Business Apps Part 3: ToDoist

Not everyone suffers from anxiety. And not everyone who has anxiety feels better when things are organized. But there are many of us high-strung anxious types that can’t go to sleep before we make a list of every worry in our heads. Enough to make checklists not only helpful, but necessary. And to those people, I want to introduce you to ToDoist.

Sure, you can absolutely create checklists on paper, or even with Evernote. You can also choose to spiral mentally and start collecting cats. There are many options available. But I would like to suggest that one option that might serve you well is ToDoist. There is all the usual functionality – you can set deadlines (in the basic version) and reminders (in the paid version); you can organize by category; you get the satisfaction of checking something off. But there are some cool functions unique to ToDoist that I would like to point out. Let me show you.

Why ToDoist?

You can set priorities.

When you are heading to bed as an anxious person, the lists of things that you need to get done tomorrow are often not Mission Critical. But if you are anything like me, you still need to write them down or they will blossom into obsessions. The ability to rank your lists in order of priority helps you to not only better organize your time, but also to gain perspective. Because it might seem like organizing your silverware by personality type is vital to your life at midnight, but the act of assigning it a priority level should take your hysteria down a notch.

You can use it offline.

Maybe you need to make an emergency camping list and you aren’t connected to the internet. Maybe the Zombie Apocalypse has begun and there is no WiFi, but you want to keep a list of your headshots. Whatever the case, ToDoist has you covered, because you can work offline. Once you are online again (the Zombies are merciful!), everything will sync so you can access your lists on your devices and on the desktop version.

You can integrate it with your email.

A lot of our to-dos come via email. Then maybe we forget them as they drown amongst our unread Cat Digest and Zombie Weekly emails. Then we show up to a business meeting without pants. Or at least that’s the sequence of events my anxious mind foresees.

Luckily, ToDoist integrates with Outlook and Gmail to make moving our to-dos from our inbox onto a to-do list seamless.

So now, if you show up for a meeting without pants, it will be by choice.

You can share tasks.

If you have an assistant or a coworker who is helping you with a project, you can assign items on a list to them from ToDoist (with the paid version). But unlike some other apps, you can still keep other items on the list and other lists private. So while they are checking off “email clients about upcoming sale”, they are none-the-wiser about your somewhat strange plan to sort your silverware.

Have no one to share tasks with? Set up an account for you cat. Assign them tasks. Give them hilarious glasses (they definitely need hilarious glasses). Now you don’t feel so lonely, and you’re being productive!

Whatever apps you use to organize your time, it should give you a sense of orderliness and control, not just be another thing on your list to do. If ToDoist sounds like a fit for you, you can check it out here.