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
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