Which tool do you use for your to-do list?

Question

I've been constantly switching tools that keep track of my to-do list:

• Online account in SimpleGTD
• To-do applet in my RSS aggregator
• Outlook's builtin Task List
• My cellphone's built-in to-do list
• Post-it notes on my monitors at home and at work
• Paper list in my wallet (thought about enhancing it and adding a pen like Jeff Atwood did)

Which proved most useful for you?

Answer 1

I use the Webservice Remember the Milk. It's a great Web 2.0 Todo Management Site.

In the Remember the Milk Blog are many good Tips to do GTD with it.

Answer 2

Google Tasks. Now graduated to a full GMail feature, and has nice integration with Google Calendar. And an iPhone web app to boot!

Answer 3

I always used a todo.txt file in my desktop to manage my stuff.

It is the simplest and most flexible method.

If you think about it, you don't need an application for each and every small piece of work you do. Some things are meant to be done manually. Using a separate application for trivial things such as to-do lists IMHO is a big overhead.

Answer 4

My inbox. I send myself emails with no body, only a subject, all the time. If I complete it, I delete the message. I use my inbox all day anyway.

Answer 5

AbstractSpoon's ToDoList

Answer 6

On my MacBook, I use Things. Its a little expensive but I think it's worth it. I also use it in my iPhone. For general notes Evernote. For mail/bugs/work related stuff I used to use GTDInbox for Gmail but there was always some little problem with it so I kept the folder structure of GTD (A/Next, A/Someday, A/Wait) and use it to manage my tasks without the add-on.

Answer 7

Toodledo. It's web-based, but has an iPhone app and can sync to a ton of different things (like Outlook).

Answer 8

Emacs' org-mode.

Answer 9

Fogbugz - for anything to do with work, we have a "Personal To Do" list that everyone can naturally sort according to their user name. This does two critical things that are incredibly useful for me:

1. Keeps the list prioritized but not at a too fined-grained level. Really important, department head needs this right away vs. yet another TPS report request are generally sufficient for scheduling my day.

2. Task estimates: it really helps me to have that ticking clock that says "you said that this would only take an hour to pound out this summary and you've used up 45 minutes already. Wrap it up and send it out."

Answer 10

I use Evernote on any platform (web application) and as an iPhone application too. It has lots of features; Twitter integration, voice notes, etc.

Answer 11

MS Office Onenote

Answer 12

Ta-Da List. From 37signals.

Answer 13

Windows: NotePad2
Mac OS X: Mail Notes
iPhone: Notes.

Answer 14

A few cards in my hipster pda. One card per location specific to do list. Nothing is faster or more reliable than paper and pencil. (Even survives a dunk in the lake while canoeing!)

Answer 15

If you are Vim user, then you'll love Vim Outliner. It's something like Emacs' org-mode (suggested by pgs).

Answer 16

I use OmniFocus as my main database and a Levenger Circa PDA on the go.

Answer 17

I use Tudumo.

Most of the GTD software I've found was trying to do way too much... This is lightweight and very easy to use.

Answer 18

TaskPaper for Mac OS X. I like the minimalist interface because it doesn't try to tell you how you ought to be organizing your tasks, but gives you plenty of tools to make them easier to manage (tagging, filtering, and keyboard shortcuts aplenty) no matter how organized or haphazard your own system is.

It's very free-form even down to the file format, which is actually just plain text that is parsed and styled accordingly.

Another company makes a similar product for Windows called TodoPaper which is pretty nice as well.

Answer 19

TiddlyWiki - Single file with everything, feature rich, plugins, editable with a double-click, and works with the major browsers.

Answer 20

I use a program called Tracks.

The positive:

• Made for GTD
• Fairly simple
• Open source (written in Ruby)

The negative:

• Hard to find hosted so you might need to install it on a server.
• The GUI is a bit strange sometimes.

Answer 21

I wrote my own to do list app for Windows. It's a hierarchical to do list based on a treeview component (so you can have several sub-tasks and sub-sub-tasks). It handles multiple lists. Data is stored in individual XML files.

http://theunusualsuspect.com/software/tree-list

Answer 22

MyLife Organized

After wandering through a wilderness of many, many to-do app, this is the one I call home. Have been using it for a couple of years now and it's truly awesome. I particularly like its super powerful and customisable to-do view, and its ability to sync. It's perfect for GTD or just about any other system, come to think of it.

Answer 23

Microsoft Outlook

The reason is that it allows me to quickly just create tasks by typing in the job or just clicking task on an email (where most of my tasks come from). Also has all the top end features like

• Recurring tasks
• Categorization
• Web interface (through Outlook Web Africa)
• Assignment to people and groups
• Search via Windows Desktop Search

I think if I didn't use Outlook for my email too, then I may look for an alternative - but as an integrated experience this is the best.

Answer 24

On Windows, I have found the best Getting Things Done (GTD) app is MonkeyGTD. It is based on TiddlyWiki and is available as a direct download or online through TiddlySpot.

Answer 25

When using a computer OneNote (in a shared notebook to automatically synchronise across multiple machines).

When away from the computer a Moleskine Volant X-small plain notebook and a Pilot Birdie Twin pen/pencil.

Answer 26

37Signals Basecamp. The best part about it is the great interface for allowing others to enter TODO items for you, ehem, todo.

Answer 27

The Hit List

Answer 28

Todoist is nice. Web and with hierarchies.

Answer 29

I've been using Windows 7's Sticky Notes for quite some time for long-term tasks and reminders. Since my desktop has only four icons the rest of the space can easily be occupied by the notes.

When away from my laptop I am using the notes on my Nokia 9500 Communicator although I regularly neglect to look at them and thus it doesn't work quite as well (unless for timed reminders where I'm using the calendar).

Recently I've been using NextAction which works quite well keeping my mind on the tasks I need to do. And using it is certainly very painless.

Needless to say, all those methods do not require manually saving what I enter into them.

Answer 30

I've been using Todoist.com for 2 years now. It's rock-solid.