Hi, I’m Peter from Amsterdam. I’ll help you get organized and be more productive. Every Sunday, I send a productivity-themed newsletter to 10,000 people. Join us!
Why this app’s upcoming feature is so awesome
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One of my favorite to-do apps will be getting a huge update. It’s getting a new feature that will make it much easier to plan your days and to get your tasks done on time. Even if you don’t use this particular app, read on, because understanding the concept behind this feature can help you meet your deadlines. The huge update I’m talking about is coming to Todoist. So, what is it? Todoist is getting separate “do” and “due” dates:
Here’s what this means. Most to-do apps only let you set one date for a to-do. Let’s say you need to send client X an offer sheet by Friday. When you add the to-do to your task manager, what do you set the date to? Your instinct might say, “Friday”. But if you do that, the app won’t remind you to prepare the offer sheet until the day you need to send it. That’s sub-optimal, to say the least. Let’s say it would be ideal to start preparing the offer sheet on Wednesday. You could then set the to-do’s date to Wednesday—but you’d have to manually remember what the true deadline is. That’s not so bad for one task, but if you have dozens of tasks with deadlines, chances are some things will slip through the cracks. To solve this, some to-do apps—like Things 3—let you set two dates on any given to-do. The first is a “do” date. It’s also known as the “start” date. And in Things 3, it’s called the “when” date, because it represents when you’re planning to do this task. The second date is the “due” date or the (hard) deadline. It’s the date by which you absolutely must finish this task, or there will be serious negative consequences. I highly recommend that you use a to-do app that makes this distinction. Todoist has long been an amazing app, but its lack of support for do vs. due dates has required some workarounds. Soon, that will change! Todoist has been developing very fast in the past few years and, as we’re seeing here, it will get even better in the future. That makes this a particularly good time to organize your life with Todoist. (I will, of course, update my Todoist course whenever new features go live.) Watch: Apple Intelligence hands-on previewApple Intelligence promises a Star Trek-like future of computing. And it will get there. Eventually. For now though… well, just watch my Apple Intelligence hands-on preview: |
Peter Akkies
Hi, I’m Peter from Amsterdam. I’ll help you get organized and be more productive. Every Sunday, I send a productivity-themed newsletter to 10,000 people. Join us!
Earlier today I was on a call with a group of people who enrolled in one of my live programs. We had a fascinating discussion about people who seem to have it all together. And in particular about people who adhere to rigid weekly schedules that make it seem like they have time for absolutely everything. Here’s one example: (And it is just an example. It doesn’t matter whose schedule this is. This person actually has some great ideas.) What matters is that this is productivity porn. When you...
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If you’re ambitious, you need a personal productivity system. Or a personal assistant—but not everyone likes someone hovering around them all day long. So what should your personal productivity system consist of? At least these 3 apps: First, a task manager to capture to-dos and organize them. It’s your central source of truth of what you need to do. The task manager helps you to be proactive about what receives your attention. It lets you prioritize day to day. And it makes sure you don’t...