How do you keep track of everything that’s on your plate? Are you searching for a good productivity app for task lists?
I’ve been looking forward to sharing my review of the productivity app Todoist. I’ve been using it for the past several months, and I really love it. Below I’ll explain in this review why this productivity app stands out from the competition, and tell you about a special offer available to my readers.
My Quest For a New Task List
Most of my clients use Microsoft Outlook for Windows, which I think is a useful PIM (personal information manager) for Windows users. However the Mac version of Microsoft Outlook leaves a lot to be desired. So as a Mac user, I was using Apple’s Reminders as my productivity app. My biggest complaint — and this was a deal-breaker— was that one field does double-duty as the date a task is due and the date that you can receive a reminder about the task. This is awful! The date a task is due is definitely not the same as the date you want to be reminded of something, so these need to be two separate features. But I liked that you could add tasks via Siri, so I stuck with it, using a third-party add-on called MailTags, which added an additional field for the due date.
However, MailTags became very unstable with the latest release of OSX, and so I had to abandon both of my task list productivity apps: MailTags and Reminders, and go in search of something new.
Todoist Does Everything You Need
I don’t think task lists need to be very complicated, so I avoided those that are very elaborate — and also those built for team task management. My focus is on personal task management. (By “personal,” I mean tasks that are just yours, whether those are related to your work or your personal life. Sometimes working with teams requires more than one task list, but that’s a discussion you can read about here.)
The following are my requirements for a good task list productivity app, especially if you are using the Empowered Productivity System. You need the ability to:
- Create your own categories.
- Easily sync to multiple devices.
- Set reminders that appear as push notifications on your devices.
- View tasks by category and sort by due date.
- View all by date.
- Search tasks.
- View completed tasks.
- Add comments to tasks.
Bonus features that are not required but nice to have, include the ability to add a “label” to tasks, to view tasks by label and to attach files to tasks.
In addition to doing everything above, and doing it all well, my favorite thing about Todoist is that it understands natural language. So, for example, in the Due Date field, you can type any of the following, or anything similar:
- tomorrow
- next Monday
- a week from Wednesday
- every other day
- every 3 business days starting Thursday
- the first Thursday of every month
Is Todoist Right For You?
If you use Microsoft Outlook 365 or the Windows version on an Exchange server for your calendar and email, then I suggest that you keep your tasks there, too. There are instructions for doing so in the context of the Empowered Productivity System in my first book, Personal Productivity Secrets.
However, if you’re looking for a good productivity app for your task list, I recommend Todoist in the following circumstances:
- If you use Outlook at work, but want to keep your personal tasks separate. (Just remember that keeping your task list in two places means twice as much work to maintain it.)
- If you are a Mac user.
- If you use only an individual (local) version of Outlook.
- If you are a Google user for email and calendar.
Get a Free Month of Todoist Pro
I wanted to begin recommending Todoist to my clients. My only problem was that ALL the features are necessary to get the full benefit of Todoist and to use it with my Empowered Productivity System. But you can only access the full features with a Pro account, and I wanted my clients to be able to try it before paying for it.
Luckily, the folks at Todoist were kind enough to create an offer code for my network. If you’d like to try out Todoist and you’re using the Empowered Productivity System, email me (mt(at)maurathomas(dot)com) to get a discount code for a Pro account free for a month. After that, it’s only $29 per year and well worth it.
Instructions for using Todoist with the Empowered Productivity System are included in From To Do To Done: How To Go from Busy to Productive by Mastering Your To-Do List. However, if you’ve been to one of my trainings, or read Personal Productivity Secrets—and are therefore using the Empowered Productivity System—download the PDF now.
