Christoph wrote:

Talking about todo managers, here are three more recommendations.

*MyLifeOrganized* (MLO) is a very flexible and powerful application that
is essentially based on an outline (arbitrarily deep tree) of tasks.
Tasks can be marked as pure containers (folders) or projects.
User-definable filtering views allow to create flat lists from this
outline. It has as a desktop app for Windows, and mobile apps for iOS
and Android. MLO has many interesting and advanced features, like time-
and location-based contexts, start and end date, reminder date, and
review date (all separate from each other), and can be used to implement
different task management methodologies.

I really enjoyed MLO as a desktop app at work for project management, but felt that setting or tweaking things was always a challenge. Had it been easier to configure, I would still be using it. Clickup offers many of the same features that I liked about MLO, but is easier to configure and re-configure for me.

--Ken

Dr Andus wrote:

I've tried many todo apps over the years, and I ended up having the same
problem with all of them, namely, that after a while it was hard to see
the forest for the trees.

But even that metaphor breaks down here, as I could see the forest of
todos, so that wasn't the problem.

Maybe the problem was that it was getting increasingly harder to see
which ones were the important trees, as they were getting lost in the
ever-expanding forest, and far too much time was spent on forest
management to find the important trees.

Then I came across a study somewhere which said that the busiest and
most productive managers (CEOs and presidents etc.) only use a calendar
to manage their todos because only what can get done at a specific point
in time is worth focusing on (i.e. is important enough).

So the essential skill here is not task management (and forest
management), but task selection, i.e. prioritisation, and choosing tasks
and scheduling them in a calendar and getting them done is what matters.

Now it's possible that this is only valid for those in senior
management, and if one is an underling, then we are tasked to manage the
forest, so that we can suggest important trees to senior management.

But I feel there is a learning point there that the higher level skill
is to learn how to select (prioritise) important and urgent tasks and
then focusing on getting them done (by scheduling them in a calendar),
and forest management leads to stagnation or at least it's a lower level
skill, almost an admin skills vs. the management or leadership skills of
prioritisation.

For the last several years I was using a combination of WorkFlowy (for
capturing tasks, managing the forest) and Google Calendar to manage my
affairs. But my WorkFlowy has grown into a giant forest of captured
tasks most of which are ultimately probably pointless and useless as
they never got scheduled because they turned out not to be important or
urgent.

Enter RoamResearch, which has emerged as the magic solution to the
forest management problem, and for me therefore is the absolute best
todo management software I have ever used.

The key feature is the automatically appearing daily page, which forces
you to review the previous day's undone tasks, to evaluate whether they
should be transferred over; so it's a forced moment of reflection,
evaluation, and prioritisation every day. (I imagine this is very
similar to the bullet journal method.)

Although I still end up with some tasks that I've been rolling over for
weeks or months, it also forces me to recognise that some of these are
no longer important or will never be done and can be forgotten about.

But it also helps me never miss anything important, because it forces me
to encounter again tasks that I scheduled for the future, when the given
daily note appears on its assigned date. I still use Google Cal to
schedule tasks in a calendar format, which just adds another moment of
reflection and prioritisation, when tasks get mapped against the
available time on a given day or week.

So when it comes to a todo system or software, the key features to
evaluate would be how it deals with the growing forest problem, how it
helps prioritization, how it helps scheduling, getting things done, and
reminding of future tasks.

Creating an audit trail is also important (and for this Roam is also
excellent, as there is a record of each day that's passed, and the
internal linking can ensure the monitoring of connections between past,
present, and future tasks and events).

Now we get to the heart of the matter - prioritization. This is the key for me as I am frequently at bandwidth overload. I used to use tags to prioritize and "pull" out tasks that needed to be done and would only use programs that offered reasonable tagging features. I then found that good search and filtering started appearing in programs which made tagging even better, especially when a search/filter could be saved. Now we have programs that are highly customizable where you can create your own fields, and I combine that with the ability to create my own views (something I originally implemented in MLO and now use in Clickup). The ability to quickly switch views is very helpful, and I have a project view, a priority view and a calendar view (for my personal and home lists).

I am still sorting out Clickup at work so I have been using it in conjunction with Kanbanflow. Clickup holds all of the data and tasks/subtasks and Kanbanflow allows me to quickly prioritize and jot down items as they arise. The board has four columns - Now, Next, Later, and Scratchpad. This keeps me from being overwhelmed and with the use of just a few colors to code things, I can decide what I want to tackle and see where it is as. This can easily be replaced by almost any kanban board, but Kanbanflow is so dead simple that it is almost frictionless in use for me. My goal is to eventually try to move this into Clickup, but I am not sure if I can set it up as I wish. But, trying to is teaching me a lot, so as long as it does not get out of hand, I am okay.

Finally, at work they are rolling out MS Planner/Todo/Tasks since we are an all Microsoft shop. I find them a bit too simple for my needs, but I did find it interesting that Microsoft has incorporated the concept of prioritizing in the system. I cannot remember which of the three requires you to rebuild your daily task list each day so you can start with a clean slate. I understand what they are trying to accomplish, but having to rebuild each day would drive me crazy. My 3+1 board at Kanbanflow is much easier.

--Ken

Stephen Zeoli wrote:

But back to ClickUp. You can use it for everything from a simple todo
list, to a KanBan board and timelines, now. A feature they don't seem to
talk about much is that you can associate Notion-like documents to
projects. Notion-like because you can put almost any information into
them. So, for instance, I am managing our exhibit at a virtual
conference and I've got the instructional PDFs in one of the documents
for this project, along with clipped email information. You build these
documents very similarly to Notion pages by selecting elements to add to
the document with the slash key.

Each task you create in ClickUp can be loaded with information,
including fully formatted notes, attachments, sub-tasks, all kinds of
meta data, commentary (because ClickUp is first and foremost built for
collaboration -- which I don't need).

ClickUp also has a ton of video tutorials to help you figure out how to
use it. It is impressive.

Steve

I was encouraged by Steve's enthusiastic review to give ClickUp a try. It is impressive, and I really like the way the same task list can be viewed in many ways and the custom fields. I also like the audit trail of edits and changes, which Amazing Marvin does not have. But I already hit my first snag: no customisation of date formats as far as I can tell. Not being in the US, month-day doesn't work for me, neither does a.m./p.m.time format. Maybe it's in there somewhere. Nitpicks aside I can see myself using this for work so thank you for the recommendation!

The biggest difference between ClickUp and Amazing Marvin is the usage philosophy: every task in ClickUp gets a place on a list inside a fixed hierarchy, and a due date. Amazing Marvin is for throwing in all my ideas, then selecting the ones I want to work on now/soon, scheduling the ones that will come up on a certain date, and ignoring the rest. That's how I avoid getting lost in the long list of trees that Dr Andus mentioned.

In AM I have a master list of lots of ideas and projects that I may or may not do, but by putting them on the master list I know they haven't disappeared in the back of my mind. I have 522 tasks on my master list right now divided into 13 categories like "personal", "home", "business" and "social". Everything from the next scheduled maintenance for my car (end of August) to doing my weekly review (every Monday morning). There's a default "inbox" for new tasks so they don't have to be assgined straight away.

When I open AM I don't look at the master list, I look at "Today": a selection of tasks that I have planned for today. Or if I prefer to plan for a week, I can put tasks on a "planned this week" list and look at that. Sometimes I want a small list of things to not forget so I made a "priority" list or an "ideas" list that I look at. There's a calendar so if I review what rolled over from yesterday but don't want to do it today I can move it to a future date or unschedule it.

Tasks have different levels of "fixedness" in terms of when they must/will/might be done:
- due date: must be done by then
- scheduled date: in my calendar to be done then
- planned week/month: I want to do it then, but not sure which day
- start date: don't show me this task before then
- review date: remind me to look at this task on that date
- master list: not planned to be done yet
- backburner: an idea I had for someday/maybe, but I don't intend to do anything about it now. Putting it on the backburner makes the master list shorter so I don't see it each time I'm picking tasks to work on
- trash: sometimes I really won't do this task any more, so I can delete it (and empty trash to get rid of it completely)

It works for me because I'm trying to solve the problem "which of these things shall I focus on now (after I have done what must be done today)", and I like the flexibility of planning it enables. The biggest benefit is not having to go through the whole list every time. And I hardly ever use due dates, except for paying taxes. Perhaps the same is possible in ClickUp, so I'll have to play with it some more.

Cyganet wrote:

Perhaps the same is
possible in ClickUp, so I'll have to play with it some more.

It is possible in Clickup and also in program like MLO and Asana to name a few others. At its most basic, you need a field or two and a view or two. In Clickup, like many programs, they offer several levels of priority. If that doesn't help, then you can create your own field or use tags. Then just create views that show you what you want. It sounds simple, and for the most part it is, but may programs do not make it easy or even possible. This way you can have your big list which you may hardly ever look at, assuming that you properly label your tasks as you enter them so they appear where you want them. I have a priority view that shows my task in order of priority. And I have a calendar view when I want to see things by date, if applicable. I am also a big fan of a time/dated comment field so I can add notes if necessary. Again, many program offer these features, but some just do it better than others. Clickup has an initially steep learning curve, but the program is somewhat intuitive after a bit of play. If you really want a blank canvas to play with, there is always Airtable.

Good luck,

--Ken

Ken wrote:

Now we get to the heart of the matter - prioritization. This is the key
for me as I am frequently at bandwidth overload. I used to use tags to
prioritize and "pull" out tasks that needed to be done and would only
use programs that offered reasonable tagging features. I then found
that good search and filtering started appearing in programs which made
tagging even better, especially when a search/filter could be saved.
Now we have programs that are highly customizable where you can create
your own fields, and I combine that with the ability to create my own
views (something I originally implemented in MLO and now use in
Clickup). The ability to quickly switch views is very helpful, and I
have a project view, a priority view and a calendar view (for my
personal and home lists).

Thanks for sharing your method, Ken.

This thread made me think that another criterion for choosing a suitable todo software (which inevitably has to come with or enable one to construct one' own 'todo system') is the ability to enforce discipline on the user.

There are lots of interesting systems and tools out there, but if for some reason it doesn't impose or inspire the right kind of discipline to use that system, then it won't work.

That's the difference between Roam and WorkFlowy for me, for instance.

Much of what I do in Roam I could have accomplished in WorkFlowy, but while in Roam each new day appears automatically (and forces me to plan for the current day), in WorkFlowy I would have had to create each new day manually, and despite the fact that it would only take seconds to do that, I just never managed to maintain the discipline. I'm sure there are people out there who are capable of doing it in WorkFlowy, because they have the self-discipline, while I need the software to discipline me.

Maybe this is what is meant by the affordance of a piece of software.

I'm not trying to convince you to go back to Workflowy, but there is an easy way to pre-ad all the days of the year in a hierarchy in Workflowy and Dynalist. I described the method putting the dates into TheBrain:

https://welcometosherwood.wordpress.com/2011/02/24/personalbrain-as-a-management-tool/

But it works very well for Dynalist... so I imagine it works with Workflowy too. It uses a little date to text tool from our old friends from Brainstorm.

Steve Z.


Dr Andus wrote:

Much of what I do in Roam I could have accomplished in WorkFlowy, but
while in Roam each new day appears automatically (and forces me to plan
for the current day), in WorkFlowy I would have had to create each new
day manually, and despite the fact that it would only take seconds to do
that, I just never managed to maintain the discipline. I'm sure there
are people out there who are capable of doing it in WorkFlowy, because
they have the self-discipline, while I need the software to discipline
me.

Maybe this is what is meant by the affordance of a piece of software.

Stephen Zeoli wrote:

I'm not trying to convince you to go back to Workflowy, but there is an
easy way to pre-ad all the days of the year in a hierarchy in Workflowy
and Dynalist.

I appreciate the suggestion, Steve. I think the problem is, apart from just laziness, that when the going gets tough, and I have 4-5 (or even more) extremely busy days, if the system is fragile (such as needing me to do too much manual input), it falls apart, and it's unlikely that I go back to fix it. Somehow inertia sets in, or I don't know what it is.

The way Roam automatically generates a blank new page every day and pushes the other days down somehow encourages me to maintain the discipline and even to go back and reconstruct missed days.

There is also something calming and optimistic about how each new day just offers a new hope of getting things under control or having another go at trying to get organised.

This Reddit post captures the feeling well:

https://www.reddit.com/r/RoamResearch/comments/gnrxsx/it_doesnt_matter_what_happened_yesterday_because/

Ken wrote:

I also eventually went from Toodledo to Todoist, with a few stops in
between, but am mostly using Clickup these days. It is not perfect, but
I do like it a lot. Something to consider if you are interested. As
far at Toodledo goes, I cannot see going back. The UI was a challenge
when I used it, and it still has not changed.

Interesting, I find the UI in Toodledo to be very comfortable. It may be because the placement of menu items and overall layout remind me of my first mobile apps from the old days (Paim).

I signed up for the web version of ClickUp this morning, as the reviews for Android aren't good (no surprise there). They're not allowing me to skip the videos & have a busy day. (I know, I found time to write a reply...) And usually, forcing me to watch a video is enough to make me completely back out, but I'm trying to be more flexible.

What makes a basic outliner a good fit for me is that I review & check off most tasks after 12 AM, when my day ends - a problem for repeat tasks in ToDoist (and other apps). Butt a full featured project manager for the less mundane, more complex tasks (with dependencies) would be very helpful, especially now. I've given up on the Android apps, web apps seem to work much better. So, I'll try ClickUp again, tomorrow.

I get it, Doc. I admit that the daily pages feature in Roam is very attractive. I've been working in Hypernotes, which has a very similar feature.



Dr Andus wrote:

Stephen Zeoli wrote:
>I'm not trying to convince you to go back to Workflowy, but there is an
>easy way to pre-ad all the days of the year in a hierarchy in Workflowy
>and Dynalist.

I appreciate the suggestion, Steve. I think the problem is, apart from
just laziness, that when the going gets tough, and I have 4-5 (or even
more) extremely busy days, if the system is fragile (such as needing me
to do too much manual input), it falls apart, and it's unlikely that I
go back to fix it. Somehow inertia sets in, or I don't know what it is.

The way Roam automatically generates a blank new page every day and
pushes the other days down somehow encourages me to maintain the
discipline and even to go back and reconstruct missed days.

There is also something calming and optimistic about how each new day
just offers a new hope of getting things under control or having another
go at trying to get organised.

This Reddit post captures the feeling well:

https://www.reddit.com/r/RoamResearch/comments/gnrxsx/it_doesnt_matter_what_happened_yesterday_because/

Sarah wrote:

Ken wrote:

>I also eventually went from Toodledo to Todoist, with a few stops in
>between, but am mostly using Clickup these days. It is not perfect,
but
>I do like it a lot. Something to consider if you are interested. As
>far at Toodledo goes, I cannot see going back. The UI was a challenge
>when I used it, and it still has not changed.

Interesting, I find the UI in Toodledo to be very comfortable. It may be
because the placement of menu items and overall layout remind me of my
first mobile apps from the old days (Paim).

I signed up for the web version of ClickUp this morning, as the reviews
for Android aren't good (no surprise there). They're not allowing me to
skip the videos & have a busy day. (I know, I found time to write a
reply...) And usually, forcing me to watch a video is enough to make me
completely back out, but I'm trying to be more flexible.

What makes a basic outliner a good fit for me is that I review & check
off most tasks after 12 AM, when my day ends - a problem for repeat
tasks in ToDoist (and other apps). Butt a full featured project manager
for the less mundane, more complex tasks (with dependencies) would be
very helpful, especially now. I've given up on the Android apps, web
apps seem to work much better. So, I'll try ClickUp again, tomorrow.

It has been awhile since I signed up, but I do not recall a mandatory watching of videos to start using the program. I hope that you find a way to bypass this, but then again, it may prove helpful. Good luck on your evaluation.

--Ken

No mandatory videos here, either.

I had the videos pop up when I signed up but my ad blocker stopped them from playing.

I have tried virtually every To Do app mentioned on this forum, and the only one I found that really addressed my needs was IQ. However, I notice that Cyganet uses both IQ and Amazing Marvin - what benefits does the latter offer than the former (in its most current iteration) does not?

Thanks!

Hi Leib,

Leib Moscovitz wrote:

I have tried virtually every To Do app mentioned on this forum, and the
only one I found that really addressed my needs was IQ. However, I
notice that Cyganet uses both IQ and Amazing Marvin - what benefits does
the latter offer than the former (in its most current iteration) does
not?

Thanks!

I manage all my tasks in Amazing Marvin, and use InfoQube as a database and information manager (but not for tasks). I haven't tried using IQ for tasks, although I think it's a fabulous program, because I already have AM as my dedicated task manager. The reason I use AM is that it focuses on helping me to actually do the tasks, rather than managing a list of items that happen to be tasks. When I used to use Toodledoo, the list of tasks had all the metadata that I ever wanted, but when it came to deciding which one to do now, or which one I shouldn't forget, it wasn't helpful.

AM helps me to do my tasks with a wide range of what it calls "strategies", all of which I can toggle on or off, so I can shape it to fit how I want to work. These help a lot when I want to estimate how many things I can realistically get done in a day, allowing for other things that are going on. They also help to focus my attention on the things I want to do now, and put all the things I am not working on out of sight.
Here are some examples of strategies:
- All tasks have a scheduled date (when I want to do them) which isn't the same as the due date
- I can give tasks a "review" date for when they should be flagged for my attention
- I can give tasks a start date and they are hidden until then
- I have a "today" page which only shows me the tasks I want to work on today
- AM allows me to put time blocks in my calendar, which are linked to categories. It will schedule tasks of that category inside the time block if I schedule them for that day
- I can break up the today page in sections like "morning/afternoon/evening" or time blocks or categories
- There is a "focus picker" so I can pick which project is my area of attention for today and it shows up at the top of the page. I plan my week ahead and pick a focus project for each day, then add time blocks and tasks
- AM can auto-reschedule the tasks I didn't finish yesterday, or ask me when I want to do them
- AM has smart lists that I can define, and I can choose to put them in a sidebar. I have lots of those, e.g. a 'waiting' list for tasks when people are supposed to get back to me or a 'priority' list of tasks for this week
- AM has a weekly review item that I have scheduled for every Monday morning, wth a checklist of tasks that I do in the weekly review
- AM allows me to estimate task duration (before doing it) so I can see how many hours of work I have put on my today list. This estimate is separate from the time tracker that I can turn on to measure actual task duration
- AM has a procrastination count so I can see just how many days I have procrastinated on an item when I really should just do it
- I can put tasks on the "backburner" which is a bit like the GTD someday/maybe category. I don't want to see them in my master list, but I can call them up when I want to

There are more strategies that I don't use, like "eat that frog" (which one should you do first today), reward points, the task jar (pick a task for me), truncated list (only show me one at time)

To me, AM feels very different from having a long list with metadata and some filters, which is what Toodledoo felt like when I used it. I feel more in control and I do actually get a lot more done. I also get insight into the fact that I try to do too many things in one day. And it has a very calming interface with lots of white space and colour coding when I want it.

I hope this helps answer your question!

Hi Cyganet,

Many, many thanks for the detailed and extraordinary helpful reply! (And, BTW, I too had used Toodledo and some of its Windows and iOS clients in the distant past...)

I'm maybe in the hunt for a new task manager (ߙ„). I had dropped using Toodledo when the forums disappeared thinking this was the end. On looking today, the forums are back and the website has had a refresh. The app on iOS that was 2 years old is now only 11 months old.

Have I missed something? Does anyone have any concrete info? It does make me more hopeful.

I have in the interim being using Things 3, but find it a bit meh. No smart lists, horrible implementation of tag management (which has been the same for all iterations of Things). OmniFocus, the other app I used to use is down to 3.8 stars on iOS, which is not a great advert.

What are you guys using?

My requirements are:
- Start dates
- tags
- smart lists or saved searches
- macOS / iOS

TickTick does all those things, to a very high standard. There are three tabs in the sidebar: Lists (= folders/subfolders + task lists); Tags (yep, tags); Custom (smart lists)

It also has a Calendar feature. It also runs on pretty much any platform under the sun, and has a web client too.

Thank you for that! I did hear some concerns a while ago about where ticktick stored its data and that this was not secure or based in a country where data storage was questionable?

MadaboutDana wrote:

TickTick does all those things, to a very high standard. There are three
tabs in the sidebar: Lists (= folders/subfolders + task lists); Tags
(yep, tags); Custom (smart lists)

It also has a Calendar feature. It also runs on pretty much any platform
under the sun, and has a web client too.

Yes, it’s Chinese, so who knows? Having said which, we’ve been using it for years and it’s proved very reliable. I have no idea whether a team of Red Army specialists are hoovering down our data like there’s no tomorrow. If so, good luck to them!

One of the most positive things about TickTick is the pace of development, which is exceptionally steady (with some impressive advances recently, including rich-text notes and the option to convert tasks into notes (or vice versa) – notes can also have deadlines, even when they’re not explicitly tasks). TickTick has taken almost every possible feature from its many, many competitors in the task management space and incorporated it, but without making the resulting app too bulky or awkward. That in itself is an impressive achievement.

Worth mentioning that NotePlan (my personal go-to app) also does what you want, actually: you can create start dates by putting subtasks under main tasks (or headers, depending on what you prefer). It also does both kinds of tags and smart searches. Plus it’s got a lovely and very responsive developer who’s devoted to his user base!

Cheers!
Bill

That kind of puts the brakes on TickTick as I deal with personal information so Chinese and Russian based apps are not an option.

MadaboutDana wrote:

Yes, it’s Chinese, so who knows? Having said which, we’ve
been using it for years and it’s proved very reliable. I have no
idea whether a team of Red Army specialists are hoovering down our data
like there’s no tomorrow. If so, good luck to them!

One of the most positive things about TickTick is the pace of
development, which is exceptionally steady (with some impressive
advances recently, including rich-text notes and the option to convert
tasks into notes (or vice versa) – notes can also have
deadlines, even when they’re not explicitly tasks). TickTick has
taken almost every possible feature from its many, many competitors in
the task management space and incorporated it, but without making the
resulting app too bulky or awkward. That in itself is an impressive
achievement.

Worth mentioning that NotePlan (my personal go-to app) also does what
you want, actually: you can create start dates by putting subtasks under
main tasks (or headers, depending on what you prefer). It also does both
kinds of tags and smart searches. Plus it’s got a lovely and very
responsive developer who’s devoted to his user base!

Cheers!
Bill

It seems Toodledo is under new management and there's life in the old dog yet!

https://blog.toodledo.com/hello-from-the-new-toodledo-team/

When you first posted about their StackSocial offer in 2019 I figured they were either trying to inject some income during a cashflow-poor period, or they were hoping to gussy up their user numbers for a funding round or sale to someone. Looks like they limped along with modest improvements for a couple of years, then went for a sale.

It's a powerful app that handles notes and lists as well as tasks and habits. If you like the look and workflow it's not bad. But I think it needs a refresh and rethink on its UI.

Simon wrote:

Thank you for that! I did hear some concerns a while ago about where
ticktick stored its data and that this was not secure or based in a
country where data storage was questionable?

No that's incorrect. They host their data in the US and the service runs on Amazon Web Services.

With regard to the Toodledo UI, there are various Windows and iPad clients - I don't know about other OSes - which sync well with the web version of Toodledo and which provide user interfaces which are far superior, e.g. 2Do for iPad, TaskAngel for Windows, etc. So if you are considering Toodledo for its features, these clients might provide a helpful solution to the poor UI.

satis wrote:

It's a powerful app that handles notes and lists as well as tasks and
habits. If you like the look and workflow it's not bad. But I think it
needs a refresh and rethink on its UI.

Ah! That’s good to hear!

satis wrote:

Simon wrote:
Thank you for that! I did hear some concerns a while ago about where
>ticktick stored its data and that this was not secure or based in a
>country where data storage was questionable?

No that's incorrect. They host their data in the US and the service runs
on Amazon Web Services.