Five Best To-Do List Managers
Finding
the right tool to track your to-dos is highly personal, and one
person's best is another's junk—but there are some that are better than
others. The best offer great syncing and scheduling options, great apps,
notifications and reminders, or just the right mix of features and
flexibility that make it easy to stay organized. Here are five of the
best, based on your nominations.
Earlier in the week we asked you for your favorite to-do list apps,
and why you thought they were awesome. You responded with an avalanche
of apps, webapps, downloadable applications, and even pen-and-paper
nominations—way more than I think we've seen in a call for contenders
thread before, and way more than we have room for here.
Still, there were five that rose above the rest, and here they are, in no particular order:
Google Keep
Google Keep
is a surprising contender, but a huge number of you rallied behind it.
Not only is it simple, available on the web and for Android (sorry, iOS
users), but it's fast, flexible, and easy to use.
At its heart, Keep is a simple syncing notepad that can keep
checklists, photos and images, voice notes, and other text notes
synchronized across devices and stored in the cloud. It supports time
and location-based reminders, in-note photos, and color-coded notes.
Everything is stored on the web, it's easy to use, and if you're an
Android user, it's practically there for you already—no hassle, and it's
already on your device. There's no real barrier to entry—no accounts to
set up, no lists to import or categories to set up, and so on.
At the same
time, all of that ease-of-use makes it a very lightweight app that
doesn't carry the features that other tools bring to the table. There
are no recurring tasks, no calendar view, no sub-tasks or advanced
features that make it useful for planning bigger projects or handling
regular tasks. Even so, a number of you had good (and critical) things
to say about Google Keep—praising it for its ease of use and reminding
us that the best to-do app is the one you actually use, but also noting
that it has its quirks and the fact that it's not available for iOS was a
turn-off for some of you.
Any.do
Any.do is a
sharp, good-looking mobile to-do list manager (and Chrome add-on) that
earned high praise even though it entered the contenders round later
than many of the other entries. It's our current favorite to-do app for iPhone,
and it's itching for first place when it comes to Android, too. Any.do
supports iOS and Android, syncs smoothly between devices and platforms,
can handle recurring tasks (although its recurring options are a little
lacking), timed and location-based reminders, and gets your day started
with the Any.do "Moment," a short review of everything you have on your
table for the day. It also tries to keep your to-do list from getting
overwhelming, and really shows you "today," "tomorrow," and "later," so
you don't get overwhelmed by dates and times. It handles multiple
priorities, and it integrates nicely with Cal, the calendar app from the
same team.
Any.do is packed with features you may not realize are there,
even though its interface is designed to be simple and easy to get
familiar with. It's not perfect either though—syncing can be tricky
sometimes, and if you prefer to manage your to-dos from a desktop, you have
to use their Chrome add-on, which can be a bit clunky. There's no
webapp or desktop app. Still, many of you rallied to it, noting that its
good looks and simplicity keep you coming back, even when you've tried
other apps, and there was a lot of love for Any.do Moment as a daily
planning tool.
Wunderlist
Wunderlist
is a cross-platform, desktop and mobile to-do list manager with apps for
iOS and Android, Windows, OS X, and Linux (although their Linux app is
woefully out of date.) It's also a webapp, so you seriously have no
reason to be without your to-dos on any platform you choose to use. It's
our current pick for the best to-do app in Windows and OS X, and its most recent iteration and feature improvements
have added a lot to the app. It's simple and easy to use, supports
timed reminders, recurring to-dos (although its recurring feature is
definitely lacking), separate reminders from the due date of the task,
notes and additional info associated with your to-dos, shared to-dos
with others, multiple categories, and more. You can star important tasks
(but that's as close to priority as you'll get), and customize the look
of the app. It's broad platform support—and its webapp—mean you'll
always have access to your to-dos.
Wunderlist
is great, and there's a reason we like it, but not everyone does, and
it's not without its quirks. For example, it's had a few syncing problems in the past,
and I've found recurring tasks to be quirky from time to time. However,
those of you who nominated it praised the service's ease of use,
availability on multiple devices, stellar customer support, and its
good-looking interface. Many of you said it's just a joy to use—which
makes sure you actually use it every day. There are pro accounts that
add features like collaboration tools, file uploads, and comments on
your to-dos, but the free version will be more than enough for most
people.
Todoist
Todoist has
been around for a long, long time, but it's really evolved in recent
years into a powerful, cross-platform productivity tool. It's available
on the web, for iOS and Android with desktop apps for Windows and OSX,
add-ons for Firefox and Chrome, plug-ins for email apps like Postbox,
Gmail, Thunderbird, and Outlook, and more. It's free (ish, we'll get to
that) and feature-packed. Todoist offers recurring tasks with fine,
plain-language recurrence options. It also packs sub-tasks and
dependencies, real-time syncing, projects and sub-projects so you can
manage daily checklists or big plans that involve lots of people,
understandable due dates (like "Friday at 5pm," for example), multiple
priorities, categories and projects you can set, and more. $30/yr will
get you a premium account, which is required if you want notifications
or reminders via email or push notifications on your mobile device—which
is kind of a bummer, so keep that in mind. You also get labels and
filters to further organize your to-dos.
There was a
lot of love for Todoist in the call for contenders thread, although
many of you noted that even though the app is free, $30 for an essential
feature like notifications is a bit of a bummer that makes you steer
clear (although they're known to have sales).
Still, Todoist's feature set is impressive, and seriously on-par (or
beyond) many of the others in the roundup. The fact that it's available
for almost any platform and looks good on all of them helps a lot, and
many of you specifically praised Todoist's "karma" points system for
helping you stay motivated to get your to-dos finished. The service even
very recently updated to add new visual scheduling options and email add-ins.
HabitRPG
HabitRPG was a surprise contender this week, but it earned more than enough votes to earn a spot in the top five. It's one of our favorite tools to productively gamify your life, and we've highlighted it on its own before.
HabitRPG turns your to-dos and pet projects into a game, where you
level up your character, defeat enemies, and collect loot and rewards
for your characters just by doing the things you need to do every day.
It's largely geared towards helping you build better habits. It's
available on the web and for iOS and Android, and while it doesn't pack
in the advanced features that many other to-do apps have, it's certainly
a blast to use, and really addictive. As you cross off to-dos, you earn
points, gold to spend on upgrades, experience, and your character
improves. Fail and miss deadlines, and you take hits to your health and
your character loses progress to the next level, or worse.
HabitRPG
does support categories, but mostly in terms of "dailies," or things you
want to do regularly and "todos," or items that just need to get done
once or rarely (and you can set due dates and reminders). Don't expect
things like recurring reminders, custom categories, or anything that
makes for a more robust productivity tool—but if what you need is an
engaging way to get things done and less a tool with tons of options and
features you'll never use, it's worth a look. Plus, it's completely
free. Those of you who nominated it shared your success stories with the
service, and highlighted the fact that it has competitive options so
you can compete with others as well.
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