier.

Todoist Vs Things 3 Reddit

However, the Mail to Things feature is highly limited.

We can only set the task title and a note for the task with this approach — nothing else.

So, this wasn’t going to be a viable option for me. Microsoft office 2016 download link for mac.

Todoist Team

Another integration that sealed the deal was to add a “Water plants” reminder based on the weather.

I created an applet on IFTTT to add a task to my to-do list called “Water plants” only if tomorrow is going to be a clear and sunny day.

So, instead of a dumb “every two days” reminder, I have a reminder that feels like an assistant adds it.

Here’s how my applet on IFTTT is configured:

Now:

I didn’t want to maintain two to-do apps — one for automated reminders and another for my regular tasks.

After using the free version of Todoist for a few days, I converted back to a premium user.

One of the things that I was happy getting back as part Todoist’s premium tier was:

The powerful filtering mechanism

Todoist allows me to create complex filters to see only the tasks I want to see at the moment.

Todoist Vs Things 3

For example, I’ve created the following filters to scope out tasks during the day:

All things Hulry

This filter allows me to view what I need to work on for Hulry during the day time, and the filter query looks like this:

(today | overdue) & ##hulry & !@evening

The ## notation collects tasks from the Hulry project and all its sub-projects.

Office stuff

With this filter, I narrow down to the tasks which are related to my full-time job.

(today | overdue) & #office

Later in the day

This is the filter that I use to look at the tasks I had planned to finish during the evening — after logging off from my office work.

(today | overdue) & @evening

Things 3 does offer to narrow down tasks with filters, but it’s not that great.

With Things 3, I had to label my tasks, and only then I could choose to view tasks by labels.

Now, the question is:

Should you ditch Things 3 for Todoist?

It’s not a no-brainer move.

Todoist Tags

Things 3 is a beautiful and adequately functional app. If you’re using it and you’re content with your workflow, stay with Things 3.

One of the advantages of using Things 3 is that it’s a one-time purchase. In contrast, Todoist’s premium tier is an ongoing subscription model.

And for the useful features like labels, filters and reminders, you need to have a premium subscription on Todoist — costing $36/year.

Todoist Foundations Vs Things 3

For my to-do lists, I needed to break out of the Apple ecosystem, so moving to Todoist made sense to me.

Todoist Vs Things

Your case might be different. Choose accordingly.

Todoist Oder Things 3

If you’re looking to switch to Todoist, you can use my link to try Todoist Premium free of charge for two months.

Here’s a video guide that will help you get started with the app:

Still confused about whether to switch or not? Email me with your dilemma.

If you’ve liked this article, do consider helping me out in keeping this blog running by buying me some coffee.