My favorite To Do list app is shutting down, would love recs for something similar

DAG

DAG

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After dabbling with many different apps over the years, I discovered Task Labels - the most amazing to-do list app I've ever seen. It has everything: a gorgeous, engaging interface; multiple ways to view tasks (calendar, list, context); and it is incredibly user-friendly.
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There's also a website version of the app.

I have used this app faithfully for years and I'm just crushed that they are basically shutting the app down. It is so much better than any of the other apps I've wasted time on such as Remember The Milk and Wunderlist.

Anyway, I would appreciate any suggestions for an app that is similarly beautiful and user-friendly. Thanks!:)
 
DAG said:
After dabbling with many different apps over the years, I discovered Task Labels
Anyway, I would appreciate any suggestions for an app that is similarly beautiful and user-friendly. Thanks!:)
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I've never heard of Task Labels so my first question is what operating system and what devices do you need to use?

Personally I use Omnifocus but it's Mac and iOS only.
 
Wow. You guys rock! Thank you all for your suggestions. I was bereft before but now I’m excited to check out these app recommendations. Since you're all GTD folks, I know these recommendations have been well vetted. Civilians (non-GTDers) can't appreciate all the features we need from our to-do apps. :D

Oogiem, regarding Task Labels - it was a very obscure but beautiful app available on the Iphone.
 
So... if everybody is advertising their well-known preferences, let me add Nozbe. Many poeple like its design and functionality but there's one very important thing: I know its founder and his dedication to keep Nozbe well and indepenent. So there's a very small probability that it will disappear like Wunderlist or the pace of improvements willl be slow.
 
Do yourself a favor and read the GTD book. And if you really want to make some money on that software, learn first about your competition, I can't imagine why anyone would want to pay for such basic outline functionality in 2019+. Also you said on your website: "There's no free stuff in the World, always someone pays." - that's not true, there are open source solutions one can use, things like org-mode, https://github.com/zadam/trilium and also more and more commercial services provides free access for single users to promote their software while getting money from bigger teams.

BTW. generic outliners can be used to implement full GTD workflow, especially Dynalist - it has tags, Inbox, GCal sync, bookmarks for nodes and search results, web/mobile/desktop apps, etc. There are even outliners dedicated for GTD, like MyLifeOrganized and GTDNext. But I personally think that outliners provide too much freedom. I use them for braindumps and to plan my projects, but they're not that great for listing actions (or even to store references / project support stuff). One pretty soon, instead of focusing on actions linked to some contexts and projects, try to organize everything into sub-sub-sub projects, sub-sub-sub areas of focus, sub-sub-sub goals etc, and it becomes overwhelming. I guess some people can be consequent enough to not overuse those features, but I saw many times that people (myself included) are getting lost with outliners. Nirvana provides perfect balance IMO giving ability to store actions linked to projects, but no subprojects. Thanks to that one can organize actions better than in typical task managers, but still not overorganize.
 
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IMHO there's no business in single user todo list managers. It was a business when Nozbe, OmniFocus, Things, or Todoist were created but now it's a free commodity. OmniFocus thrives because it is a really good list manager and a very fashionable one. Nozbe is successfully becoming team-oriented. The trend is towards a team workflow management.
 
I'd suggest the following:
* NirvanaHQ - if you want something very GTD centric, excellent app, web/iOS/Android, my favorite right now.
* Todoist - On every platform, very flexible, one of the best rapid entry interfaces I've seen, tons of integrations
** Be sure and get the Todoist Shortcuts Chrome Extension if you want hotkeys galore!
* RemeberTheMilk - Also very flexible, some the best shortcut keys (can navigate entire system from keyboard), powerful filters
* Asana - if you're working with teams
* Toodledo - will be interesting to see where they go under new management now, used it for years early on.
 
Kevin James said:
I'd suggest the following:
* NirvanaHQ - if you want something very GTD centric, excellent app, web/iOS/Android, my favorite right now.
* Todoist - On every platform, very flexible, one of the best rapid entry interfaces I've seen, tons of integrations
** Be sure and get the Todoist Shortcuts Chrome Extension if you want hotkeys galore!
* RemeberTheMilk - Also very flexible, some the best shortcut keys (can navigate entire system from keyboard), powerful filters
* Asana - if you're working with teams
* Toodledo - will be interesting to see where they go under new management now, used it for years early on.
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Of course....I would strongly suggest Nirvanahq.....:D
 
TesTeq said:
IMHO there's no business in single user todo list managers. It was a business when Nozbe, OmniFocus, Things, or Todoist were created but now it's a free commodity. OmniFocus thrives because it is a really good list manager and a very fashionable one. Nozbe is successfully becoming team-oriented. The trend is towards a team workflow management.
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It’s a “trend” that has been out there for a while. Devs have their eyes on many-seat contracts and much money. I think there are a lot of problems:
  • There is no theory for how such an app should work
  • Why should corporations pay somebody else for things Microsoft says it can do?
  • There are many enterprises which do not fit well with current team apps
  • Team apps don’t meet individual needs well
I’ve tried out both m’softs new todo app and apple’s New version of reminders, and I don’t think the market for individual-oriented todo apps is going away. The free apps are not as good as the paid apps.
 
mcogilvie said:
Why should corporations pay somebody else for things Microsoft says it can do?
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There are a lot more companies with 5-20-50 employees than corporations. It is a huge market for Nozbe and others who support team work. They don't use Microsoft's tools.
 
TesTeq said:
There are a lot more companies with 5-20-50 employees than corporations. It is a huge market for Nozbe and others who support team work. They don't use Microsoft's tools.
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I suppose. There are a lot of technical fields where Linux is ubiquitous, for example.
 
I've been using Evernote for years. It's hardly a "task" app but it allows me to collect support info of all kinds (PDF files, text notes, pictures, etc.) and keep them in the same place as the tasks. For me, that's a big help. There is also a PDF manual from David Allen that walks you through the steps of setting up GTD in Evernote. Worth the small investment, in my view. If you read a lot of PDFs for work, the ability to read them on a tablet, highlight passages and have a summary of the highlights generated automatically is amazing. A 50 page document for me can be reduced to 1-2 pages of highlights and comments. That's a big deal.

Now that I've said that --- Nirvana, another app, looks very interesting to me and I was only recently made aware of it. If I were in your place, starting from scratch, I think I would try Nirvana first. It provides next actions automatically and has a number of great project management tools that I like. I just can't decide if I want to move my whole world from Evernote to it...

One final note, before selecting another software package, consider how likely the developers are to continue their work. I've done some very rudimentary software work myself and it is just that -- work. People need to get paid for work and for improvements. Too many people think software should be free for ever. I'll let you do the math on how sustainable that business model is likely to be. I would much prefer to pay a few dollars per month (Nirvana Pro is $5/month, I think) with some level of confidence that an important tool will be there in a year than save a few bucks and take a chance that the app disappears. I watch news on Evernote's corporate and financial progress closely.

Good luck with your search and please report back and what you choose and why.
 
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