Things

My Digital Brain

Vorteile:

Things makes it easy to take something I'm holding in my physical brain, but it in a trusted system, and forget about it until the time I need to remember it. It interfaces with all my other favorite apps and services (Airmail, DEVONthink) and works seamlessly across my computer and mobile devices.

Nachteile:

I wish it was easier to take action on multiple to-dos at once (e.g. marking them done, changing their due date, etc).

Things is a very well made app, but something useless because not cross platform

Vorteile:

I have loved Things for a very, very long time. It is extremely well designed and when I was fully in the Mac ecosystem it was great. It's very Apple-like design. Easy to use, but powerful underneath. An exquisite way to organize your life.

Nachteile:

Times have changed, and developers generally don't use just one platform. A tool that is used to keep track of absolutely all my tasks NEEDS to be available everywhere I go. It is very sad to me that I can no longer use Things for this reason. They desperately need a web app and ideally a native Windows app.

A way to ensure you know what Things need your attention

Kommentare: Name a task management app: probably I have used it. I have tried so many, but have stuck with Things for years now. One of the secrets is that there are less bells and whistles, less leavers to play around with. This means, I take less time to make the task list look perfect, and more time on actually doing the work.
The other reason is that tasks I do not complete today, just get carried over to tomorrow. This means there is not a backlog, no past days to navigate back to. There is simply 'today' which includes all the tasks I purposefully added today's date to (plus the ones carried over from yesterday).
There are two types of dates: deadlines and reminders. With tasks that have a deadline, I will usually set a reminder a couple of days in advance. Each day I try to take a couple of minutes to look at 'today' and move out anything that I give up on doing or want to postpone. That way I know what is in 'today' is truly things I want to tackle that day, if I am able. If not, I know the task will show up tomorrow again and did not disappear into the abyss of digital nirvana.

Vorteile:

It is so easy to use! I have tried lots of task managers and this one works best for me, mainly because of how little there is to 'play around' with. I love the design and the integration of apps on the Mac, iPhone and iPad are great.

Nachteile:

There are a few small things that could be changed to increase its usefulness, but most of them are 'nice to have' and don't touch on core functionality. Sequential tasks (making task 2 show up once task 1 is completed) are the most obvious missing feature. Prices are high (especially compared to some free, yet still high quality offers) but comparable to their main competitors (OmniFocus, Todoist)

Disappointed - didn't live up to the hype

Kommentare: It was a good starter point for task management in the world of knowledge work, but I eventually had to progress to a more robust system as my workflow and organizational systems matured. But I 'cut my teeth' in Things and appreciated the syncing between all my devices.

Vorteile:

It's very simple and user-friendly. It would take no time for someone new to the software to get up and running with it. As a basic task manager, it is perfectly adequate. If you want to build your own system from the ground up, this is a good choice.

Nachteile:

It just wasn't feature-rich enough to justify a price point that was comparable to other task management software choices that DO include richer features. For instance, why no cascading tasks/dependencies? I'm a GTD person, and Things just didn't have all the layers needed to execute GTD digitally. I eventually found a competitor that was clearly designed to work for GTD workflows and abandoned Things. Unfortunately, I had already sunk the costs of paying for the desktop, iPad, AND iPhone apps for Things because everyone else I worked with was using it and seemed to love it. I know many who still do, but I just like to build a task system with much more specificity and robustness.

Brilliant for managing your life

Vorteile:

I love how there are no differences no matter what platform I use, whether it be desktop or mobile. It’s reliable, organised and easy to use

Nachteile:

I don’t like the lack of team management features