MS Project like to-do list

September 18, 2009 11:09 AM

todolist filter: I know there are dozens of questions here about to-do lists already, but, alas, none of them fit my requirements. I really like MS Project - it's hierarchical (tasks can nest), and can enforce due dates, but it's too heavy handed for what I need & old tasks don't disappear. I need something like MS Project, but simpler...

Things I like about MS Project.

* You can easily add/edit task names without opening a new window - everything is editable in the cell a-la MS Excel.
* You can easily manage due dates without opening a new window - same as above.
* Tasks can be nested & the top nest becomes the "folder" that contains the sub-tasks & the interface for nesting is very simple.
* Nested tasks can be collapsed easily
* Tasks can have predecessors & don't really become 'to do' items until the predecessor is complete - this is a nice to have, but not necessary.
* You can assign people/resources to tasks - again a nice to have, but not necessary, I can just use (parens) to indicate in the title.
* I don't need GANTT charts, but they're a nice to have.

Things I don't like about MS Project (for this use).

* You can't simply 'checkbox' select a task as complete.
* Tasks don't disappear when they're completed, so it's not a good way to track day-to-day tasks.
* You can't easily sort tasks by due date & priority or hide the tree.

Task Coach gets about 80% of the way there, but the interface is a dealbreaker for me. I've also tried Swift To Do Lite, which is in some ways even better, but the inability to nest (though there is a sort of tree structure in the left pane), and the inability to see all tasks related to a project regardless of subfolder is an issue. Web Based (not preferred, but acceptable) TaDalist lacks due dates. Tasks Jr. is very good and I used it for a while & may go back to it, but being web (and non AJAX) it each task addition is a new screen, but there were some other issues I had with it that I didn't like (but don't right now remember).

Is there anything out there that does what I want? Free is better, but I'll pay for something that checks all the boxes.

posted by Muffy to computers & internet (13 comments total)

Have you tried abstractspoon ToDoList? It's awesome and free and I think will do what you want it to do. It is highly customizable, as well.
posted by The World Famous at 11:16 AM on September 18

ToDoist is very simple, which makes it very easy to use they way you want to. Creating new projects, nesting them in as many layers as you want, and adding due dates is really easy, especially if you learn the keyboard shortcuts (just typing in "tuesday @ 12" sets the due date to the next tuesday at noon). You can look at tasks by day, by project, however you want. There is a satisfying checkbox that deletes the item once checked - but they get archived and you can retrieve them any time. It's a pretty great application; the only one I ended up using with regularity aftery trying a dozen.
posted by peachfuzz at 11:20 AM on September 18

I'm not familiar with MS Project, but OmniFocus sounds exactly like what you're looking for.
posted by moira at 11:21 AM on September 18

Oops, sorry, that's for Mac.
posted by moira at 11:24 AM on September 18

ToDoist looks promising. Too bad about OmniFocus, I hear good things about OmniGraffle.
posted by Muffy at 11:26 AM on September 18

Google Tasks.

-Easily integrates into your mobile phone
-Can be made into a dashboard widget in about 2 minutes
-Works great as a sidebar in firefox (add a bookmark for http://mail.google.com/tasks/ig and check 'load this bookmark in the sidebar')
posted by zentrification at 12:20 PM on September 18

I'd like to caution against Todoist. I liked it, too, as it suited my style of thinking. Unfortunately, it has a lot of issues:

- Hardly ever updated. Don't expect new features.

- I bought a premium account, but my account never updated to having premium features.

- I contacted the owner of Todoist, Amir, about my problems, but I didn't receive a response for a long time. I was charged through PayPal in this time.

- Eventually, I just wanted cancel my account. That took a long time, too.

- The owner seems to have recently removed his GetSatisfaction account for the product. I'm sure that's because there were so many problems reported and unfixed listed there (including my issues, which I wanted to link to you, but now can't).

No one reading this get me wrong. Todoist is a great product, and the owner is actually nice, but he doesn't seem that into his project. If anyone knows of a replacement to Todoist, I definitely think that sounds right for you. Heck, it sounds right for me. :'(
posted by metalheart at 12:25 PM on September 18

I've been using Toodledo for the past month, and I'm fairly efficient with it, although the main UI is slightly cluttered.

hint: once you're setup, use the slim web view which works great in a sidebar
posted by motdiem2 at 12:31 PM on September 18

2nding ToDoList. Here is how to make it portable so you can try it out...
posted by masher at 1:57 PM on September 18 [1 favorite]

If you want sub-tasks in web-based todo format, then toodledo pro and todoist are your main choices. Opengoo is another option; it's supposedly a google docs competitor, but I find the task list/milestone management is the much more compelling and useful side of it.
posted by ArkhanJG at 3:33 PM on September 18

Ditto zentrification on Google Tasks. I have it bookmarked in Firefox, with the "Load this bookmark in the sidebar" box checked, so I can just pop the list out as needed. And since it's Web-based, it'll load anywhere.
posted by limeonaire at 5:02 PM on September 18

Check out ToDoList. Free, and awesome!

Note the slight difference in spelling! It's not the web site Todoist.
posted by flutable at 10:00 PM on September 18

Thanks guys - ToDoList looks just about perfect. I'm going to start using it at home to organize my plans for world domination as well as at work to manage my time & projects.
posted by Muffy at 9:31 AM on September 19