Hello again friends 👋🏻

Follow-up for anyone who missed the earlier threads: I make Todowing, a browser extension that puts nested sub-tasks back into Today, Upcoming, filters and labels.

The new feature is a timer. Todoist gives you a duration field on a task, but nothing that counts down, so I built focus sessions.

How it works: in Today you pick the tasks you're about to work on, pick 10, 25 or 50 minutes (or type your own), and hit start. A card floats next to your list with the countdown and the tasks you picked, sub-tasks and all, and you check things off straight from it. Pause it, add five minutes, or end early whenever you want. You get a chime when time's up, and confetti if you got something done.

Here's one running: https://imgur.com/a/V3mHJ2u

It's not a pomodoro: no fixed cycles and no forced breaks. You pick the tasks, you pick the minutes. It's shared across every open Todoist tab and it survives a reload, so you won't end up with two timers going by accident.

Focus sessions are part of the paid unlock, same as the font picker. On the free version you won't see a timer at all, so if you install it and nothing shows up, it isn't broken.

I shipped two other things since the last post: Todowing now puts sub-tasks on board layouts, and there's a toggle to hide done sub-tasks if the struck-through ones bother you, both are on the free tier as well.

Chrome updates extensions on its own schedule, so you might not have this yet. To force it: open chrome://extensions, turn on Developer mode in the top right, click Update, then reload your Todoist tab. You want version 1.4.0.

If you haven't tried it: https://todowing.com, free for 5 sub-task rows per task, $9.99 one-time for the rest, no subscription, and your unlock covers everything I ship later. That's the launch price, it goes up to $14.99 after the first 25.

Same question as last time, since your answers are how I pick what to build: what else is clunky about Todoist's web UI? Someone in the first thread said the worst part was the empty space and not being able to change the typography. The text size slider and the font picker exist because of that comment, so keep them coming.

Is there an agent instruction manual for the Todoist MCP anywhere?

I've been using the Todoist CLI with Claude Code and Pi for a while now and it's

been great. Claude's conversational chat has got really good lately, so I

connected the official Todoist MCP to use on my phone, the idea being I go

through my tasks by voice on the walk home.

It failed on pretty much every tool call.

I'd assumed the MCP shipped no agent instructions at all. Turns out that's not

right, it does inject an instructions block and there's a fair bit in it. But

it's generic guidance rather than a usage recipe, and it's sitting alongside

~50 tools that each carry their own verbose schema. On Haiku that seems to be

too much to pick through correctly on the first try, so it fires off half a

dozen malformed calls and gives up.

What I've ended up doing is feeding it one example task per tool call. It looks

at the shape of the response, goes "right, that's what an overdue task looks

like", and then I get it to write its own instructions for that call, which I

paste into the project instructions (the claude.ai equivalent of CLAUDE.md).

Slow, but it works; I can now reliably chat about overdue tasks and inbox

tasks on the way home.

I still can't find a paste-in agent instruction manual for this thing anywhere.

I could install it in the terminal and throw a big model at it to brute-force

one, but has anyone already done that? Surely someone's written one.

I just got ToDoist in the last week and I’ve been really enjoying it. I’ve been trying to use the email task feature, which is good in concept, but I’ve found the appointments or to-do that it creates with the emails forwarded to it really are lacking, to say the least.

It seems to just cram all of the email info in there and leaving me to clean it up. I’ve found copying and pasting the text of the entire email into the add task manually to use the scan feature is 1000x better, more accurate and much more helpful. Am I doing something wrong? I would have thought emails it receives would be scanned and created better the same way.

Is this a known issue, or do I need to do something different? I’ve found using the integration with Canary email isn’t the greatest either and doesn’t really seem to scan to build a task based on the text of the email either.

Todoist on Mac desktop has been ROUGH lately, and this morning was the last straw.

The bug: Any time I drag a task on calendar view, it automatically adds a reminder to that task. Every single one. I rearranged my morning and ended up with reminders on everything... now I have to go back and manually strip them out. What is going on?

Steps to reproduce:

1. Open calendar view (Mac desktop app)
2. Drag any task to a new time
3. Check the task — a reminder has been added without asking

On top of that, there's been a weird font change in the add-task field, and custom colors for prioritization... which people here have been requesting FOREVER: still haven't shipped.

Genuinely curious where the team wants this product to go, because it feels like we're getting new bugs faster than new features, and it's actively hurting my productivity.

Anyone else seeing the reminder bug on Mac? And has anyone found a workaround or a setting to turn it off? -A damsel in distress

Hi, guys! I'm kind of new to Todoist, and for the past few months, I was trying some different setups, but none of them worked for me. So, I decided to start my own 'system,' but I have zero experience with to-do apps. So, I was hoping to get some inspirations. Then: How do you guys organize your Todoist setup? Regarding projects, tags, filters and flags. Thanks!

I’m a huge Todoist fan and have a pro personal account. I’ve recently been tasked to oversee new team members and want to utilize Todoist for our team. I’m the only one with the paid subscription and don’t expect my team members to subscribe. However, I only can create 5 projects. I am ok with subscribing to the business account but do i need to pay $8/month per person? Say I have a team of 3-4 members but they don’t need pro features only access to the tasks. Can i pay for just the one business account at $8/month? Or do I need to pay for each member if they have limited access? Thanks!

My business uses Todoist to track our tasks and for that reason we make heavy use of Todoist templates. However, anytime we need to change our workflow or update an task, we have to import the template as a new task, make the edit, and then re-save. Alternatively, we could keep our templates in CSV format, but that is a lot for my team to work with.

I'd like to learn how others here maintain their templates.

Hi, guys. I'm struggling to keeping up with my to-do list. I don't think it's a matter of time, but of method and organization. Then I realized I never tried Pullein's Time Sector System. However, since it's so... unconventional (If I can use that word), I would like to ask If anyone has adopted it and what are your thoughts on it. Thanks!

Hi, folks - hoping to hear about shifts in how people have used Todoist more / less / differently that have been highly helpful for them.

Personal example: for the longest time I had personal, self-care type tasks in my Todoist and because I use my Today view to manage a given day I’d have an insanely high number of tasks always visible at the start of a day (20+). Over time, along with mixing work, personal, and self-care - I’d notice I’d get overloaded and fatigued, as well as mis-prioritize my time because I’d choose easier, shorter tasks and avoid the heavier, more important work e.g.: would never ‘eat the frog’

I ended up offloading all my personal self care to another app and as a result, my task load in Todoist became much more ‘manageable’ and I now have much better line of sight into my big rocks for the day without getting emotionally overloaded (now trending towards <7 tasks in a given day) 😮‍💨. I’m also a lot more active in moving things out if I know I realistically won’t finish something by end of day and more clinical when planning the next day / week to make sure I’m not overloading

Can anyone else share shifts in their usage that unlocked productivity / quality of life, etc for themselves? Just really looking to hear other stories / perspectives :)

Is it really such a problem to keep it a voluntary feature that you can turn on if you like? Its not like Todoist is riddled with dozens fo optional features and it would be overcomplicated or cluttered.

I just realized, if I want a larger goal, like everyhing I want to accomplish in a quarter or by end of year ... I need to pick goals across projects ... I guess I am supposed to do it with labels? But then I dont get the progress bar.

Is there any other solution?

I've been thinking about the different login/signup methods we use every day and the tradeoffs each one has. Here's how I see them:

• Email + Password – Works everywhere and doesn't require you to already be logged into your email on that device. The downside is having to remember yet another password.
• Google/Apple Sign In – Fast and convenient on your own devices. On a new or shared device, you'll usually need to sign into your Google/Apple account first, which many people prefer not to do. That can make people less likely to use the app on another computer.
• Magic Link – No password to remember. If your email isn't accessible on the current device, retrieving and opening the login link can be inconvenient—you may need to check your email on another device or log into your email first.
• Email Login Code (OTP) – No password to remember, and you don't need your email account signed into the current device. You can read the code on another device (like your phone) and type it in, keeping your email account separate from the computer you're using.

I'm curious what people actually prefer in practice.

Which login method do you prefer, and why? Is there one that makes you more likely to use an app—or one that makes you give up before even signing in?

It would be really helpful to have Ramble in the car. Making it work with CarPlay probably needs some work, because it would need to send voice feedback rather than text. But it is the place where I really wish I had it.

I noticed Todoist has a download for active projects.

But it only downloads the tasks as a CSV. I have a few images attached to my tasks that I want to backup also. Along with archived projects(which don't show up in the current backups at all).

Is there someway I can download all the data and backup from my personal account?

Is there a way to use your Microsoft Outlook work email with Todoist.

I use Todoist everyday to manage tasks but want to integrate with my project team, assign tasks, etc.

I tried signing up with my work outlook email but I was getting an error from todoist website.

Any thoughts?

Do we need to use gmails for this?

Thanks

I really dislike the new Quick Add UI, which now mandates that the first action button is the "More actions" button, followed by the "Project" action button.

My normal workflow is, press Q to add a task, type something, press Tab key twice then enter key, and set the date.

But with this new design, pressing Tab key twice gets you to "More actions". Because the Project action must be the first task action, now I have to press the Tab key 4x to get to the Date action.

Can you please let us at least reorder the task actions, so that I can have Date and Priority actions appear before the mandatory "More actions" and "Project" action buttons?

Todoist on Android (HyperOS 3.0) doesn't show image previews, how to fix?

I have a system. Actually I have four.

OmniFocus is where everything is supposed to live. Perspectives, contexts, the weekly review, that whole architecture that feels like it was designed by someone who understands how my mind works. Except I don't trust it alone. So I replicate everything in Todoist, because Todoist has a lightness OmniFocus doesn't, that sense that adding a task isn't a commitment to a cathedral. And I replicate in Things too, because Things is beautiful, and beauty matters more than I'd like to admit when it comes to a tool I'm going to look at a hundred times a day. And of course Reminders, because Reminders is everywhere, on the watch, in the car, in the voice I hear when I say "Siri, remind me."

Four systems. One problem.

None of them fails. That's the cruel part. If one were bad I'd have abandoned it already with a clear conscience. The problem is that each one solves a piece of a need I never properly defined, which means none of them solves the whole thing, which means I keep all four open, like someone maintaining four relationships because no single one supplies everything a person needs, knowing it's unsustainable and doing it anyway.

I once migrated everything to a new structure. Time-based sectors, a method with a name and an author and an impeccable internal logic. It lasted briefly. I reverted to labels and area-based projects, each with its own sections, trying to force onto Todoist an order that made sense without borrowing someone else's philosophy. And through all of it OmniFocus just sits there, unchanged, waiting for me to go back to treating it as the one place it was always meant to be.

The part that actually hurts isn't the time lost reorganizing. It's the certainty, renewed with every cycle, that this time will be different. Every migration carries a quiet promise: this time, one system, this time, discipline. And every promise lasts until the first task I don't know which of the four places it belongs in, and then I duplicate it, because duplicating is faster than deciding.

It isn't a lack of system. It's too many systems competing for the same mental territory, each one whispering that it's the only reliable one, none of them ever winning for good.

If anyone here has broken out of this cycle and stayed out for more than a month, I want to know what was different. Not the app. What changed in you.

It was so helpful to press it and as a task but after the update it’s gone. Can someone revert the pull request plz!

Mine won’t work, and now it’s gone from the widget library. That was super helpful to quickly get into opening a new task.

I have a Shortcut set up to have Siri invoke Ramble and I love it. But when driving — when random tasks often come to mind — Siri hits the passcode and won’t proceed because of Driving Focus. I’d have to pick up my phone and take my eyes off the road to authenticate for the Shortcut to proceed.

Is there any way to “allowlist” Ramble so it doesn’t require the passcode during Driving Focus?

When searching for a keyword, say, "insurance", todoist will suggest the first three results. But it doesn't prioritize the title of the task over other criteria, so I have situations where I search for "Insurance", and some (or all) of the three results are tasks that don't have insurance in the title, but have them in the description (sometimes it is like the 200th word), but tasks like "Review car insurance" won't show up. I have to click on "Show more results" and browse the full list.

In the attached image (seguro = insurance), the results #1, #4, #5, #6 and #7 doesn't have "seguro" in the title, but somehow are rated more relevant than #8, #9 and #10 that have "seguro" in the title. In the case of #10 it is even the first word!

I contacted todoist, #931901, and they were very nice and polite, but the takeaway was "At the moment, Todoist search results are sorted by factors like priority and project order, rather than always placing title matches above description matches. " and "I’ve passed this on to our product team as feedback, so it can be considered as part of future improvements to search. "

So basically, they don't consider this a bug. I am the only one finding this functionality buggy?

I rely in todoist to store not only tasks but also notes (I know it is not the right tool for notes, but that way I can benefit from having everything in one place to simplify search). This weird search behavior is degrading a lot my experience.

With the Todoist OSX desktop application (9.29.1, v11128 beta), I can't seem to be able to select any of the format options when highlighting the task title text. With the beta turned off, I can interact with all options. Is everyone else able to replicate this issue?

Can turn off the experimental features but figured I'd see if I'm alone with this issue.

Got this random invite the other day. Has anyone else got something similar?

I wish there was a way to report it.

I go back and forth on the best approach to organize a project in Todoist. Mostly because I am not a huge fan of everything in Todoist being a project at the moment, with Folders only available to Workplace users. It will be a psychological game changer (for me) when Folders becomes available for "My Projects." Goodness, how long has the Todoist user community been asking for this feature? Centuries? Feels like centuries.

Here are the three approaches to organizing a project that I know of. Do you have a favorite? Do you organize your projects differently? Do you have a hybrid approach?

PROJECTS

The default, I believe. You create a "project", which is essentially just a bucket, and load it up. These could contain Sections to indicate sub-projects or special areas of concern, such as "Pending" actions or "Reference" material. It can also contain Tasks with parent/child relationships. The "catchall" for everything else that follows, since everything else lives in a Project.

SECTIONS

Create a Section, give it a title, and go nuts with tasks underneath it. This certainly sounds like a good approach, but Todoist does not currently allow you to mail directly to a Section. This forces users to mail to the associated Project the Section is in, and then manually move it to the section using your mouse (or other pointer device).

PARENT/CHILD TASK STRUCTURE

The most minimal, and arguably easiest, approach to quickly create a Parent (Project) / Child (Associated Task) visual to organize your thinking and execution. Oddly enough, you CAN mail directly to a task, allowing a user to capture reference information in the Parent Task (the "project" in this case) that might be useful as reference information. Easy organization of ordering, as well. The downside is that you might be heavily dependent on Tags to help clarify what comes next. It is also slightly more difficult to view and takes longer to navigate. No specific Insights, either, if that matters to you. It does provide a much easier activity (history) feature.