Be more efficient and get things done with Todoist 10

Todoist: To-Do List | Task Manager (Free) by Doist just received a major update today, bringing the slick to-do service app to version 10. There are many new features that came with the update, making my new favorite to-do app even better. If you haven’t tried out Todoist, there’s no better time than now.

If you’ve been following me before, you may remember that OmniFocus was my GTD app of choice for a long time. However, once I read this specific piece by Federico Viticci, I decided to give Todist a try. If it’s good enough for Viticci, it could be good enough for me, too.

I started using Todoist back in November 2014, and honestly, I don’t feel a need to go back to OmniFocus after spending some time with Todoist Premium. After using Todoist, I’ve realized that OmniFocus was much more complicated than I needed it to be, and I wasn’t even utilizing all of the features properly compared to other people. I would have to spend more time learning how every single feature of OmniFocus worked, instead of, you know, working on the things I have to get done. Personally, after I started to use Todoist, it’s just all I need in a task management app.

One of the main reasons I was attracted to Todoist was the interface. It’s simple and clean with a flat aesthetic that fits in perfectly with iOS 8. All of your tasks are listed out clearly with colored sidebars on the left so you can easily see the priority level, and colored dots to indicate which project it belongs to. The app is also fast, responsive, and intuitive with gestures to navigate your way around with.

Previously, Todoist went with a basic white and red color theme, since those are their main colors, but Todoist 10 introduces nine new color themes to match your mood or favorite color. These themes affect the header bar and the floating “New Task” button in the bottom right corner of most screens. It’s a small, cosmetic addition, but it is definitely a welcome one (I love Clover).

Another new feature included with today’s update is the ability to quickly add tasks with intelligent input, which is similar to the natural language input used in Fantastical 2, but there are some key differences. Since Todoist is a task management app, not a calendar, it isn’t capable of figuring out everything on its own. You’ll still have to tap in a few fields (such as project, label, and priority) after you write out your sentence. The animation used for the parsed intelligent input is not as fun as watching Fantastical 2 create a new event or reminder, but it works well enough.

So how does the Quick Add and Intelligent Input work? I already mentioned the floating “New Task” button that shows up in most screens in Todoist. Just give it a tap, and it will bring up a text field from the bottom of the screen, above your keyboard. Type in something like “Pick up laundry @errands today at 5 pm” and then the return key will automatically add the task to your inbox. The bits of information that would be parsed end up getting highlighted as you type, which is a nice touch. Todoist can even recognize recurring dates, which is helpful for many people.

However, if you need more details, then you would want to tap on the small button at the end of the text field, and it brings up the full Save+ screen. You can choose the project, set reminders and priority level, assign the task to someone if you need collaboration, pick labels (if you didn’t already add them via the @labels method) and even parent tasks.

As a fan of things that make life easier, I’m a big fan of this new method for new task creation in Todoist. Previously, the app used the clunky native iOS interface for picking dates and times, which ends up being a nuisance. Seeing that tossed out for a much more streamlined input method makes me happy.

The last big new addition in Todoist 10 are the new gestures and multi-item editing. In older versions, you used to swipe left on an item to reveal the green bar and mark it off as complete. Now, doing this same gesture brings up a yellow bar and then a Mailbox-esque screen, where you can reschedule the due date. There are six options: today, tomorrow, next week (Monday), in a month, postpone, and custom. A swipe to the right now completes an item. A long-press and swipe on projects will indent or outdent (sub projects), and you can pull two tasks apart to make a new task in the middle.

For multi-item editing, just tap on the “…” button in the top right corner of a view with listed tasks, and then select “Edit multiple items.” Then you select the items you want, and a new toolbar at the bottom allows users to mark these items off as done, reschedule them, change priority, assign collaborators, move to a different project, or delete. I don’t need to do batch edits often with my tasks, but having the option is nice, and definitely something that you don’t see too often in most to-do apps.

As far as new features in Todoist 10, that about covers it. These are nice, refined changes that are most welcome and make my Todoist experience a lot better. However, they aren’t the only reasons I would recommend Todoist over other apps.

I’ve been using Todoist for everything, from work to personal errands and even shopping lists. I love how the app handles project management with color-coded projects, and it’s easy to turn projects into sub-projects or tasks into sub-tasks. Everything can be rearranged with drag-and-drop gestures, and the labels I can apply to tasks help out a lot when I need to search for something specific or generic. I love seeing all of my tasks for the upcoming week in one view, so the “Next 7 Days” screen is where I spend the most time.

I don’t use the collaboration too much, but when I do with my boyfriend, it’s been fast and easy. Syncing is always immediate as well — I don’t even need to think about it, as any new projects, tasks, or changes show up right away on my iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Web. Plus, the IFTTT integration is neat, and the iOS 8 extensions are handy.

While Todoist is free to download and try, you will need to get a Premium subscription to get the most out of the service. This will cost $29 a year, but personally, I love the service and won’t be going back to OmniFocus. Premium gets you reminders (email, SMS, or mobile push notification), task comments and file attachments, voice messages, custom filters, advanced labels, and much more. For a full list of Premium features, check this link.

One last thing — the Karma system is a fun way to gamify productivity. Users can earn “karma points” for completing tasks on time and meeting daily and weekly goals of completed tasks, and the points push you up the karmic ladder. I’m currently a “Master” with 11k points, and hope to reach “Enlightened” (50k and beyond) someday.

Karma can be turned off if you wish, or you can enable “Vacation Mode” on slow days to pause karma. If you have Premium, you can also view your productivity levels, including all completed tasks, daily and weekly streaks (meeting goals), and charts. Since I love data, having these statistics give me a good insight into how productive I am (or not).

For the past five months, I’ve abandoned OmniFocus for Todoist, and I don’t have plans of going back (at least for now). I love the simplicity of Todoist, and the new features from today’s update are just going to keep me around longer.

If you haven’t given Todoist a try yet, I recommend it if you are looking for a to-do service that is fast, powerful, reliable, and available on every platform. You can get Todoist on iOS from the App Store for free. Other versions for other platforms can be downloaded from the Todoist site.

Check out the video below to see all of the features of Todoist 10 in action. Click here if you are having issues viewing the video in this review.