Some of you might remember few weeks back I made this post asking the community for advice on a privacy friendly task management system. I received a lot of feedback and decided to try out Joplin, LunaTask, and Notesnook (was already using it for notes, but someone also suggested a notes app might be good enough for my use case).
I was coming from things 3. My use case was something minimal, aesthetic, cross platform (Windows, iOS, MacOS), with option for notifications, support for sub-tasks, E2EE, and FOSS.
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LunaTask
This is the app I used the least. Immediately when I launched it, I felt like it was very maximal for my liking and with a big emphasis on life and habits tracking (which is not something I need). I stopped using it before I could test everything, but it seems like a solid option for someone that likes this type of design and is looking for a more holistic task / life / habit tracking software. -
Joplin
I spent a lot of time with Joplin and really tried to make it work. It has some very nice perks to it which the community might appreciate (self-hostable, no account registration, FOSS, E2EE) however I found the design to be the exact opposite of LunaTask - too plain. Syncing across devices can be done relatively easily with nextcloud, dropbox, or by paying a monthly subscription to the Joplin team. At its core, this is a notes taking app with support for todos so the things you can do are very minimal: checklists, reminders (some times those didn’t work for me), to do compartmentalization basicaly by splitting your to dos across different notes etc.
Unfortunately the app just didn’t click for me (especially the iPhone app) so I didn’t end up using any method for syncing. If I was going to use it though, I would probably pay Joplin syncing monthly fee to support the team. -
Notesnook (what I will be using for the time being)
I settled for the simplicity of notesnook. In hindsight, its very similar to how Joplin handles task management, however the design, ease of syncing, and developer support is what tilted me towards this option. Plus I am already paying for a subscription.
It offers everything Joplin offers albeit with a better app design (in my opinion), and a slightly easier layout to get a quick view of everything that needs to be done.
For my personal task management system, I have 3 notes for 3 different aspects of my work:One note anything that has to do with client-related tasks (organized with headings and using table of contents to get a quick view), another for everything BD related, and the last one for notes on market research reports I have to read. Everything is organized under a task manager notebook.
I also have another note which I use for anything that is not yet categorized, and will try to see if there’s a way to shortcut in my phone for quick to-dos creation (something like a shortcut to open a specific note within my entire database).
When I started experimenting with these options, I never thought something as simple as a notes taking app would be the ideal task manager for me. But sometimes, the simplest solutions are the best ones. I urge you to give it a try before going with any fancy (and many times expensive) task management application.