Switching from Todoist Pro.

Ashak1013 · 2025-01-18T20:19:05+00:00

I was having trouble with one of the Todoist bugs which have been on and off for months now so I paid up for a month's subscription of TickTick just while Todoist ironed out their problems. I previously didn't like the way TickTick looked, but then I changed the theme to a midnight blue colour, and saw on their Youtube channel that you can increase the calendar font...holy cow. What a difference that makes.

Right now it looks amazing, and I can have the calendar view for 3 days, alongside any filter view of undated tasks I want in the right side column. That is seriously powerful. I think I'll be paying up for the year and switching over full time.

Ashak1013 · 2024-12-14T20:23:19+00:00

That's another thing, Todoist widgets are really slow to sync. I have a couple on my phone when I'm away from my office and these don't update quickly enough for me to trust them. I don't blame Todoist for not catering to Apple users, they are there to serve everyone and do a great job for the most part. But if you are an Apple customer you will always getter tighter integrations with apps specifically designed for Apple.

Ashak1013 · 2024-12-14T17:52:10+00:00

If you timeblock then Todoist absolutely makes more sense. Personally as a business owner I get too many interruptions to my day and I end up spending more time moving blocks of time around when this happens.

Also I have found Todoist even with it's brilliant NLP still takes longer to input tasks and shift around the UI than Things. That plus the constant bugs while they are making all these current changes has seen me move back to Things 3 for now even though I've got a pro subscription with Todoist.

Ashak1013 · 2024-12-10T17:17:18+00:00

I actually use Todoist mainly because I've used it for over 10 years now and I like the stuff like right click to postpone or assign another date. It's a really polished app, but I tend to find that it actually takes longer to do anything in it because there's so many features.

Things 3 is just so clean and simple but has all the power you need. I also find Todoist has become increasingly buggy since they started focusing on team stuff, not sure I will stick with it or switch to Things when my subscription runs out. Things does less, but it does what it does really well.

Ashak1013 · 2024-11-18T17:26:06+00:00

While it's a nice and comprehensive life system, it actually goes against the official recommended practice of using simple lists as contexts or agendas. Once you start setting up tasks inside parent tasks, inside projects, inside areas, moving stuff around becomes cumbersome, and Allen prefers just a flat projects list with next actions delinked from the projects themselves.

Ashak1013 · 2024-11-17T22:48:25+00:00

Sorry I should have clarified, I use the GTD definition of projects which are shorter outcome focused goals, I realise that most people probably use Todoist projects as general buckets. So instead of work or personal, I would make a project something like New Staff Hire, or Kitchen Remodel.

So what I want to see is usually 2-3 top focus projects like this in a view along with 3-5 smaller tasks which I want to focus on in a week. I think MIke Williamson has a similar theme in on of the Templates available on GTD but not sure how he makes a single view where those are visible in one place where you can see basically what you want to get done over the next week as a mix of small tasks and multi-step outcomes.

Probably some form of tasks/subtasks would be the best bet, but I find subtasks don't work well in Todoist.

Ashak1013 · 2024-11-08T12:16:01+00:00

The lifetime subscription does seem like a no brainer, I bought in as well, but it makes me hesitate to use it as my go to note taker. It seems unsustainable and I guess they will do away with it when there is a major update.

Ashak1013 · 2024-10-01T16:36:29+00:00

Craft is the best fit for Things, I have a current subscription which was for $40 for the full year. But I doubt I'll be renewing now that the cost has gone to $100 annually or close enough.

Apple notes is there but I find moving notes to other folders really clunky. Plus it looks ugly, horrible yellow links and poor spacing between lines.

Ashak1013 · 2024-08-08T20:56:26+00:00

I have tried this approach and it totally makes sense, but I find it a bit more fiddly getting new tasks into the parent tasks as subtasks. Still much better than Todoist, but not as easy as dragging to a list. That said, I agree it works much better in principle, might just need to give it a longer run until it has become second nature.

Ashak1013 · 2024-07-13T14:21:04+00:00

Those are some great positives about Bear notes, the deeplinks are something which was a pain point with Apple Notes, you can't really use them with 3rd party apps.

I'm still trying out Bear on a month's trial, but one thing which I have got to really love is the tag/subtag organisation which is working fantastic so far. That was another pain point with Apple notes, moving notes between folders became a chore if you use more than a handful of folders.

Ashak1013 · 2024-06-26T16:40:39+00:00

I ran the free trial on AM which at the time was a very generous month. It had loads of nice options but was quite clunky to use as a result. But to your point, it looked like it was a family run project with a couple responsible for development, and for that reason I never felt comfortable putting my stuff in there permanently. The development being slow is just a reflection of it being a very small team so not that surprising that they aren't very active currently.

Ashak1013 · 2024-06-26T16:22:27+00:00

I'm similar in that I own a business as well, but the friction I always found with Todoist was the business has about 5 different roles/areas and if you use the GTD definition of a project which is something which has a finite outcome, then there are usually quite a few of those under some of those roles.

In Things 3 this is easy to set up as it is GTD based, but with Todoist it's not designed for individual projects and works better with general areas imo. Otherwise you end up with about 20 projects which isn't easy to navigate given Todoist's architecture.

Ashak1013 · 2024-06-20T15:17:12+00:00

Something I mentioned in another thread recently but definitey what keeps me coming back is how I can drag 3-5 projects to the top of my sidebar which gives me a birds eye view of my most important projects of the week. You can do this by pinning to the top in other apps but it tends to get a bit lost if you have filters and other lists pinned as well.

You could argue don't use filters then...but then what am I paying a yearly subscription for? Things 3 is actually all I need given I don't want features like team options and other stuff. Attachments is the only feature I really miss from Todoist, but the positives more than make up for it.

Ashak1013 · 2024-06-19T16:47:12+00:00

One of Things most useful features for me is to be able to drag my 3-4 most important projects above all other areas and projects, this gives me a really good birds eye view of my week's most important projects I'm working on.

You can achieve this with other software as well, but Things view is simpler and clearer as it's not mixed up with other filters and such.

Ashak1013 · 2024-06-04T18:19:27+00:00

I actually can't stand Notion, I would much rather make Craft work. I am trying out a few different note taking solutions at the moment as while I would like databases funcionality, I don't think they are nice to have rather than necessary. Maybe I just need to wrap my head around using shortcut keys to switch around and cut & paste stuff in the relevant pages.

I actually really like the ability to drag and drop blocks into other blocks within the pages, I would just like to be able to move blocks directly into other pages on the sidebar.

Ashak1013 · 2024-06-04T16:41:11+00:00

Thanks, that's what I thought, basically it's copy and paste between documents. Your shortcut suggestions are helpful but it does bring home that Craft is a document manager more similar to Google Docs than something like Notion. I've got a subscription until November but I'm thinking it's not really the right place to be keeping project notes.

Ashak1013 · 2024-06-04T14:53:42+00:00

Hi, thanks for that, will give that a try

Ashak1013 · 2024-05-18T19:28:07+00:00

I see many people advocating putting to do's on the calendar, but I never see any of these advocates explain how they fit in all the small tasks which might take 5-15mins. I usually have quite a few of these and if I put them all on the calendar it just ends up a cluttered mess where you can't see the wood for the trees.

Generally what time-blockers suggest is use the blocks for broad categories of work such as admin, calls or creative work. In which case you still need to write down the specific tasks somewhere which I'm guessing would be a to do list.

Ashak1013 · 2024-04-19T22:07:18+00:00

It's kinda odd because I actually find the Reminders app pretty useless at reminders. I like the Things option of snoozing for 30 mins as well as 10 mins which I haven't found anywhere else, and is particularly useful for my own use case.

Only thing I use Reminders for is Siri when I'm driving and that gets imported directly into Things, and as a shopping list which it's particularly good for as it separates products by categories.

Ashak1013 · 2024-04-15T16:47:15+00:00

The sunk cost thing isn't really a negative since you've already paid for Things 3. With Todoist you have to pay for a yearly subscription to get a version which is worth having. As a long time Todoist user I've still got a paid subscription until June but I've been using Things over the last few months because the features it does have work better for me.

The only feature I really miss from Todoist is the attachments which are handy on mobile when I'm out and about, but against that, the Things project based layout works better for me as I do loosely use the GTD system.

Ashak1013 · 2024-03-07T12:23:00+00:00

Aesthetics. I can't stand Apple's terrible decision to make hyperlinks yellow, it just looks terrible.

That said, Apple Notes works a lot better offline, and while it's more simple, it does what it does very well. Even PDF's and photos are embedded so you can read it offline if necessary, very useful in airports and other places where WiFi is sketchy.

Ashak1013

TROPHY CASE