ForumsQuestionsPros/Cons of Alternatives to Toodledo.
Pros/Cons of Alternatives to Toodledo.
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Joyce |
I'm not terribly thrilled with Marvin at the moment. I both understand why they don't have a free version and still find the really steep cost of entry too much of a nut. I really am too much of a Girl Scout to claim financial limitations when it's really a value/utility balance.
I counted 59 separate features and wonder why not offer levels starting around $10 a YEAR for maybe 5 of those features or maybe $20 for 5 a la carte features that you could switch around but only have 5 on at a time then maybe another level of $50 for 10 a la carte features. Admittedly I know little about coding and server limits so I have no idea if my a la carte idea is even feasible. Right now I'm playing with todoist and liking it as a free version well enough. Ok then, I gotta get back to work! This message was edited Jun 27, 2019. |
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cjbg |
Joyce,
There are probably many people who share your viewpoint about software pricing...perhaps you should submit your pricing suggestions to Marvin. I'm not a developer but I suspect that one of the challenges they have is how to balance per user revenue with the amount of customer support per user. A lot of free software is ad supported in one way or the other. Judging by the questions and answers on the Marvin group page on Facebook, the vast configuration flexibility in Marvin can raise lots of questions. This aspect of highly configurable software may make it more difficult for developers to provide responsive support if the user population includes many non-paying customers. Just a thought... |
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Joyce |
Like I said, I do get why they don't have a free level.
It simply looks like, at $100 a year they sacrifice customers like me. Probably they are aware of that. If as others have suggested, it's just two hardworking people who are inevitably playing whackamole with all the random glitches I doubt they will be interested in adding complexity. The reality is that I'm not going to spend time learning the product because I won't pay that much money for it and that is that. |
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Ummagumma |
I've posted this somewhere on this forum before, but I've completely changed the way I handle task attributes after Toodledo's ongoing clustermuck story began, and I don't think that I am forced to use any one app or service anymore.
The problem with going with RTM / Marvin / 2Do / whatever is that the user has to change their workflow to fit the new feature set and this means once again locking yourself into a relatively rigid setup & inevitable pain once that setup is broken - whether 1, 5, or 15 years down the road. KISS rules... Make it so simple that your task attributes can sync to any service, and will be useful with most. Which to me, means that the only task attributes I use are Subject, Due Date, Alert, and Notes. These exist in pretty much every task management software. The rest is all handled via plain text labels, filters, and sorting. In my new (although pretty old) setup, the Start Date has been replaced by Due Date, and a hard deadline (if exists) is added in front of the task subject. Every task gets a Due Date - this is the date which triggers action (either work on it, or postpone it until later). The tags, contexts, goals are all plaintext tags added to the end of subject line (could go into Notes to keep things neat and clean, but I prefer to be able to glance at my task list and see the tags right away). I put duplicate letters in front of tags so that I could easily find them later using Windows Indexing or iOS Spotlight search (they don't play well with special characters). E.g., if I want to follow up on a task, I put llFU after the subject. There's not many (any) words that I know of that contain "llfu"", so only the relevant records will be found. I automate tag creation by using Texter in Windows and iOS' built in Keyboard Shortcuts, so I only have to type 3 letters for every tag. Only some tasks get tagged. I use separate accounts for work and personal tasks. I could use the same account and just add llWork and llPRS tags. So, my typical task would look like this: 190924 Submit proposal for review ProjABC llDave llAnne with due date on 8/26, alert on 9/23 9am. This task is due on September 24 (hard due date / deadline), I plan to start on it on August 26, it is part of Project ABC, and Dave and Anne have assignments related to it. I can search by ProjABC and find all tasks related to that project I can search by llAnne and find all tasks assigned to or waiting on input from Anne (and ll in front make it a unique word to avoid false results) I can sort by Subject and get the list of my tasks with hard deadlines, arranged by due date. I can sort by Due Date and get the list of my tasks arranged by when I plan on starting them. I can set up custom views and conditional formatting in Outlook (or Thunderbird, or most other clients) using these tags. I can use the same tags in Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, or any other kind of file, and gather all records tagged with them across various sources using global search (e.g. Spotlight). And the best thing is, this would work with almost anything. This message was edited Jul 03, 2019. |
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jogo2 |
Posted by Ummagumma:
I've posted this somewhere on this forum before, but I've completely changed the way I handle task attributes... KISS rules... Make it so simple that your task attributes can sync to any service, and will be useful with most. ... And the best thing is, this would work with almost anything. I like it - a lot. Makes good sense. And takes care of my frustration with how most other services don't handle start dates the way I want. There's much for me to think about. Thank you very much for taking the time to share it! This message was edited Jul 03, 2019. |
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Ummagumma |
Thank you, it’s a simple setup but it took a lot of time to fine tune it, so I am glad if it can save somebody else all the frustration.
Now that I’ve been using same plaintext tags everywhere,I can’t believe just how powerful of a feature it is, or why more people don’t make extensive use of it. |
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Purveyor |
@Ummagumma,
Would you please clarify what software you're using to track your tasks? You mention Outlook and it seems that you are still using Toodledo. Is that right? Thanks. This message was edited Jul 05, 2019. |
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Ummagumma |
Posted by Purveyor:
@Ummagumma, Would you please clarify what software you're using to track your tasks? You mention Outlook and it seems that you are still using Toodledo. Is that right? Thanks. I am no longer using Toodledo, just browsing the forums - the community here is just as important to me as the tool used to be. I do use Outlook. It's what our company uses, and it's an incredibly powerful task manager with query-filter based custom views and conditional formatting. Using dates, priorities, and text tags, I can make it do pretty much anything. No subtasks - this can be achieved via a number of 3rd party add-ons, but I never really felt the need to use them in my task lists anyway. I develop all my projects in Onenote or iThoughts (a mind-mapper / outliner) and only export individual actionable tasks to my task list, to keep it uncluttered. So all of my outlining is done outside of my task manager. I installed Outlook on my home laptop and desktop, too (if you're in the US and your company uses MS Office, chances are you could buy it for something like $14 IIRC for personal use). Just to keep things simple and repeatable. However, I also tried free open source solution - Thunderbird with Lightning extension for calendar and tasks. It was actually pretty good, I was able to sync my Reminders and set up the several custom views that I use, with some tweaking. Still prefer Outlook, it's more stable on Windows, and more refined. On the mobile side, I use iOS Reminders as my base, and there's a number of 3rd party apps that provide extra functionality on top of it. My favorite at the moment is GoodTask, mainly because it's very fast, very configurable, and automates or speeds up many user actions (e.g. adding and removing a custom tag, setting quick due date), and has a very good Apple Watch companion app. I was also able to use 2Do. Basically, any app that uses iOS Reminders and adds things like sorting by due date or subject, filtering by due date or text in subject, and some tools to speed up entry would work just fine. The same approach would work if using Google Tasks, too. Even on iOS, there's a couple task managers that sync with GT and would work for me. On Android, there should be tons of apps. Again, as long as all you use is common fields like Subject and Due Date, the choice is huge. It would also work with MS Outlook tasks. I actually first tried using Outlook.com as opposed to Apple Reminders, there were some syncing issues, but otherwise the whole system worked just as well. When I decided that Outlook.com wasn't working out for me, I just moved all of my tasks from Outlook account folder to iCloud tasks folder in desktop Outlook, and that was it. All of my filters and conditional formatting and custom views worked just as before. So, the beauty of this method, for me, is that I can literally use about any app or program, without changing my workflow or having to edit my tasks. Some workarounds I came up with in the process: - file attachments - I could technically use them, but then I'd be again locking myself into a feature that may not be supported everywhere. Instead, I use links to cloud storage or local storage, embedded into notes field. Same with phone numbers, url links, etc. - email to task - I use IFTTT for that, or just forward the email to myself with a tag llAct in the subject. - Action items everywhere - I use llAct tag everywhere (documents, excel spreadsheets, PDF comments etc) and I have a reminder to search for llAct tagged items every other day. I tweaked Windows Indexing to look everywhere I can have my records, and it works great so far. This message was edited Jul 05, 2019. |
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M |
UmmaGumma,
>> email to task - I use IFTTT for that I have not been able to get that to work. There's a specific email address you need ([email protected] ) and, when I send to that from the email address that I log into IFTTT with, nothing happens. Is that the way you email to task? |
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Ummagumma |
Posted by M:
UmmaGumma, >> email to task - I use IFTTT for that I have not been able to get that to work. There's a specific email address you need ([email protected] ) and, when I send to that from the email address that I log into IFTTT with, nothing happens. Is that the way you email to task? Yes. In order for it to work, the stars must align just right ;) - Your email address that you are sending from must be the one registered with IFTTT for applets - the tag must have a # in front of it (e.g. #llAct) - you can't force close IFTTT on your iPhone It's been somewhat flakey every now and then, but worked fine for me lately. It doesn't always creates the task right away. I don't use it for the really important stuff, only emails I don't want to forget about. Most of my tasks created from emails are work related and I just copy email to task in Outlook. |
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Signi3000_2 |
Hi all - I moved over to MyLifeOrganized to try it out. I was having problems moving my tasks (all 7000+ of them!) over so contacted the MLO Help. They tweaked their Converter (found here: https://www.mylifeorganized.net/todo-list-windows.shtml#additional-downloads ) to convert Toodledo over to MLO without snags. Thought I'd let you know! (As a reminder, MLO has the system that automatically populates the next action once you've completed the preceding one - great for GTDers.
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Joyce |
Well I did it, I just deleted all my tasks...
I won't re-up and I'm pretty sad about this whole thing. I suppose it was good while it lasted. I'll still read the forums now and again but I have moved on to todoist. |
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jsmail63-reg |
Joyce - I've tried to move over to ToDoIst also, but it just seems to lack the robustness of Toodledo.
One thing I really don't like about ToDoIst is it's history. In Toodledo, I can check off a task, and that task remains in the search history for as long as my subscription level supports it. In ToDoIst, you check off the task, and far as I know, it's no longer searchable. Sure, it shows up for a WHILE (I think 2 weeks?) in the 'completed tasks' section say, of a particular folder, but after that - it's not directly searchable. I looked at RTM and some other tools, and far as I can tell, no-one supports searching for any significant period of time on completed tasks. I was an IT guy for 30+ years before retiring, and this makes little sense to me from a software design perspective. All I can figure out is once you complete a task, these services (ToDoIst, RTM etc) are moving them to a different database table. That'd help search speed on 'current' tasks as the table is not flooded with completed tasks also, but any decent database should be able to do both easily. So, it's very odd.. I also liked how Toodledo could be navigated by due date. ToDoIst does have a due date, but once that date passes, the task moves to "OverDue" and I've yet to find a way to go back to navigate to see all tasks (completed as well as open or some other status) that were originally due on that date. Really powerful compared to the other apps like ToDoIst, RTM, etc. It's frustrating me beyond words that the new developers seem to be letting the old user base die off. Best I can tell, they appear to be focusing on selling Toodledo services to companies vs individuals. If that's their business plan, I sure wish them luck. I spent more than 3 decades selling to large, Fortune 500 companies, and a very small shop like Toodledo now appears to be is going to have a very tough time supporting the demands of corporate users, no matter how hard they work or how good of intentions they have. I just don't see how they could ever make that work. If it were me, and I spent the $$ to buy Toodeldo, I'd do everything humanly possible to service and hang on to my EXISTING user base - because that's the bulk of your revenue stream. Chasing a different revenue stream with even more demanding customers, when it hasn't been demonstrated that the current and much less demanding customers can be supported seems to be something that is not going to end well, even with the best of intentions. Oh well..if anyone can find a decent alternative to Toodledo, I'd love to hear about it. My preference would be that the new owners would resurrect Toodledo from what appears to be an early grave, but based on the lack of communication (eg: no June update and we're already in mid July), my confidence in that happening is unfortunately not high.. |
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Purveyor |
Posted by jsmail63-reg:
I looked at RTM and some other tools, and far as I can tell, no-one supports searching for any significant period of time on completed tasks. Completed tasks can be searched in RTM. You just have to click on "Completed" (in the top right) or specify "Status:Completed".It's very easy to toggle between Incomplete and Complete tasks. Also, you can create "Smart Lists" that display completed tasks, along with other criteria. And, the import from Toodledo into RTM brings in all completed tasks. This message was edited Jul 17, 2019. |
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Duo |
Posted by jsmail63-reg:
[...] One thing I really don't like about ToDoIst is it's history. In Toodledo, I can check off a task, and that task remains in the search history for as long as my subscription level supports it. In ToDoIst, you check off the task, and far as I know, it's no longer searchable. Sure, it shows up for a WHILE (I think 2 weeks?) in the 'completed tasks' section say, of a particular folder, but after that - it's not directly searchable. [...] @jsmail63-reg, I know of three ways to see completed tasks going back to the beginning of your usage. However, I have a Premium subscription and unfortunately I don't remember how Todoist handles completed tasks without one. 1) In Todoist if you search for a task by name using the 'Quick Search' bar you will then be given the option to search completed tasks (and comments). I just tested this and I was able to find a task from 2013. The thing is though, that you do need to be able to remember a word from the title or comments. 2) If you are in a project you can click on 'Show completed tasks' which will show the first 30 completed tasks in that project. At the bottom should be a 'Fetch more...' button, which will fetch the next 30 tasks and so on. 3) If you click on the Karma you will have the option to 'View all completed tasks'. This will initially show you the completed tasks from this week and last week or the last 30 completed tasks if 30 or more tasks have been completed in the period. You then need to click on the 'Load more history...' link at the bottom of the page to load the next 30 tasks or the next week's history. I think that if you have more than 30 tasks in a weekly period it will just load 30 tasks every time but if you have 30 or less tasks in a weekly period it will load one week at a time. At the top you can select the project, the collaborator to search for and the task status including 'Added tasks' and 'Updated tasks'. Hope this helps. This message was edited Jul 17, 2019. |
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boydston01 |
Posted by Ummagumma:
Which to me, means that the only task attributes I use are Subject, Due Date, Alert, and Notes. These exist in pretty much every task management software. This is awesome. Thanks for sharing.
The rest is all handled via plain text labels, filters, and sorting. ... |
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KBC1-Gold-Expired-May2020 |
Posted: Aug 22, 2019
Score: 1
Reference
LONG TIME USER... 10 YEARS...
Okay, so I spent a good part of today reading this forum and browsing the Web. Without going too deep, ToodleDo Gold or Plus is the best solution for me. Priacta rates it the highest in the class, and I have been using it so long we are like an old married couple. I looked at a bunch of alternatives and none of those is optimum for me. I am set in my habits and don't want to export 2,000 tasks and notes and learn a new system. None of the alternatives is exactly like ToodleDo. My Gold subscription runs into next year, and I just bought a lifetime plus subscription from StackSocial for $40 that supposedly is good for five years. After that, I have to contact support at StackSocial to have it renewed, apparently at no cost. But if it turns out to be another $40 no big deal. ToodleDo is worth that. Here is the deal -->> https://stacksocial.com/sales/toodledo-plus-lifetime-subscription I am running the two subscriptions in parallel, backing up one weekly and copying it to the other. When the Gold expires, I will simply delete that and continue with the 5-Year Plus. I like ToodleDo as is, and if they never make a change or feature enhancement, I will be satisfied with that. I also use the iOS app on an iPad Pro, and that is fine too. As long as the current owner, or StackSocial, or someone else keeps the ToodleDo server running for ten years or so, I will be happy. Let's hope that happens. People complaining and asking for more features and making life difficult for the new developers won't help save ToodleDo. Use what we have, be glad we have it, and hope that the server stays up. And make lots of local backups in case it does not -- including CSV. I do this weekly like doing my wash and it takes just a few seconds. It is the first task on my calendar every Saturday morning. Those who switch to Milk Remembering or ToDoist or Marvin or whatever are wished well. But I like ToodleDo and that's my story. |
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jzamoras |
Posted by KBC1-Gold-Standby:
LONG TIME USER... 10 YEARS... Okay, so I spent a good part of today reading this forum and browsing the Web. Without going too deep, ToodleDo Gold or Plus is the best solution for me. Priacta rates it the highest in the class, and I have been using it so long we are like an old married couple. I looked at a bunch of alternatives and none of those is optimum for me. I am set in my habits and don't want to export 2,000 tasks and notes and learn a new system. None of the alternatives is exactly like ToodleDo. My Gold subscription runs into next year, and I just bought a lifetime plus subscription from StackSocial for $40 that supposedly is good for five years. After that, I have to contact support at StackSocial to have it renewed, apparently at no cost. But if it turns out to be another $40 no big deal. ToodleDo is worth that. Here is the deal -->> https://stacksocial.com/sales/toodledo-plus-lifetime-subscription I am running the two subscriptions in parallel, backing up one weekly and copying it to the other. When the Gold expires, I will simply delete that and continue with the 5-Year Plus. I like ToodleDo as is, and if they never make a change or feature enhancement, I will be satisfied with that. I also use the iOS app on an iPad Pro, and that is fine too. As long as the current owner, or StackSocial, or someone else keeps the ToodleDo server running for ten years or so, I will be happy. Let's hope that happens. People complaining and asking for more features and making life difficult for the new developers won't help save ToodleDo. Use what we have, be glad we have it, and hope that the server stays up. And make lots of local backups in case it does not -- including CSV. I do this weekly like doing my wash and it takes just a few seconds. It is the first task on my calendar every Saturday morning. Those who switch to Milk Remembering or ToDoist or Marvin or whatever are wished well. But I like ToodleDo and that's my story. the lifetime subscription does it work over a current silver one? |
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