Paperless Productivity - Toodledo

 

I think I've had a little too much of productivity apps right now so I'm not sure I've been able to give Toodledo as much of a trial as it probably should have had and.  However, I did use it for a few weeks to try and get it a good idea on how to use it so hopefully, I can write something useful here.  I should probably start by saying that I think this is another one that would be good if you're someone who wants a little use a digital form of a bullet diary.

When you first download the app it asks you a couple of questions to help find out how to set it up specifically for your needs - which is a nice touch, as long as you know what the terms mean.

Then you need to log in so that it can sync your information with the website version which is a bit more full-on and that you do actually have to use sometimes because the phone app doesn't allow you to do everything (more on that later).

When the tasks page first comes up you get a whole lot of information on how to use the app and you can go through each part to get a real feel for it - also a nice little touch.

The main menu (on the left) allows you to navigate through each section of tasks (also brokendown in sub-sections so you can navigate to a specific task quickly), notes, outlines (I really didn't use this section at all), habits, and lists.

So let's start with tasks.  These are pretty simple to add and follow what is now a pretty familiar pattern.  You click on the cross button at the bottom right.

Then you type in the name of the task and add any notes you feel you need to keep with the task.

You can then add this task to a folder and add context to it (I used this to say if the task was for work, blog, home etc).  This is one part where I found I had to use my laptop instead of just being able to use my phone.  You can add a folder or context to your task on your phone if one exists, but to create them you have to log in using your computer.

Then you add a start date if you want and due date, and you can also select what priority the task needs to be.  Click on the tick at the top right and you're done.

You can see what tasks are overdue or coming up over a specific time by picking 'Due-Date' from the menu.

Or have a look at the tasks you have in each category using the 'Context' section and these are probably the two parts that I used the most.

The tasks themselves are ordered in importance, which seems to be partly based on the importance you give them when you created them but are mostly due to the due date they have.

I would mostly use the note section for writing up quick shopping lists and which I only really did here to test it out as I normally use the notes app on my phone.  However, if you were wanting to integrate notes with tasks for a project you have going this would probably be perfect as you can add the notes to a specific folder.  As with adding a task note adding it pretty simple and you just click on the cross, type in the name of the note, what folder you want to add it to and then type away.  Clicking on the tick at the top right then saves it.

The next section is Habits (I'm glossing over Outlines because I really didn't look into it) and I used this also as much as the tasks part.  Rather than a number or rating I kept all my tasks as a checkbox as I just prefer that.  The good things about this habit tracker is the chain chain underneath the habits name.  The reason for this is that every time you complete the task it makes the corresponding link in the chain dark and this allows you to see how many many times you have managed to complete this task in the last few days.  I will admit that it is quite satisfying.

Adding is the same as before.  Click on the cross at the bottom right.  Write in the name of the habit and click how you want to show you've completed the task.

Add a start date (though this isn't necessary if you're starting from the day you've added it), how often you want to do the habit and if you want to be reminded.  Then it's just 'Start Habit' and you're off.

If you put in number instead of checkbox then there is this pretty cool thing where you can add the amount of time you have completed the habit in a day and then this progress is then shown on a graph to let you see this progress.  I didn't really feel that it would mean anything to the habits I was wanting to track, but if you were doing something like push-ups or swearing less then this would probably be a good tracker.

The last section is Lists.  I already have lists elsewhere and didn't want to duplicate them here, but I did have a little play around.  

It's actually quite a nice little section and already has a whole lot of list templates already made up for you. 

Like Migraine Log - something I probably should have been tracking a few years ago.  But there's also bucket lists, recipes, reading list, weight tracking, etc and you can creat your own with a little bit of work.

And that's the layout of the app.  I'm not going to lie, it did feel a little bit clunky trying to get around this software on my phone and is probably a lot easier to use on you computer instead.  I would say that the best way to use it is to actually predominantly use the website when you're at home and just use the phone app for when you are on the go.  Which is absolutely fine, but I want something much simpler that I can use directly off my phone.  There was also an issue with it trying to sync from my phone to the website and I kept getting messages that this wasn't happening, but I wasn't too bothered about that.  However, if you are using it in that integrated way then that might be an issue.  I also noticed that I didn't get the reminders coming up on my phone as I did with Memorigi and Tick Tick, and I actually quite liked those.

One little aspect that I liked was the way you could add things to the tasks from another app using the share function.  A couple of times I found webpages I wanted to read but didn't have time right then and easy enough to add it as a task by clicking share and then selecting Task with the Toodledo logo, and there it was.

As I said before, I probably didn't give this app as much of a test as it deserved and could probably do with a little break from these at the moment.  It would be a really good app if you were someone who likes using a bullet journal to organise all your project, thoughts, and tasks, and maybe in the future I'll come back to it if I ever need that amount of organisation.  If that's what you're looking for definitely give this a go, however, I don't really feel I need anything that complicated and so this app didn't really work for me.

I'm going to take a little break from these, but then I'm going to test Habitica.  I've heard a lot of good things about this one.