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Future Plans
| Author | Message |
|---|---|
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kcren |
My company does productivity and management training for executives (www.priacta.com).
We've featured and recommended Toodledo as our #1 productivity tool for some time. In live screen sharing and coaching sessions. I've seen Toodledo through the eyes of clients who love and struggle with it. I'm also a developer and business owner and understand the need for backward compatibility and profitability. I have some very specific feedback on what clients love, what we think should improve, and how to make more money from it with little effort. We love and recommend Toodledo because it is highly customizable. We configure it for TRO (a GTD++ approach, more productivity, less effort). If that ever changes so we can't do that, we'd have to move to another tool instead. So the customization has to stay. If you want to talk, reach out via http://kevincrenshaw.com (orange button at top or form at bottom). In the meantime, the following are the biggest holdups for our clients: - Ugly (non-colorful) UI on the iPhone app, no choice of themes. Many execs would rather struggle with a more stupid but colorful app just because of the appearance! Go figure. But true. One recent client said, "The user interface is 10 years old!" - Shortcut keys are inadequate, lack of autocomplete. Some clients rely heavily on keyboard shortcuts. Some because of RSI and others for efficiency. But lack of autocomplete and other problems make it nearly impossible to fill in task details *in a task grid* without using a mouse. For example, clients struggle to use a keystroke-only approach to setting dates after tabbing to the field. - And I know how you can make more money on it with almost no effort. - And we may know how to expand it to a team workflow approach (TRO for teams) with the least effort, so you can start selling to teams like Asana does. Kevin Crenshaw Head Coach and Co-Founder Priacta / Neverboss www.priacta.com www.neverboss.com This message was edited Jul 07, 2018. |
|
meier.a |
Toodledo has been our number ONE productivity tool for many years. And we hope very much that it remains functional as it is today.
Thank you Jake for your great job - good luck and all the best to you. And to the new team: we are looking forward how you keep Toodledo our number ONE productivity tool still for many years to come. Best regards, Albert Meier |
|
mccookmail |
Posted by Sam:
Posted by Douglas Osvath:
Congratulations Jake! Welcome, Sam, Ramon, Anant and team. From my experience I am always leery when there is a change of ownership in any business. I am leery when a change of ownership occurs because people do not purchase a business unless they perceive that there will be a return on the initial investment with increased revenues in the future. As a businessman, I have never purchased a business unless these two conditions could realistically be met. With that being said, I am sure that eventually our subscription prices will increase and be blamed on the need for additional employees, better computer architecture and some enhanced features that will be unimportant to many. Call me selfish and/ or rude, however this has been my experience with online services after they have been sold. I do want to wish you all the best of luck in making Toodledo "The best damn productivity tool out there," and I will patiently wait to see how this transition goes before researching alternative solutions. I personally already feel that Toodledo is the best productivity tool available at its price point. Finally, in your own words..." I hope these guys don't screw up a product that I already love." Kind regards and respect, Doug Hey Doug, I don't blame you for being nervous. We see it in the news all the time. Companies sell and then the new owners screw it up. That said, there are many examples of this done properly. Companies buy new products and push them forward and the community loves it. We're going to make Toodle one of those examples. And we appreciate you giving us the benefit of the doubt before looking for a new product!! sam |
|
Xxx_2 |
I thank Jake for having dedicated himself with absolute effort in all these years to the development of Toodledo. In recent times however, it has been noticed that the product slowed in its evolution, notably in the iOs version, which left me, along with other users, thinking that a possible sale of the company was on the way, which is materialized now. Of course Jake could not talk about it, but the signs became more and more evident - the traditional New Year message with the list of what was done and list of next steps, which only came out days later, when I and other users questioned about it, was the latest sign.
Well, regardless of all this, hopefully the new team can meet at least part of the users' requests in forums ... of course, we know that not everything is possible to be done, Jake himself had already explained about cost x benefit, for example by investing a lot of time and money into some feature that would be used by very few users. But on the other hand, there is much to be improved that can be simple things to do. The main thing for me is to complete the recoding of the Toodledo iOs option, which Jake had started. My use is 99% mobile and let's face it, the usability of a dedicated app is much bigger than the option to use through a web browser for persons with strong mobile use. So, I hope that as others have said, great changes do not come, but improvements keep what is working, working! Good luck to the new team, and congratulations to Jake for all his effort since the zero mark. |
|
M |
I could swear I posted right after I saw the announcement, but now I don't see (or remember!) my comment - and it's been largely covered by others, anyway.
I will add my two cents that the anonymity (not so much individual names, but the omission of past company affiliations leaves me wanting) is a little disturbing, esp. in light of what I, personally, saw as a fairly blatant drop in interest by Jake in recent months. I could feel Toodledo fading away, so this doesn't surprise me. This is not meant as any kind of insult against Jake - I can't tell you how many times I've thought, over my 8+ years of using Toodledo, "How does he do it??" The product is great, despite our continual "feature" requests, and that's all him. But there was a clear drop-off in postings and updates lately, so I've been researching alternatives for a while in desperation. And, as others have said - for most Toodledo users, there is no alternative. I answered your survey. But I'd also like to put in a request for "Toodledo Legacy" on the web to be left alone, as you develop whatever "Toodledo 2.0" becomes. Leave us and our data on the familiar standard, and then let us decide if we want to move to the new platform/version, when you have it ready. And, as also already requested - don't let pricing get far from where we are now. Features of Toodledo are the driving factor in my staying with it, but pricing played a HUGE role in that, also. |
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LeahCorbett |
Excellent. I have been asking for the ability to color code tasks for YEARS (as have hundreds of other users).
Would also love to be able to set the GUI to colors that suit me and help reduce eye strain. Thanks! |
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digital_carver |
I'll be honest, when the email about the transition came in, I thought "Oh fudge fudge fudge" (well, I used another word) - I was afraid it had been sold to some mega company that wouldn't care about the users and leave an "our incredible journey" message in a few months.
I'm really relieved and happy to know that it's still in the hands of people who care about the product and its users, and have genuine communication with us (Sam's honesty in saying "I'll go ahead and apologize for any future mistake because we will without a doubt make them" - that's both refreshing and reassuring). Best of luck to the new team, and I hope the user friendliness (including in politely saying "no" to some feature requests) and honest communication continues in the future. |
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Tracie2602 |
Good luck to Jake and wary welcome to the new team :-)
That said, the only things I'd ask to add to Toodledo is being able to drag and drop tasks, drag a task into a folder and being able to group folders for a neater left hand column, everything else is pretty much perfect as is. kind regards Tracie This message was edited Jul 08, 2018. |
|
Sam |
Posted by Nick E:
Woo hoo, here we go. Time to start thinking about migration to Google Tasks or another equivalent before it's too late.... What do you mean "again"? |
|
Sam |
Posted by DanH_2:
Is there a particular reason for not including your last names and the names of the companies you have started in the past? I'm inclined to be optimistic, but these omissions seem strange to me. Dan Hotchkiss Here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/parrsam and https://www.linkedin.com/in/ramon-van-meer-a19a01144/ |
|
Sam |
Posted by M:
I could swear I posted right after I saw the announcement, but now I don't see (or remember!) my comment - and it's been largely covered by others, anyway. I will add my two cents that the anonymity (not so much individual names, but the omission of past company affiliations leaves me wanting) is a little disturbing, esp. in light of what I, personally, saw as a fairly blatant drop in interest by Jake in recent months. I could feel Toodledo fading away, so this doesn't surprise me. This is not meant as any kind of insult against Jake - I can't tell you how many times I've thought, over my 8+ years of using Toodledo, "How does he do it??" The product is great, despite our continual "feature" requests, and that's all him. But there was a clear drop-off in postings and updates lately, so I've been researching alternatives for a while in desperation. And, as others have said - for most Toodledo users, there is no alternative. I answered your survey. But I'd also like to put in a request for "Toodledo Legacy" on the web to be left alone, as you develop whatever "Toodledo 2.0" becomes. Leave us and our data on the familiar standard, and then let us decide if we want to move to the new platform/version, when you have it ready. And, as also already requested - don't let pricing get far from where we are now. Features of Toodledo are the driving factor in my staying with it, but pricing played a HUGE role in that, also. Here are our linkedins: https://www.linkedin.com/in/parrsam/ and https://www.linkedin.com/in/ramon-van-meer-a19a01144/ |
|
Sam |
Posted by kcrenshaw:
My company does productivity and management training for executives (www.priacta.com). We've featured and recommended Toodledo as our #1 productivity tool for some time. In live screen sharing and coaching sessions. I've seen Toodledo through the eyes of clients who love and struggle with it. I'm also a developer and business owner and understand the need for backward compatibility and profitability. I have some very specific feedback on what clients love, what we think should improve, and how to make more money from it with little effort. We love and recommend Toodledo because it is highly customizable. We configure it for TRO (a GTD++ approach, more productivity, less effort). If that ever changes so we can't do that, we'd have to move to another tool instead. So the customization has to stay. If you want to talk, reach out via http://kevincrenshaw.com (orange button at top or form at bottom). In the meantime, the following are the biggest holdups for our clients: - Ugly (non-colorful) UI on the iPhone app, no choice of themes. Many execs would rather struggle with a more stupid but colorful app just because of the appearance! Go figure. But true. One recent client said, "The user interface is 10 years old!" - Shortcut keys are inadequate, lack of autocomplete. Some clients rely heavily on keyboard shortcuts. Some because of RSI and others for efficiency. But lack of autocomplete and other problems make it nearly impossible to fill in task details *in a task grid* without using a mouse. For example, clients struggle to use a keystroke-only approach to setting dates after tabbing to the field. - And I know how you can make more money on it with almost no effort. - And we may know how to expand it to a team workflow approach (TRO for teams) with the least effort, so you can start selling to teams like Asana does. Kevin Crenshaw Head Coach and Co-Founder Priacta / Neverboss www.priacta.com www.neverboss.com This is great Kevin, huge thanks. Can you email me so we can chat? [email protected] |
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stateoftheart |
Thanks Jake for your great product.
Hi Sam and the team. Personally, I'm very worried reading the comments as I'm happy with toodledo as is. All the signs pointing that some useless features are going to be added, my productivity is going to suffer, and yet I will be going to be asked/tricked to pay more. An unhappy Gold Subscriber for many years |
|
GSP1963 |
YOW. This is alarming. Per the new owner's comment, I'll cut to the chase: More often than not, this kind of transfer of ownership is the beginning of the end for a great product.
To Jake: Thanks for creating and developing the best to-do list app I've ever used, bar none. Over the past decade, your software has improved my life and there aren't many apps out there I can say that about. To the New Owner: There are literally dozens of todo list apps out there that are all more or less the same. They're user friendly and visually slick in a way that Toodledo is not. None of them meet my needs. Toodledo is the only todo list that allows almost unlimited customization via custom searches. To recognize the power of this feature, a user needs to be smart and probably have a little programming experience under his or her belt. I use 17 custom searches on a daily basis and they work like an absolute charm. If you were to strip out the unusual features of Toodledo in an attempt to make it easier to use and more mainstream, you would alienate a majority of the Toodledo users, who have gravitated to Toodledo, and been loyal to it, precisely because it does things mainstream todo apps do not. In other words, I hope you have purchased Toodledo with the understanding that it's not an ordinary todo application made for the ordinary user. This message was edited Jul 07, 2018. |
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stateoftheart |
This is exactly what I was worried about. some stupid execs with zero understanding of actual productivity (please read the quote below very carefully) complain toodledo is "ugly" on iphone because they can't change the theme. New team sweeps in to dumb-ify the app to make some extra bucks off the GTD++++ or whatever fad of the day and we are all screwed.
In other words it will be a copy of countless todo apps in market. It's official: toodledo as we know and love is dead in less than a year. Posted by Sam: Posted by kcrenshaw:
My company does productivity and management training for executives (www.priacta.com). We've featured and recommended Toodledo as our #1 productivity tool for some time. In live screen sharing and coaching sessions. I've seen Toodledo through the eyes of clients who love and struggle with it. I'm also a developer and business owner and understand the need for backward compatibility and profitability. I have some very specific feedback on what clients love, what we think should improve, and how to make more money from it with little effort. We love and recommend Toodledo because it is highly customizable. We configure it for TRO (a GTD++ approach, more productivity, less effort). If that ever changes so we can't do that, we'd have to move to another tool instead. So the customization has to stay. If you want to talk, reach out via http://kevincrenshaw.com (orange button at top or form at bottom). In the meantime, the following are the biggest holdups for our clients: - Ugly (non-colorful) UI on the iPhone app, no choice of themes. Many execs would rather struggle with a more stupid but colorful app just because of the appearance! Go figure. But true. One recent client said, "The user interface is 10 years old!" - Shortcut keys are inadequate, lack of autocomplete. Some clients rely heavily on keyboard shortcuts. Some because of RSI and others for efficiency. But lack of autocomplete and other problems make it nearly impossible to fill in task details *in a task grid* without using a mouse. For example, clients struggle to use a keystroke-only approach to setting dates after tabbing to the field. - And I know how you can make more money on it with almost no effort. - And we may know how to expand it to a team workflow approach (TRO for teams) with the least effort, so you can start selling to teams like Asana does. Kevin Crenshaw Head Coach and Co-Founder Priacta / Neverboss www.priacta.com www.neverboss.com This is great Kevin, huge thanks. Can you email me so we can chat? [email protected] |
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GSP1963 |
@stateoftheart: Well, I think we should all be fair and give the new team the benefit of the doubt. I'm certainly willing to work with them until it should become clear that they're determined to go down the wrong path.
Thinking about this, I'd make the following recommendation to the new team. Set up a team productivity metrics spreadsheet, where each team member is required to enter the number of tasks he or she has completed on each day of the preceding week on Fridays. Separate tasks by priority level and include mundane tasks that don't result in any code, such as routine meetings, as a -1 priority. Also, tag any task that can be considered a process improvement as Q2. Now have each team member write some custom searches so they can extract that data for the different days so they can put it into the team spreadsheet on Fridays at 5 PM. The Friday report should show how many tasks were completed every day excluding -1 tasks, how many process improvements were made over the course of the week, and include a printout of all the completed tasks sorted by priority. If every team member does that for a few weeks, I think there's a good chance they'll understand why Toodledo's loyal users love the app so much. On the other hand, if the new team can't be bothered to use and appreciate the custom searches and they start removing the app's more powerful features, I'll be out of here in a New York minute. |
|
Sam |
Posted by stateoftheart:
This is exactly what I was worried about. some stupid execs with zero understanding of actual productivity (please read the quote below very carefully) complain toodledo is "ugly" on iphone because they can't change the theme. New team sweeps in to dumb-ify the app to make some extra bucks off the GTD++++ or whatever fad of the day and we are all screwed. In other words it will be a copy of countless todo apps in market. It's official: toodledo as we know and love is dead in less than a year. Posted by Sam: Posted by kcrenshaw: My company does productivity and management training for executives (www.priacta.com). We've featured and recommended Toodledo as our #1 productivity tool for some time. In live screen sharing and coaching sessions. I've seen Toodledo through the eyes of clients who love and struggle with it. I'm also a developer and business owner and understand the need for backward compatibility and profitability. I have some very specific feedback on what clients love, what we think should improve, and how to make more money from it with little effort. We love and recommend Toodledo because it is highly customizable. We configure it for TRO (a GTD++ approach, more productivity, less effort). If that ever changes so we can't do that, we'd have to move to another tool instead. So the customization has to stay. If you want to talk, reach out via http://kevincrenshaw.com (orange button at top or form at bottom). In the meantime, the following are the biggest holdups for our clients: - Ugly (non-colorful) UI on the iPhone app, no choice of themes. Many execs would rather struggle with a more stupid but colorful app just because of the appearance! Go figure. But true. One recent client said, "The user interface is 10 years old!" - Shortcut keys are inadequate, lack of autocomplete. Some clients rely heavily on keyboard shortcuts. Some because of RSI and others for efficiency. But lack of autocomplete and other problems make it nearly impossible to fill in task details *in a task grid* without using a mouse. For example, clients struggle to use a keystroke-only approach to setting dates after tabbing to the field. - And I know how you can make more money on it with almost no effort. - And we may know how to expand it to a team workflow approach (TRO for teams) with the least effort, so you can start selling to teams like Asana does. Kevin Crenshaw Head Coach and Co-Founder Priacta / Neverboss www.priacta.com www.neverboss.com This is great Kevin, huge thanks. Can you email me so we can chat? [email protected] You're afraid that we're open to chat with Kevin? As mentioned throughout this thread, our intention is to speak with as many of you as possible. I'd love to hear from you. Feel free to email me. |
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Sam |
Posted by stateoftheart:
Thanks Jake for your great product. Hi Sam and the team. Personally, I'm very worried reading the comments as I'm happy with toodledo as is. All the signs pointing that some useless features are going to be added, my productivity is going to suffer, and yet I will be going to be asked/tricked to pay more. An unhappy Gold Subscriber for many years Thanks for the feedback. As mentioned, we have do not have any plans at the moment, so do not be worries. Can you point to my comments that made you feel we were about to add new features? I'd love to address them so we can clear the air. This message was edited Jul 07, 2018. |
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jenschiltz |
Hi, I'm a user of Toodledo for over 10 years and I use it all day long. Please don't change anything! It's a great tool! One request though, could you please enhance it so that you can select multiple tasks and change the due date? This would help efficiency immensely!
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GSP1963 |
@ Sam: Looking at my initial posts here, and a few of the others, I think we've been less than polite and for my part, I apologize. Please understand that there's going to be more trepidation than usual with your purchase of Toodledo simply because there isn't another todo application out there like it and if it's "mainstreamed" into a prettier, more typical todo manager, many of us will have a hard time replacing it. Thus the pushback.
To keep things productive and positive, I'll list the key strengths of Toodledo, as I see them, as well as possible areas for improvement. I've been using Toodledo for over a decade (my current subscription status doesn't reflect this, though, because I let my membership lapse a couple years ago; I tried another app, and came back to Toodledo because I found I wasn't being as productive with the competition). KEY STRENGTHS 1. The large number of data fields available and the ability to choose which fields you want to use. This is huge. The way I work next year may be different from this year (Heraclitus said it best: "The only thing that is constant is change"). I have changed my Toodledo setup numerous times over the years due to changing responsibilities both personally and professionally. Changing and adapting my task management techniques has made me more capable and more efficient and led to a lot of growth. I could not have done it without Toodledo's flexibility. 2. The ability to reorder the display of fields. Giving the user this power is another major strength of Toodledo. I can get the app to function just the way I want. It's surprising how few todo apps give the user this ability (perhaps 10%? If that?). 3. The ability to construct custom searches. This is one of Toodledo's greatest strengths: Users can build searches to extract just exactly what they're looking for and keep those searches on hand, ready to run at the click of the mouse. It essentially allows users the ability to approach Toodledo like it's a Tinkertoy, and build the application they want, pulling the data they see fit and displaying it just the way they want. Every different configuration of Toodledo that I've used over the past decade has been built around using a large number of custom searches, typically at least a dozen. My current configuration uses 17. There is no other software on the market that lets me do what I do with Toodledo's custom searches. Using the searches, I've set up Toodledo as a strict Getting-Things-Done app; as a Franklin-Quest app (A1, A2, A3); as an Eisenhower Matrix app (Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4); as a tool geared to providing hardcopy project reports for management; and several other hybrids of the above. 4. Excellent hardcopy reports. Sometimes you just have to go into a meeting with hardcopy handouts of information and in that regard, Toodledo shines. I recently was comparing task manager apps, and it was surprising how few are able to provide decent hardcopy reports. I really value Toodledo's ability to generate clear, well-formatted reports with ease. It's part of what makes the app a serious business tool. These four key strengths listed above should be regarded as sacrosanct; nothing should be done to Toodledo that weakens or eliminates these features. POSSIBLE AREAS FOR IMPROVEMENT 1. Additional fields could be made available to the users for optional use. I can't imagine any users would complain if additional fields were made available. Toodledo already has most of the bases covered, I think, but I'm sure there could be a few more added, such as a field for Effort (High, Medium, Low). Some people like to start the day with high-effort tasks and then use the late-afternoon hours, when they're feeling brain-dead, for low-effort tasks. 2. Better tools for building custom searches. Toodledo's custom searches are great, but they could probably be made even better. More flexibility in building the searches (such as the ability to combine AND with OR rules or the ability to combine searches) would be great. Any kind of UI enhancements that would help first-time users figure out how to build custom searches would be great, too. 3. More optional uses of color in the UI. It would be nice if users had the ability to choose colors to reflect some attributes, such as Folder, Context, Status, or Priority. Key to making this an enhancement and not an annoyance would be customizability: Users should be able to determine not only the color scheme (not just the colors, but also whether the colors are applied to the text or the background, or both) and the associated field, but also have the option of not using the colors at all. 4. Possible elimination of some of the existing extras that are not task-related. Others may disagree with me on this, but I think the Swiss Army knife approach that was adopted for Toodledo a few years back wasn't the best approach. ("Not only are we a task manager--we're also a habit tracker! And a goal manager! And an outliner! And a notebook!") I think the multiple functions water down the key Toodledo task manager mission. Obviously, the community would have to be polled and interviewed about this because taking existing functionality away from users is always a tricky thing. Why am I willing to even suggest that some of these functions be discontinued right after declaring other functions sacrosanct? The distinction is this: The sacrosanct features are not offered elsewhere; they are unique, or virtually unique, to Toodledo. The features I'm suggesting could be eliminated, on the other hand, are better handled by other existing apps out there. 5. Overhaul of the iOS app. The existing iOS app has such an outdated feel to it that it's turning potential users off before they even have a chance to understand Toodledo's strengths. That's all I can think of at the moment, Sam. You can be sure that many of us are wishing you nothing but success in your endeavor to take Toodledo to the next level. Good luck! This message was edited Jul 08, 2018. |
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