We’ve curated some of the best online, mobile, and desktop applications for managing your tasks, chosen because of their multi-platform capabilities, their ease of use, and their rich features sets. To-Do focuses on simplicity. Group tasks into various lists and sort each list separately. The app supports a series of recurrences and due dates, as well as additional context. Microsoft To-Do is free to use. It supports desktop, web, iOS/iPadOS, and Android apps. Use tags to mark items as tasks within OneNote—those items, optionally, sync with Microsoft Outlook. Alternatively, use simple checkboxes to develop lists that don’t sync. And the tagging system means you can just take some passage and give it a task-themed tag, then later discover all those tags in a unified view. OneNote is free to use and multiplatform. If you want a customizable system that’s not enterprise-server dependent, Todoist is your best bet. Plus, its karma system—earn points for completing tasks, lose points for being late or not checking the list—gamifies the productivity mindset. Todoist supports web, desktop, and mobile apps, and it offers an annual subscription to unlock additional features. Considered broadly, Todo.txt isn’t so much an application as it is an informal standard for organizing task information in a plain-text format. Although TodoTxt.org offers apps, you could just as easily manage your tasks from, e.g., Emacs or Vim or Visual Studio Code. The logic model is, of course, free and open source. The any.do ecosystem consists of several related apps, to manage tasks, calendars, shopping lists and grocery lists. The platform is free to use, but the most useful power tools, including task coloring and customized recurring patterns, require a monthly subscription. The free version is great for individuals and teams, although per-user/per-month charges accrue quickly as needs scale up. Asana’s most often used on the web, but it supports iOS/iPadOS and Android apps as well. It shines on the desktop. Although the platform supports Android and iOS/iPadOS apps, they’re not well-designed. Toodledo offers location-based reminders, alarms, and related standard tools. Plus, it’s free to use. Keep is best considered as a light note-taking and reminder system. It handles simple tasks well, including shopping lists. Like richer note-taking tools like OneNote, it’s not optimized for complex task management. But if all you need is a simple flagging system for Android or Chrome, Keep’s an obvious choice. It’s free to use and multi-platform. It requires a Google Account.
