The Graveyard of Todo List Apps

I Have 3 Todo Apps Installed Right Now

My phone currently has Todoist, TickTick, and Apple Reminders installed simultaneously. Am I using all three? No. I'm using none of them. More precisely, I last opened each one two weeks ago. (Todoist was three weeks.)

Looking back, I've tried 17 todo apps since 2019. From Wunderlist to Any.do, Microsoft To Do, Notion, Things 3, Superlist. Every single one followed the same pattern: two weeks of enthusiastic use, then a slow drift into neglect.

The Honeymoon Phase Is Always Great

Installing a new todo app feels good. You migrate your existing tasks and tell yourself "this time I'll actually stick with it." You create categories, set priorities, configure recurring schedules. The setup process itself creates the illusion that you're being productive.

That's the trap. Organizing a todo list prettily is completely different from actually doing the tasks on it. It took me 17 attempts to internalize this. (Yeah, I'm a slow learner. I know.)

Turns Out Paper Is Different

Last year I mindlessly stuck a Post-it on my desk. "Review 3 PRs," "Deploy before lunch," "Slack Seokjin." I finished all three that day. Did Post-its the next day too. And the day after.

Post-its lasted over three months. Compared to 17 apps that were all abandoned within two weeks, that's a striking difference. I think it's because Post-its only fit 3 items. The physical space forces you to write only what truly matters. Apps let you pile up 50 tasks and then feel overwhelmed, but Post-its make that physically impossible.

Things I Fell For From Productivity YouTubers

"Build a second brain." That pitch convinced me to build a project management system in Notion. It took an entire weekend. I even set up database relations. I actually used that system for 4 days. (On day 4, I didn't add any tasks before leaving work, and I never opened it again.)

The irony of spending time on productivity tools being inherently unproductive. When managing your todo list becomes a task in itself, you've already lost.

What I Do Now

Three Post-its on my monitor. Maximum 3 tasks per day. Done means toss it. No app notifications, no sync worries. Post-its cost about $2.50 a month, compared to Todoist Premium at around $36 a year.

Long-term projects and team work still go in Jira, obviously. But for personal task management, Post-its are enough. I'll be honest, I almost installed app number 18. Saw the Superlist update announcement. But I held off. I was a todo app addict, and I'm in recovery now.