Getting back on track – Review: Todoist

So it’s been a whilst since I’ve posted it almost seems a lifetime ago when it was only a few weeks ago we were struggling to work out how to work, live and learn / teach at home all together. Well our family has made it and we breathed a sigh of relief when our youngest most energetic the life of the family returned to school. We have now have adjusted to the kids returning to school in amongst the continued covid-19 pandemic and found with all the adjustments it’s been difficult to work out what to do with the free time. We made such an effort to make sure we were exercising, working from home, church from home, zooming our friends, balancing family, learning online, taking our regular breaks, managing our mental health, stockpiling toilet paper, spaghetti, flour and panic buying craft… just surviving. Throwing renewing my daughters NDIS plan into the mix, we finally adjusted to the new normal now we need to adjust again.

As we had adjusted to the new normal and with winter setting in the days were getting darker I found that my old habits went by the way side to more movies, staying up late, more caffeine, carbs, less exercise, and suddenly I was wearing my PJs all day. I started a 28 day challenge which at least helped me to think about exercising and eating healthier but found I couldn’t stick to it or establish new habits like I used to and thought what did I used to do? Journal, reflect, plan, write lists, put it on the calendar, get it do. This helped with starting things, but then stopping or moving to the next activity was another. I was stuck and update late yet another evening looking at the amazing screen faces and widgets I can use on my smart watch and discovered there was a Todoist widget to view my to do list.

I’ve used Todoist in the past when transitioning from Wunderlist (Microsoft bought this over so it’s now called Todo), I researched and tested a lot of different apps. I like Todoist best because of the quick add function:

• Simply type the name of the task and date or time using natural language and it automatically picks up what time and day to schedule including reoccurring tasks.
• Reoccurring tasks – you can type “pick up meds ev 2 weeks” this will schedule a reoccurring the task every 2 weeks. When you click done on that task it will simply change the scheduled date for the next two weeks so you don’t get duplication on your list).
• Type # and a list of your projects will come up to file it under so that you can quickly add tasks and organise them all in one line.

I was a bit weary because I have the tendency to get excited about an app and start then a few weeks later will find I haven’t been able to stick with it for long. I also found because it is an app on my phone, once I look at my phone screen I get sucked into the vortex of email, facebook and anything else but my To do list or diary or other productivity app that I had intended to check and update.

Reminders – is a premium function which i was able to test out. My smartwatch also has a todoist app that allows me to view and potentially mark off tasks without even turning on my phone so there’s less distractions. I have found I’m now getting more done.

Todoist have also released some new features and here’s how I use them to help with managing super needs:

• Sections – I keep a wish list of equipment that I come across to research later or to apply funding. I can now add sub sections to sort out which ones are being applied for. I also keep a sub section for consumables to reorder with the link to the site with the best deals.
• Reoccurring event – I can make the consumable a task to remind me when to reorder things like nappies or medications then it will show up in my ‘today list’.
• display on calendar – you can sync one project with one google calendar. I will move tasks to the calendar view if i want to view it on my google calendar. This is not yet 100% but with the upcoming calendar view it makes it easier to see when things should be done.
• View as board – great if you are used to Trello or Kanban visual management. You can now view any project list as a board. This means you can view the status of your tasks visually. If you are new to this start with the basic to do, in progress and done. This is a new feature and I’ve yet to use this regularly but it means I can start migrating my vision boards from trello to todoist now and have it all in one place.

In order to enable reminders you need to upgrade to premium. I found a free code online to try out premium for a month, I figure this will help me decide if it’s worth the investment (ie if I can stick to it). So far so good – having the reminders on makes my smartwatch buzz with a notification and has definitely helped me remember my goals, habits I want to keep doing and helped me stay on track.

If you would like to try Todoist you can now use it for free for 2 months using my referral code: https://todoist.com/r/rachel_fong_pishpi

If you do happen to upgrade to premium, it means I will also get 2 months of premium for free.