Warning: this love letter will be very interesting for all the other Penelopes. If the word "organized" disturbs you, just escape.
I use Todoist manage my to-do lists, plans, as well as affirmations and motivating images . I love it because it's uncluttered, easy to use, and yet has some powerful features. I think that Todoist really nailed Einstein's "Everything should be made as simple as possible. But not simpler." And this simplicity makes Todoist a really flexible and powerful tool.
When I was looking for a task manager, I signed up for half a dozen free online services and did some test runs. They all fell through at some point. Then Unclutterer pointed me towards Todoist.
Why I´m such a fan
I chose Todoist because of its simplicity. There are no distractions. Adding a task is easy, especially with keyboard shortcuts. Also, it's really easy to get several different overviews of your tasks (by list, by tag, by due date, by priority, etc). I love that you aren't forced to use these extra features: if you don't need to use lists, priority, sub-tasks, tags, you don't have to. You can even add tasks without a due date (Yay ! can you imagine that many scheduling software doesn't let you do this ? Am I the only one who doesn't know when she will finally feel like making that book clock ?)
Also, I dig how Todoist understands typed commands such as "thurs", "every day" or "every 25". (Granted, if the event is biweekly, bimonthly or biyearly I have to add it twice).
To organise stuff, I can create sub-tasks. And sub-sub tasks. And lists can have sub-lists. The sub-tasks can be collapsed to cut visual clutter.
I can add tags such as @errand, @home @computer or @husband. If I'm going out with an errand, I can look up @errands to see what else I can do on the way.
How I use Todoist
Since Todoist has become my life command center, I will show you how I use it for different things:
I put in everything that I have to do, want to do, or just think about doing someday.
Tasks that I I do regularly are set to repeat. I water the plants every Tuesday. Translating a text that I'm working on is on wed.Cleaning my house is divided into chunks for each day of the week. Updating my medicine cabinet is twice a year. I also add reminders to wish people on birthdays, buy gifts, send cards. And then I can forget them until they pop up.
I save mental energy by not having to think about when was it last that I had vacuumed the fridge coils or watered my dracaena.
Lists ahoy !
I also use Todoist as a list maker. That's right, random, rambling lists. Books and movies that sound interesting. Hoop tricks (along with video URLs) that I want to master. Things that sound interesting enough to try them some day. Blog post ideas. A wish list. A gardening list with all the garden tasks & chores arranged by month.
I can change these items into to-dos: when I decide that I want to work on this hoop move on sunday afternoon, I just need to add a date next to the item. And it will appear in my to-do list on that day.
Inform and inspire
Those scraps of wisdom, pretty quotes and affirmations that you're told to write some place obvious ? They're on my Todoist. A quote on saving appears on Mondays. Astrological advice to re-check everything during Merc retrograde appears daily during that period. I´m so happy I thought of this because I never notice stuff when it´s on my bulletin board or my notebook.
This is why I love Todoist. Did I mention it's free ? I also like their about page.
