{"id":23095,"date":"2026-07-18T18:45:35","date_gmt":"2026-07-18T17:45:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/innovatenews.site\/index.php\/2026\/07\/18\/i-replaced-my-to-do-app-with-this-open-source-tool-and-im-never-going-back\/"},"modified":"2026-07-18T18:45:42","modified_gmt":"2026-07-18T17:45:42","slug":"i-replaced-my-to-do-app-with-this-open-source-tool-and-im-never-going-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/innovatenews.site\/index.php\/2026\/07\/18\/i-replaced-my-to-do-app-with-this-open-source-tool-and-im-never-going-back\/","title":{"rendered":"I replaced my to-do app with this open-source tool, and I'm never going back"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The topic I replaced my to-do app with this open-source tool, and I’m never going back<\/strong> is currently the subject of lively discussion \u2014 readers and analysts are keeping a close eye on developments.<\/p>\n

This is taking place in a dynamic environment: companies\u2019 decisions and competitors\u2019 reactions can quickly change the picture.<\/p>\n

Over the years, I’ve tried out basically every productivity app that’s out there. Todoist, Any.do, basic Apple Notes, etc.\u2014the list goes on and on. And they all usually worked for a short time until they became something I forgot to use or ignored. The apps would usually help me make a list of things I needed to do, but they ended up becoming collections of tasks that didn’t actually help me get things done.<\/p>\n

Super Productivity breaks the mold on that front. It’s more than just a task list. It prompts you if you’ve been idle for too long, has a built-in Pomodoro timer, and provides full task management in a single, compact app. Its lightweight nature is a tremendous bonus when I’m working on an already bloated machine, and the combination of features means Super Productivity can easily replace multiple apps.<\/p>\n

I’ve read numerous books that advocate tracking time to improve productivity. In theory, if you understand where your time goes, you can better organize your workday. I’ve tried doing that a lot, but it ends up becoming a massive headache. Super Productivity removes any hoops you might need to jump through and makes it easy to track time spent on a story; all you have to do is click the Play icon next to the task name.<\/p>\n

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You can see the amount of time you’ve spent on a task on that specific day, and how long you’ve worked without a break. You can also set estimates for how long a task might take, and it will show a sort of “countdown” towards that time limit. Personally, I found that to create more stress, so I rarely used it.<\/p>\n

But the overall time tracking? That proved helpful, and I was able to gauge how much time a specific type of task might take and better plan my day around it.<\/p>\n

Super Productivity is available across basically every platform you could possibly ask for, including iOS, Android, macOS, Windows, and Linux. As I’ve said before, I often work on multiple devices, switching between a PC and a Mac throughout the average workday. Thanks to its syncing features, I can keep my to-do list synchronized and up to date across all of my platforms with ease.<\/p>\n

There are numerous sync options, including SuperSync, Dropbox, Nextcloud, OneDrive, and more, although some aren’t recommended because their support has been deprecated. I’d recommend Dropbox or Nextcloud; both are stable options with strong communities that can help you out if you run into issues.<\/p>\n

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Super Productivity is impressive for its wealth of features, but it’s completely usable without diving deep into its smaller aspects. I don’t create intricately detailed lists; I just use its settings to track my to-do list for the day and monitor how long I spend on each. One aspect of it I do appreciate, though, is how customizable it is. I can set it to pivot between Dark and Light mode (or just use whatever the system mode is, which is, of course, dark), and I can select individual themes. There are 16 by my count, though that’s just on macOS; there might be more on Windows or other platforms. Of all these, the Rainbow theme was my favorite, color-wise \u2014 but it unfortunately set the text to Comic Sans, so it had to go.<\/p>\n

There are also a lot of plugins you can work with, including those that sync markdown files so you can import your task list right into your Obsidian vault. There are several official plugins, as well as quite a few community-made plugins. They do different things, though many of the more recent ones focus on AI functionality.<\/p>\n

Want to build habits or track the progress of your existing ones? Here are some cool ways to go about it on your PC.<\/p>\n

Super Productivity is tremendously helpful. The app’s prompting helps with distraction; it pops up and asks whether I’m working or taking a break if I’ve left it idle for too long, which helps combat the urge to endlessly doomscroll instead of writing. At the same time, though, there are a lot of features and options inside Super Productivity, and that can be a lot to take in if you’re looking for a more straightforward to-do list app. In that case, something like Todoist \u2014 which just lists the items with the option to set recurring tasks \u2014 might be a better pick.<\/p>\n

I’ve turned to this app quite a bit over the past couple of weeks. It helps me keep my days organized, and it gives me a better idea of how I’m actually spending my time. Those “quick Instagram breaks” add up fast when something is actually keeping track of them, and it has made it easy to see when a break goes on a minute or twenty too long.<\/p>\n

A free and open-source task managing app designed for freelancers and developers to help them structure and organize their work.<\/p>\n