Lately I have been finding it difficult to manage my work tasks on Todoist. My current set up involves a task manager (Todoist) coupled with a time blocking tool (Sunsama currently). I track all work and non-work tasks on Todoist. For work tasks, I tend to keep a few dedicated projects and filter views within the tool for work and non-work. But generally it's not working out as well as it should be.
There are many differences in my work and non-work tasks that make me feel that the same system can't work for both. Few points that I can recall right now:
- Work tasks have stronger deadline requirements than non-work. So my tendency to carryover tasks from past \(n\) days in non-work projects infects work ones too.
- Almost all the work tasks don't need time based reminders (like call home in 20 mins) and I could work things out in a planned ticket like manner. So a system where I go, rather than something that comes to me is better for work.
- My work tasks need better backlog management and some sort of medium term cycle planning. Few of my non-work projects also have that shape but simple lists like in Todoist work out since my head has better project management capabilities for personal projects.
I have now migrated my work tasks to Linear. Admittedly, using a full blown project management tool like Linear for single person use might be an overkill but let's see how it goes. Linear was my choice because it's snappy, very close to the way my developer brain would like to work, and had Sunsama integration. Jira was another option but only because rest of the company use it, and I don't exactly work within a team at my level so there was no point to pursue it.
While searching for alternatives I also tried to see if there is something that automates communication, follow ups, time planning, etc. using AI models of some sort. Height seemed to be closest in vision there but we will have to wait for their 2.0. Another one was Taskade but they have too much generative AI fluff. Honestly I am not bought into things like 'making subtasks with AI'. It's like writing a blog with AI: If what you have to write is generatable then you probably shouldn't be writing that anyway.
Anyway, one pleasant side effect of the this work-non-work separation is that the pressure on Todoist to manage more complexity has gone down significantly and I am finding it easier to be on top of all of my non-work tasks. I have a strong feeling that I would go back to a hyper-personal Org Mode setup again in a few quarters but for now I want to explore products 'built by others' and play around with some upcoming evolution in the solution space around task management.