Last Updated on September 21, 2022 by Stephanie
My love for Todoist knows no bounds. Seriously, I love it. For me, Todoist is the best task manager anyone could ask for. In this post, I’m going to lay it all out there about Todoist because if you are searching for a task manager for Mac or Windows or any device on the go, Todoist might just be it!
My Journey To Todoist
I read this book called “Getting Things Done” by David Allen and it essentially changed my life. Since reading it nearly two years ago, I haven’t missed a weekly review. If you don’t know what a weekly review is, definitely check out my post about it. My master to-do list fits in with my weekly review because I look over every task each week.
I explain more about this in my post about effective to-do lists, but I have a master to-do list. David Allen likes to say that your brain is for having ideas and not holding them. Our brains shouldn’t bear the burden of trying to remember every little thing we need to get done.
Being the techy person that I am, I needed a solution that would be easy to manage and sync across all my devices. I use digital notebooks and Goodnotes like crazy so I thought that might be the answer, but I was wrong. Digital notebooks are great for so much, but for my tasks, I needed something that was a bit more intuitive.
Enter Todoist.
What is Todoist
Simply put, Todoist is a to-do list on steroids. You can manage your master to-do list, separate things out into different categories, tag things, label things, sort things, and oh boy. I love it! You can also add notes, links, media, and more to your tasks for easy access! It is very intuitive with a lot of its features, which is why I’m a big fan.
I know I’m a big productivity nerd. Anything that lets me get everything out of my head is awesome. When you add in something that reminds me of a task that I have to do on a not-so-regular basis, I’m sold!
My Todoist Setup
If you’ve checked out my post about effectively using to-do lists, you know that I have a master to-do list that houses everything. In Todoist, I don’t use projects as projects, but I use them as my categories for things. Below is a picture of my sidebar that has all my categories of tasks.
Within each category, you can create sections as well. This is where my happy place is. For example, in my school category, I have a place for priority items, webmaster tasks, recurring tasks, grading to do, team stuff, etc.
Here’s an example of what my project view looks like with all my tasks hidden:
What I love about Todoist is all the views that it has. I do not use the prioritizing features built in to Todoist because it doesn’t work with my system, but it does have a way for you to set priorities of tasks. Typically, in the evening or during my weekly review, anything I know that I need to get done I will assign to a day that week or just assign it to Monday. If I get those things done during the week, then I can look to my specific categories to work from.
Other Awesome Features
There are plenty of other great things about Todoist that make this app a great powerhouse of a task manager. I’m going to go over a few of those things below for those who may now be convinced that this is the right tool for them!
The Beauty of Recurring Tasks in Todoist
This is my favorite feature. If you write a task like “replace toothbrush every 4 months”, it will add in a task that day and every 4 months. When you open up your Todoist that day, it will be there. Things like cleaning out my car, putting in my PD hours, checking that my school web calendar is updated, and deep cleaning the cat’s fountain are all set it and forget it things for me. I don’t have to think about it because it is all set for me!
You can also set reminders (this only works in the pro plan) that will pop up on your phone! I have it set up so that at 6:30AM, 1:00PM, and 8:30 PM I have a reminder to check my Todoist lists. It was so freaking easy to set up! Check out this list of tasks below.
The green arrow means it is a recurring task. The time stamp means that it is going to send me a reminder at that time to do the task. I set it once and forget about it!
Apps and Integrations for Todoist
Another feature that I love with Todoist is that there are apps for all your devices including your Apple Watch! I admit that the Apple Watch is a bit clunky for me for adding tasks. I typically do that on my phone or on my computer. However, I do like it for a quick look at tasks and checking things off my list for today. Siri can also add things to your list, but sometimes she gets a bit picky and doesn’t want to find the app, which can be annoying if you are a big Siri user like I am.
Integrations are another thing that is kind of cool too. There are a LOT of different apps that Todoist can talk with such as Google Calendar and your Gmail, Slack, and Evernote. For a full list of integrations, you can check out their integration page on their site.
Personally, I also use it in Notion! If you don’t know what Notion is, oh man could you be in for a treat. I’ve got a post about Notion here on the blog that talks a little about what it is and what I use it for as well. I embed my Todoist into Notion, which I think is a cool option. You can grab a certain project or a certain view and embed it right there on one of your pages. For example, down here on my dashboard for Creating Time For Life, I’ve got my daily tasks in Todoist right next to my content calendar so I don’t have to switch back and forth between the two apps!
Tracking Your Tasks
If you are a dopamine chaser like the rest of us, there are a few other neat things that you can do in Todoist with tracking your tasks. There is a productivity tracker that you can customize right in the app and on the web. Check out mine below:
You can set a goal number of tasks to be completed each day and each week. Then, as you look at your tasks, you can see where you are most productive. Since I have everything color-coded, I can see if I’m slacking in a certain area. For example, my blue tasks are all things for school, my pink tasks are daily productivity and routine things, etc. It is a neat visual to look at to see what I need more time in!
The Cost
Todoist has a lot to offer even in its free form! You can check out their pricing on their site, but here is the lowdown:
For a free plan, as of this posting, you can have 5 projects, 5 collaborators, 5MB of file uploads, 3 filters, and 1 week of activity history. That wasn’t enough for me personally. I also believe that there are limited colors as far as color-coding goes with the free option as well. However, try it out and see what you think before you commit!
I personally use their pro plan, which has 300 projects, 25 collaborators, 100 MB of file uploads, 150 filters, reminders, unlimited activity history, and themes and auto backups! It is $4 per month if you pay it annually and $5 a month if you bill it monthly. In my opinion, it is worth every penny I spend on it.
They have another tier of features called their business plan, but if you are reading this blog, I feel like that might not be in your wheelhouse. If you want to investigate that further, go for it!
Final Thoughts
That’s Todoist in a long nutshell. If you are looking for a task manager, it is definitely a contender! I’ve been using it for a couple of years now and I still really love it and use it daily. It is a great place to house all of your tasks in an organized way. Let me know in the comments if there is anything else you want to know about this awesome app or something that you want me to share!
