A Simple To-Do App: TickTick
There are approximately a gazillion ways to track tasks and to-dos, and many of those are software or applications. Which one is the best to-do app? The one that you use! Task management would ideally incorporate your work, professional, and personal to-do lists because your ability to effectively manage your time is only realistic if you can see everything you need to do. TickTick is an interesting and lightweight to-do app that can be on your phone, your computer, in your browser. There is a free version and a more advanced paid version. How can TickTick help you track all your to-dos?
TickTick was launched in 2013, derived from the first iteration called GTasks that synchronized with Google Tasks. The product supports task lists, as well as a calendar, time tracking with a Pomodoro Timer, a habit tracker, a Countdown, and an Eisenhower Matrix. There are apps for Mac, Windows, iOS, Linux, plus browser extensions. It also runs in the browser. In other words, TickTick is available on all your devices so you can easily add and view tasks at any time, synchronizing your list across all devices.
The basic version of TickTick is free, while the Premium version costs $36 per year. The Premium plan offers multiple calendar views, including a Gantt-like timeline, calendar subscriptions, more lists, and integrations with Outlook, iCloud, and Google calendars, Notion, Zapier, IFTTT, Gmail and Outlook mail, Slack, and more. You can add tasks via email as well. Using a different task manager? You can import tasks from Todoist, Microsoft ToDo, Things, Toodledo, iCal, and OmniFocus.
Getting Started
Any time you subscribe to or download a new application the first step is to go into the settings to check out the options you have for customization and integration. Once you have created a login for TickTick, open the app and click on your avatar/nickname and set up 2-step verification. If you use a third-party authenticator app, such as Google Authenticator, ensure that you download the backup codes to your password manager in case you ever get locked out of your account and/or lose your phone.
In Settings – Features you can turn on options like Calendar, Eisenhower Matrix, Habit Tracker, Pomodoro Timer, and Countdown. If you don’t plan to use them just toggle them off. Habit Setter and Pomodoro have more customization settings. For instance, you can change timer option durations and autostart options.
In Settings – Notifications you can set up daily notifications, web reminders, and even email notifications of tasks. Under Settings – More set up smart recognition for dates, tags, and integrations.
Adding Tasks
One of the nice things about TickTick tasks is that they can be as simple or complex as you care to make them. You can create a running list of tasks for your work, personal, and professional development with or without deadlines. Or you can create lists to house several types of tasks or projects. For each task, you can add deadlines, flags for urgency, tags, and attachments. You can also add task templates. You can add formatting to tasks, including bullet list, bold, italics, highlights, headings, and hyperlinks.
There are multiple ways to add tasks. In addition to adding a task in the app, desktop, or browser version, you can add tasks by voice input, use a widget on Windows or your mobile device, or set up the ability to add tasks via email from Outlook or Gmail by forwarding the email to a unique address. The emails will appear in your Inbox in TickTick, and you can then add flags, deadlines, and move the task as appropriate.
Creating Lists
Create lists for projects or to group like tasks. In Lists you can view your tasks in a timeline, as a Kanban board, or just a straightforward list of tasks. You can also create task templates and duplicate task lists. Tasks can also have subtasks and parent tasks to get granular and help break down a project into discrete action items and dependencies. You can share lists with others by clicking on Share. You will need to enable an invite link. The person you are sharing with will need to sign up for a TickTick account, so consider how you may use this in a work setting.
Adding Notes
In addition to tasks, you can also create Notes lists. TickTick describes Notes as a way to summarize and store knowledge, versus adding tasks that can be checked off when completed and used for time or goal management.
Create a new List and choose “Note List” in the List Type. For instance, you could create a list of CLE ideas. Or social media posts, etc. Or you can create meeting notes. Or “week in review”. You can create notes templates too.
In TickTick you can add desktop sticky notes as well. Right click on a task in the desktop version or click on the … menu and choose “Open as Sticky Note”. Then if you have a task that needs to stay in your line of sight you can “stick” it on your desktop.
Eisenhower Matrix
Need help prioritizing your tasks? Open the Eisenhower Matrix and move the task to one of four quadrants – Urgent and Important; Not Urgent & Important; Urgent & Unimportant; Not Urgent & Unimportant. This will automatically color code your task by red, orange, blue, and green. It is a nice way to help you really decide what to work on in a day, no matter what the deadline.
Pomodoro and Focus
For a task you can start a “Pomo” (a specified period of time to focus on a task) or start a stopwatch. This helps you track your time and reduce distractions or at least acknowledge when you start and stop a task due to distractions.
Conclusion
TickTick can be as simple or as complex as you want it to be. It has quite a number of handy features and is well suited to be a great personal or small group task management tool. For $35 a year it is worth subscribing to the Premium version so you can get immersed in using it without enforced limitations. This Beginner’s Guide is a great way to understand the product, or just get started making sure you capture all your tasks as they happen.