Best todo list software 2012

Here's a before and after shot, with the updated version on the right:. Image Credit: ToodleDo. Although it's mostly for task management, there are also sections of the tool where you can take notes, create outlines, and even track your habits, like in the screenshot below.

You can also share your lists, collaborate with others, and assign tasks to anyone you'd like. You can create unlimited tasks, set status, give due dates, assign tasks to team members, create to-do list items in tasks, and assign them separately to team members. The tool allows you to view the tasks in grid, list, calendar, and Gantt view to help manage the workflows the way it works best for you. Also, you can drag and drop the tasks to change the order and due dates, create tasks, subtasks, and schedule it on a recurring basis in just a few clicks.

You can also collaborate on tasks in real-time by sharing files and comments. It offers all of the features you'd want in a to-do list app, including drag-and-drop and swipe-to-complete, but there are a few things that make it stand out. For example, its key differentiator is "the moment" — a push notification you get each morning telling you to plan your day. There are also a few other cool and delightful features in there, like voice entry and the ability to shake your device to clear finished tasks.

Image Credit: Any. It's designed for the iPhone but can be used on iPad, as well as on the web and desktop with full syncing. Lifehacker named the app its favorite to-do app for iPhone , although the folks there admit it isn't as intuitive or as robust in terms of features as other apps like Wunderlist and Todoist.

It also has a Chrome extension with a four-star rating and over 2, reviews. Here's a video that'll walk you through its user interface and capabilities:. It's more like a clean, crisp piece of paper, ready whenever you need it. That sums up the user experience pretty well. Now known as Things 3, this third-generation task manager is intuitive, well designed, and very simple.

Image Credit: Things. For some, though, its simplicity might be a big turnoff. A review from The Verge says, "Things is still for individuals — there's no easy way to collaborate with colleagues on your projects. It's also not the most intuitive to due dates if you describe a particular task with the time to completion; if you say "next Wednesday" in the task description, you'll have to set the corresponding deadline manually. If you like the idea of checking things off on your Apple Watch, it also offers full Apple Watch Support.

Otherwise, you might be better off going with something more complex. TickTick is a relatively new player, but it has a lot of potential. Like many of the other tools on this list, you can add new tasks, sub-tasks, set deadlines and custom reminders, and share with other users. You can also set recurring to-do list items for every day, a specific number of days, a week, a month, and so on.

The Pro version has a great calendar view where you can see what your to-do list looks like on a daily or weekly basis and get ahead of the game. You can drag tasks to change the order, and drop tasks into the calendar on the bottom left to set a due date.

It also has revision history and an "experimental labs" feature. In addition to its mobile apps, TickTick now offers Windows and Mac web apps as well. This to-do tool has a beautiful interface with a solid — and growing — feature list.

Keep an eye out for updates and check out TickTick plans here. Image Credit: Lifehacker. Google Keep has existed under the radar for a long time, but it's actually a great tool if you're looking for a place to quickly make and save lists and notes and access them across multiple devices. At its core, Google Keep is a simple notepad that connects to Google Drive, where you can keep checklists, photos, voice notes, and other text notes that sync across multiple devices as well as the cloud.

Image Credit: ShareChair. Trying them all would be a massive task, and I know—because I tried. Why are there so many apps for a task that's easily done on sticky notes? Because managing tasks is an intensely personal thing. People will reject anything that doesn't feel right. That's a good instinct, but it makes it hard to find the right app. To that end, we've been hard at work researching the best to-do apps, trying to find the right ones for various use cases.

Research for these pieces was exhaustive. We then tried the top-rated apps in every respective app store, and spent way too much time migrating our personal to-do lists from one app to another. And now we're offering you what we feel is the cream of the crop. Whatever you're looking for, one of these apps is going to be right for you. Click on any app to learn more about why we chose it, or keep reading for more context on to-do list apps.

Todoist for balancing power and simplicity. TickTick for embedded calendars and timers. Microsoft To Do for Microsoft power users and Wunderlist refugees. Things for elegant design. OmniFocus for specific organizational systems. Habitica for making doing things fun. Google Tasks for Google power users. Other options , including project management apps, note-taking applications, and other tools that can do the job. All of our best apps roundups are written by humans who've spent much of their careers using, testing, and writing about software.

We spend dozens of hours researching and testing apps, using each app as it's intended to be used and evaluating it against the criteria we set for the category. We're never paid for placement in our articles from any app or for links to any site—we value the trust readers put in us to offer authentic evaluations of the categories and apps we review.

For more details on our process, read the full rundown of how we select apps to feature on the Zapier blog. When it comes to to-do lists, everyone has different criteria. We kept this in mind as we tested, and we noticed a few features that made certain apps stand out. Make it fast to add and organize tasks. Ideally, a task is added and categorized in a couple taps or keystrokes. Offer multiple ways to organize your tasks. Tags, lists, projects, and due dates are all helpful, and the best apps offer at least a few categories like this.

Remind you about self-imposed deadlines. Notifications, widgets, emails—the best applications make it obvious when something needs to be completed. Offer clean user interfaces. Well-designed to-do apps fit into your workflow so you can get back to what you're supposed to be doing.

Sync between every platform you use. Which platforms will depend on what you personally use, but we didn't consider anything that doesn't sync between desktop and mobile. We tried to find the best apps that balance these things in various ways. None of these options will be right for everyone, but hopefully one of them is right for you. Let's dive in. Todoist isn't the most powerful to-do list out there.

It's also not the simplest. That's kind of the point: this app balances power with simplicity, and it does so while running on basically every platform that exists. That's a strong selling point—which is probably why Todoist is one of the most popular to-do lists right now.

Adding tasks was quick on every platform in our tests, thanks in part to natural language processing type "buy milk Monday" and the task "buy milk" will be added with the next Monday set as your due date. You can put new tasks in your Inbox and then move them to relevant projects; you can also set due dates.

Paid users can create custom filters and labels, and there are also some basic collaboration features. Todoist is flexible enough to adapt to most workflows but not so complicated as to overwhelm. And it adds new features regularly: you can view projects as a Kanban board, for example, and navigating the app by keyboard is much smoother after recent updates.

Overall, this is a great first to-do list app to try out, especially if you don't know where to start. Todoist also integrates with Zapier , which means you can automatically create tasks in Todoist whenever something happens in one of your favorite apps. Here are some examples. Check out more ideas for automating Todoist with Zapier. TickTick is a fast-growing to-do list app that offers a wide array of features on just about every platform you can imagine.

Adding tasks is quick thanks to natural language processing. There's also a universal keyboard shortcut offered on the desktop versions and pinned notifications and widgets on mobile, which makes it quick to add a task before getting back to what you're doing. Tasks can be organized using lists, tags, and due dates, and there's even the ability to add sub-tasks to any task. TickTick offers all of this with apps that feel native—the macOS version is distinct from the Windows version, for example, in ways that make sense given the differences between those two systems.

TickTick also offers a few features that are above and beyond what other apps offer. First, there's a built-in Pomodoro timer , allowing you to start a minute work session for any of your tasks complete with numerous white noise options, if you want. Second, there's integration with various third-party calendars, allowing you to see your tasks and your appointments in one place, and even do some time blocking.

There's also a built-in habit-tracking tool , allowing you to review how many days you did or didn't stick to your exercise and diet commitments. A recent update added an Eisenhower Matrix view, allowing you to prioritize your tasks based on what's urgent and what's important. It's a great collection of features, unlike anything else on the market. Todoist is available for free download on iOS and Android, or as a web app. The Things app includes to-do lists, reminders, goal tracking and, on Mac, the ability to work in multiple windows.

There is also a quick find feature, and an app-wide tag search. The app uses smart lists, list sharing, comments and reminders. It's available free for consumers, but you can upgrade to paid business plans as well. Its Personal tier is free, while the paid Plus and Business plans price vary depending on your chosen platform.

Twobird from Ginger Labs is an email app that also lets you create notes, set reminders, assign to-dos, leave comments and collaborate in one place. The app also gives you some flexibility -- for example, you can share a note and turn a shopping list into a party planning list instead. Be respectful, keep it civil and stay on topic. We delete comments that violate our policy , which we encourage you to read.