Organisation
A to-do list where the items chase you
Most people do not have a capture problem. The list is full and largely accurate. What is missing is anything that happens when an item on it comes due, because a to-do app's only move is to sit there and wait to be opened.
Three ways a good list still fails you
None of these are organisation problems. Each of them happens on a list that is perfectly well maintained.
It waits to be opened
The item is there, dated correctly, in the right project. It does nothing on its own. Opening the app is itself a thing you have to remember, which is the problem you bought the app to solve.
Everything looks the same size
Renew the passport sits between buy milk and reply to Dan, in identical type, in date order. Nothing in the display says which of the three will cost you a fortnight if it slips.
The reminder was a banner
It did fire. It arrived on a lock screen at 14:00 with four other things, and it was cleared in the same gesture that cleared a delivery update.
The ordinary parts, done properly
Timelee is a complete to-do app before it is anything else. If these are not right, nothing built on top of them matters.
Four priority levels
Low, medium, high and urgent, raised or lowered straight from a row, with drag to reorder inside a level. Switch the dashboard to the priority view and the same list regroups into First, Then and Later.
Categories with live counts
Seven built in — Work, Personal, Meeting, Grocery, Home, Office and Shopping — plus your own. Filter to one and every day count recalculates to match.
Tags that cut across
Free text, yours, disposable. One task can be both a client job and an errand, and a tag is how you see a slice of everything at once.
Steps inside a task
A to-do can hold a checklist rather than being split into five separate items that lose their connection to each other.
Repeats that match the week
Everyday, weekdays, weekends, or the individual days switched on by hand, with an end condition so nothing keeps ringing after the thing is over.
Finished items are kept
Completed to-dos go to history instead of disappearing, so the record of what you did survives the satisfaction of ticking it.
And then the part a to-do list usually cannot do
Every item in Timelee carries its own delivery setting. Most of your list should stay on a plain alarm, because most of a list is not urgent and a tool that shouts about everything teaches you to ignore it.
The handful that matter can do more. An in-app call makes the phone ring full screen, so you look at the thing before you dismiss it. An escalation runs the alarm first and follows it with a call if you did not respond. For the two or three items a month that genuinely cannot slip, Timelee can place a real phone call to a number you have verified.
That is the whole difference between a list and a system. A list records the intention. A delivery setting is what happens when the intention meets a Tuesday afternoon.
- Delivery is chosen per item, not set once for the whole app
- Escalation is a response to silence — acknowledge it and nothing else is sent
- The quiet default keeps the loud channels meaningful
- Set on a laptop, delivered by your phone
A setup that survives contact with a real week
Five decisions. They take about ten minutes once and then stop needing your attention.
Two categories before six
Work and Personal will carry most people for months. Add a third when a real third thing exists rather than building the taxonomy first and the habit later.
Capture in one line
Type the task, add !high for priority, #bills for a tag and @work for a category on the same line, and press enter. Capture that stalls is capture that stops happening.
Date only what is genuinely dated
A date you invented becomes an overdue count you ignore. Leave the rest undated and let priority carry them.
Promote the two or three that matter
Go through the week and give a delivery channel to the small number of items where missing the moment is the real cost. Leave everything else alone.
Clear the backlog in one run
Focus mode puts whatever you are filtered to in front of you one item at a time and moves on with a keypress, which suits an overdue pile better than scrolling does.
What belongs on a list, and what needs more
- Undated, low stakes — leave it on the list with a priority and nothing else
- Dated but flexible — a plain alarm is enough, and it should stay that way
- Dated and tied to an hour somebody else controls — add a pre-alarm
- Something you have already missed twice — change the channel, not the wording
- A dose, a flight, a filing deadline — this is what escalation is for
- Something that is not yours alone — assign it and see whether it was accepted
A to-do list records what you meant to do. It is not, by itself, a plan for being reached.
The items that matter are the ones that need to survive the afternoon you forgot to open the app.
Keep the list. Give three of the items a way of reaching you.
Sign in with Google and bring your week across. The organisation is ordinary; what happens at the due time is not.
Keep reading
- Reminder prioritiesLow to urgent, and what each should mean.
- Reminder categoriesWork, home, grocery and your own.
- Reminder tagsFor the things categories cannot hold.
- How Timelee reaches youThe three rungs, and when each is right.
- Every Timelee featureThe full list, in one place.
- A to-do list that chases youThe everyday list, with a reminder that does not sit quietly.