I don’t write software reviews often. It’s because I wrote a lot of reviews few years ago, when I worked in IT news websites as editor. Now have a lot of other things to do, but sometimes want to do an exception, because some software is worth to spend time for review. Good example is TickTick, “hero” of this post: small, but very nice app to manage tasks. I’ve used it for about a year and think, I can now write some words about it, also think it’s a good topic, because many people try to manage time, manage tasks and calendars, and there are a lot of similar tools. I’m minimalist and don’t need a lot of options, like asceticism and simplicity. You can find them on TickTick. One important information: it isn’t sponsored article, it’s my personal review.

Why I don’t use other apps?

It’s highly likely, that you didn’t hear about TickTick before – it isn’t so famous, it isn’t like Wunderlist / Microsoft To-Do, Todoist, Remember the Milk or Nozbe. I think TickTick will be more popular in future. I mentioned few apps, so you can ask me: why don’t you use them? They are on market for several years, have a lot of options, a lot of people use them and are happy. Yes, it’s true and… I really tried each of them. Each was not good for me. Some are too expensive for my usage, some display ads and premium reminders in free versions, some have too much options and are for managing big projects, not simple life, some need too much time to manage and don’t make my life easier. Also, some of them have ugly (for me) interface or issues with syncing / availability for platform which I use.

In simple words, TickTick is an app to manage our tasks. Like other apps, we can add tasks lists, then add tasks to each of them. Each task can have also subtasks and description. We can set priorities for tasks (one of four predefined, there is no option to edit priorities), attach files and tasks. It’s also available to add comments to task, not only by typing, but also by adding voice recording. These options are available in many apps, so it’s nothing special, but there are also some more interesting features. We can choose location for task and set app to notify us for example when we arrive or leave that place. It’s very nice option, simple example: we want to check something in store and add reminder to run when we will be in this store. Simple, but very useful.

Tasks, tasks everywhere

Tasks and tasks lists can be duplicated to simply copy big lists. There is also option to save list as new template, so if we want to do things with “patterns”, it’s a good way to do this (create list of steps, then run it each time when it’s necessary). Of course, we can also share our tasks – as text or image, or just invite external user to collaborate with us in list. Good option for family shopping or working on the same project with few people. Great option for me is ability to add lists folders. We can group lists and I use it for example to have all my year goals in one place: I created folder goals, and inside have separate lists for many things like Personal, Sport, Finance etc.

Of course, TickTick supports notifications. We can set due date (with time) for each task and set many reminders. Not only for one time, but also set duration. Tasks can be automatically repeated, it’s good option for everyday duties (I really prefer that for Duolingo strike). TickTick can also recognize what we type in tasks names and if we type an hour or date, can set due/reminder automatically. We can customize system notifications and also use daily alert about our main list. It’s next interesting feature: automatic lists. TickTick can show “smart lists” for example Today, Tomorrow, Next 7 Days, Assigned To Me and… our custom smart lists. Yes, we can create them using filters: by priority, list, date, tags and in advanced option, by logic rules using OR / AND conditions (great option for programmers).

Pomo, Kanban and other features

It’s all about tasks, but there are many other features. We can add habits to our lists: for example, morning exercises, water drinking etc. Each habit has frequency and days to monitor, we can also set our goal (for example: don’t drink beer for 30 days – yep, it’s possible!) and reminders. We can also integrate calendars in TickTick and display tasks for local or Google calendars. It’s impossible to edit them but having all lists in one app it’s still great thing. For people looking how to improve daily productivity: there is also a Pomo Timer to work with Pomodoro technique. You can specify intervals, tasks to do with this method, and browse your stats. In desktop version we can find another thing: Kanban view. Here you can create many columns and work with GTD method or similar.

Application is available for many platforms. We can use it on iOS, Android, Windows, MacOS and also from web version very similar to apps. Syncing works fine, except notifications – sometimes I set reminder on mobile, then mark task as done before reminder and… App on my MacBook can push alarm. It’s a problem, but I’ve already contacted support and they work to solve this issue. I decided to simply disable notifications on Mac app, because it’s for me only interface to add many tasks with notes in more comfortable way. I don’t need notifications on computer, because phone is always close, also TickTick can show number of tasks for today on taskbar. It’s enough for me.

I really recommend this app

As you can see, there are a lot of available options… but TickTick is still very simple to use – has also very simple widgets, so for me, it’s great app. There is additional motivation: every task completed on time = achievement points. More points = next levels with some bonuses like additional app themes. Small, but nice, and with penalties – if tasks are overdue, you will lose points. Overall, I can really recommend this app. Free version doesn’t have any ads, only some limits like max. 9 tasks lists, max 99 tasks in each list etc. I’ve used free version for about a year, now decided go to premium, because move more and more things to TickTick. Also, here you can find my referral link for app – feel free to use it.