Task Manager: Things
If I could had to pick my most used, most cherished app on all of my devices (Mac, iPad, iPhone), it would be Things .
(And if you’re a PC or Android person, you can quit reading here. Things is exclusive to the Apple ecosystem.)
Despite being an organization nut and recovering productivity junkie, and thus fairly guilty of “app hopping,” I always come back to Things .
(And to a lesser extent, Milanote, but more on that later.)
It’s hard to describe why I love this task manager so much, because on the surface, it’s incredibly simple. And perhaps I love it because it’s simple. Its elegant, minimal design feels like it was built with my brain in mind.
Even when I’ve tried to commit to build some other system, whether it’s Notion, Milanote, bullet journal, Craft, or the native Apple ecosystem of Notes/Reminders, I still find myself opening up Things to write down … everything.
Because this is the thing about Things that most productivity gurus would waggle their finger at. I don’t just use Things for tracking my to dos. That’s its primary purpose, but I also use it to save links I want to revisit later, ideas that come to me in the middle of the night, even notes of stuff I reference often.
Here are a few of the highlights about Things for me …
I love that it syncs with my calendar but in a really unobtrusive way. The today view lists my calendar events at the top so I can see what’s going on without switching apps.
I love that everything is in a clean list view—there’s no preview text, no unnecessary tags, just the bare minimum of text—it’s the closet equivalent of writing a to do list by hand, it doesn’t try to force extra stuff into your view.
(This actually my big gripe about most notes app, especially the native Apple Notes app which shows you the date the note was created and the first line of text whether you want it to or not).
I love that I can drag email into to-dos. If I receive a email that requires action, I either take care of it when I read it and archive the email, or I drag it into Things and archive the email. This means I never treat my inbox as a to do list. When I figure out “what requires timely action today,” I open Things, never email. In fact I only check email a couple times a week.
(To be fair, plenty of other task managers have this email feature, including Apple’s free Reminders app!)
I love how much white/negative space there is, with no unnecessary colors, shading, boxes…
My Things Work Flow
In recent years I’ve learned that the simplest approach is always the best for me, and that applies to Things. I don’t use tags, I rarely use projects, I don’t have any complicated system for “this week, next week.” I don’t even group my tasks by home/work, etc. It’s either a task, or it’s something else. The task either needs to happen today, is scheduled for a specific day, or lives in Pending.
The Inbox is my catch-all for anything that pops up into my head during the day whether it’s a blog post idea, realization that I’m almost out of laundry pods, or a gift idea for my mom for Christmas. The Action button on my phone is set to add something to the Inbox, which is especially handy for those 2am ideas where I’m groggy and just want to get the thought out fast. I don’t have a set system for when I sort the Inbox, but it’s probably every other day or so.
I run my entire day from the Today view. I know people love to organize their day through their calendar, but I’m not one of them. Time blocking never worked for me; I don’t like approaching tasks by time; I much prefer to simply list my most important/difficult tasks first, and work down the list as time allows. My calendar events are listed at the top, my to dos are listed next in order or urgency/difficulty (I’m an eat the frog person). Personal tasks are mixed in with work tasks, because again, I go by urgency, not category. Below my tasks I have a section for Reminders (this keeps me grounded), and Carrot—I set a reward for the end of the day if I check off all of the to-dos (this keeps me motivated).
If there’s something that I know I need to do next week, I add it to the inbox, give it a date; it then leaves the Inbox, and simply lives Things automated “Someday View” until the day it’s assigned, where it shows up in my Today view.
As mentioned above, any email that requires response/action/follow-up from me, goes into Things. I drag the email into a new task, give it a date and a title, and get it out of my inbox.
I use Areas instead of projects (I hate how Projects forces that little progress circle, though I wish that Areas had Headings!). Here are the “buckets” to put different types of stuff.
Pending: This is where I stuff I maybe want to do someday, but haven’t yet assigned a date.
Writing: Blog post ideas, stuff I want to add to this website. This is actually the one place I do use tags. I’ll note what’s part of my Dear Introvert series, what I want to add to this Toolkit…
Notes: I try not to rely on this too much, because Things is not a dedicated Notes app, but I do have stuff I reference often, like my birth chart placements, links to my social media profiles, etc. If Cultured Code released a Notes app that looked just like Things, I’d be in heaven.
Ideas: This is everything from novel/screenplay ideas, or even just “deeper thoughts” I want to explore.
Saved Stuff: Bookmarks to links found around the internet that I might want to reference later.
Reminders: Any affirmations or “notes to self” … they’re always assigned to “Today” so they show up in my today view. When they quit being relevant/poignant I simply check them off.
Carrot: This is my reward for the day, again, always assigned today’s date so it shows up in my today view. I check it off at the end of the day unless I know I’ll want the same carrot tomorrow.
Here’s what that all looks like (It also shrinks down prettily to just be a clean column with just the tasks, but I expanded the Areas view for you…)
Things is a paid app, but it’s one-time, not an annoying subscription. Learn more here. Not an affiliate link.
Things doesn’t have as many features as some other task managers, and I’m fine with this. I actually like it, because it forces me to focus on getting things done rather than organization HOW I’m going to get them done.
But one missing feature that chafes quite a bit is the lack of ability to collaborate on tasks; I don’t need a full-fledged teams set-up, but I do wish I could share tasks with my husband for shared household stuff!
Alas. We use a shared Reminders list for stuff that requires both our attention; UPS runs, a reminder for whichever of us passes by Starbucks first to pick up more beans, birthday gifts for family members, etc. This means I sometimes add tasks to both Reminders and Things, one so he can see it, one so I can stay on top of it as well. It’s a pain, but luckily our “shared stuff” is relatively infrequent.
