For many years, I resisted the idea of making a to-do list. Even though to-do listing featured prominently in the personal development books I was reading, I couldn’t get myself to actually implement it. 

Eventually, my job description reached a level of complexity where to-do listing was no longer optional. I had no choice but to take the plunge.  

Excel

My first attempts were overly complex, involving Excel files listing different tasks with priority levels and estimated hours to completion. I managed to stick to it for a couple of years, but eventually had to concede that it took too much energy to maintain. 

Outlook

Next, I tried to just maintain a simple list in my Outlook calendar. This was simple and clean, but a little bit tedious to use as it lacked the functionality of a dedicated app. 

Momentum

Two years ago, I converted to a beautiful Chrome extension called Momentum. Unfortunately, it lacks the crucial functionality of specifying recurring tasks and syncing across all devices discussed yesterday.

Recurring tasks on Momentum can be achieved via integration with other apps in the paid version. I gave this a try, but found the integration to be rather unreliable and buggy. 

Google Tasks

So, eventually, I switched to Google Tasks. It lacks the beauty and inspiration offered by Momentum, but it has all the functionality required by a to-do list app. 

Google Tasks can be accessed next to various Google apps. I use it next to Google Sheets so that it is shown next to my long-term plan that I update on a monthly basis (we’ll get to that in a couple of months).

Like Momentum, this combination of Google Tasks and my long-term plan in Google Sheets can also be set to my default web page. Thus, it automatically becomes one of the first things I see every day. 

So, after many years of trial and error, Google Tasks came out on top. The main reason is the functionality of recurring tasks, which is crucial for unlocking our superpower of consistency. 

Tomorrow, we wrap up the topic of to-do listing with the weekly recap. See you then!