The Task Manager Era

At its core, a task manager is pretty straightforward—it’s just a list of things you need to get done that you check off as you go. You could pull this off with a pencil and paper, but productivity enthusiasts have taken this simple concept and run with it.

What seems like just jotting down tasks and checking them off actually opens up a whole world of possibilities.

The predecessors of digital task managers were paper planners, which people still use to this day. There’s even been a hipster-influenced revival of these analog methods lately—everything from pocket-sized Moleskines to more elaborate systems like Bullet Journaling.

When it comes to apps, the big name worth mentioning is Wunderlist, which Microsoft eventually bought up and basically ruined. I spent years using Wunderlist until I was forced to jump ship.

While hunting for a replacement, I stumbled upon Todoist, which is what I’m using now and honestly, it just clicks for me. I’ll dive deeper into Todoist specifically in another post.

Now, let’s get into why I actually use a task manager.

Why I Use a Task Manager

Like I mentioned earlier, task managers boil down to writing down what needs doing, setting deadlines, and marking things complete. They’re basically reminders for activities we need to tackle.

The reason I lean on this system is because I don’t want to let anything slip through the cracks, and because I’m a big believer in much of the GTD methodology.

If you haven’t heard of GTD, it’s a personal productivity organizational system created by David Allen, who laid out the framework in his book Getting Things Done.

The GTD system lays out a set of rules to follow—which I won’t break down here—but they all aim toward one specific goal that I find pretty eye-opening.

According to David Allen, your mind should be completely free from reminders and to-do lists. Instead of storing all that stuff, it should focus on actually doing the work. That’s why it’s crucial to dump everything pending into a list.

This is the core reason I’ve chosen to use a task manager. My mind needs to zero in exclusively on the work at hand. Everything else gets thrown into a task manager, which for me is Todoist.

The Task Manager in Daily Life

In my day-to-day routine, whenever I come across something that needs doing, I pop it into Todoist—sometimes from my computer, other times straight from my phone.

With Todoist, I can sort tasks into different categories. I’ve set up a bunch of them—some personal, others work-related, and a few for different areas of my life. I can also flag the priority level and schedule when I’ll tackle it. On top of that, I can set up recurring tasks that need doing daily, weekly, monthly, or whatever frequency I need.

Then, each morning, I review what’s on my plate for the day and… I just get it done! I don’t worry about anything else.

That’s pretty much it. I hope this post has given you some insight into what task managers are and how they might help you out. They’re essential for me, and I’d definitely recommend giving them a shot.

Catch you next time!

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