I don’t know about you, but I’m always looking for a better way to stay organized. I love Remember the Milk and ReQall, and I’ve found myself switching rather indecisively between the two over the past few months.
Now, Toodledo is also vying for my affection. In terms of task management features, this app pretty much has it all. You can organize tasks in a multitude of different ways: by due date, by project (by creating a folder for that project), by priority, by context (home, work, etc), and more. Toodle-do lets you set up folders for different projects/types of tasks, set tasks to repeat automatically, either from the due date or from the date you actually completed said task, and lets you attach notes either to specific tasks or folders.
Plus, Toodledo lets you enter in your estimated time for a given task and calculates how many hours of work you have planned for the day, the week, etc. This is an important feature for me because it keeps me from overbooking myself. Toodledo also has a timer feature, so you can actually time yourself as you complete a given task-handy for freelancers who need to track time spent on projects to make sure that they are pricing their services appropriately.
Pro accounts have a spiffy feature called the Scheduler. Here’s how it works: if you’re not sure what you should tackle next, you can tell Toodledo how much time you have to spend. It will analyze your tasks, priorities and due dates and tell you the best way to spend that time period. This is great if you’re feeling indecisive-I’m not sure I buy Toodledo’s assertion that it can keep you from procrastinating though. If I’m procrastinating, that generally means I’m not even looking at my to-do list!
Toodledo integrates with Jott, so you can add tasks by voice. You can export your tasks to Google calender and you can import tasks from other task management programs (although this feature didn’t really work for me-I tried to import mine from RTM and got a message saying the file was too big). You can also access it via your cell phone’s browser (if you have a data plan).
You can email tasks to your Toodledo list, but you have to learn a special code if you want them to be placed in the appropriate folder, context, etc. Some language recognition here (like ReQall offers) would be nice, or a way to integrate Toodledo into Gmail, like the Remember the Milk for Gmail gadget.
So, what are the downsides of Toodledo? It’s an extremely powerful task management program, but it’s almost too complicated to add a task. They need to do something similar to RTM’s new “smart add” feature instead of making me go through a bunch of text boxes and drop-down lists to classify a new task by due date, priority, context, etc.
Also, while the UI is functional, easy to navigate, and customizable, it’s just not very attractive. You can customize the colors somewhat with different themes, but still. Finally, Remember the Milk is just more fun. Toodledo is all business. So, I’m still not a hundred-percent sure which I prefer, though I’m leaning toward Toodledo for its additional functionality.
What do you think is the best task management app?
Our Rating of Toodledo
Categories:web
I find Toodledo to be much more powerful than Remember the Milk. I was amused that you indicated to use email to Toodledo, you wrote that “you have to learn a special code if you want them to be placed in the appropriate folder, context, etc.” Later, you said “They need to do something similar to RTM’s new “smart add” feature instead of making me go through a bunch of text boxes and drop-down lists to classify a new task by due date, priority, context, etc.”. In fact, the mysterious language that you claim to have to learn to use Toodledo’s email-in feature is virtually identical to RTM’s so-called “Smart Add”. They both rely on the use of single-character codes to identify the paramater you are expressing, plus a delimiter. Moving from one to the other is brainless, beyond having to learn 4 or 5 new characters to work with.
I’ve also pretty much switched to Toodledo. And yes, I’m aware that “Smart Add” requires you to learn commands, as well. My point was simply that it is easier and faster to add tasks to RTM, both from email (especially if you use Gmail and the Remember the Milk for Gmail extension) and from the website (with Smart Add). I wouldn’t mind learning the codes (and I would learn them faster) if it made it easier to add tasks on the main website as well by email.
I hope that makes a little bit more sense…
I used toodledo.com for a while, but just couldn’t really integrate it into my workflow / GTD model. My full review is at http://digital-imperative.com/review-toodledo-com
Thanks for the review, Ben. That’s helpful for anyone who uses GTD!