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Microsoft To Do Is Awesome, and Helps Manage ADHD

· 13 min read
David
Chief Ranter in Chief

What is Microsoft To Do?​

I was originally going to rant here about frustrating or negative stuff, but I Microsoft publishes a free To Do app (actually a collection of web, desktop and mobile apps, plus it now backs To Dos in Outlook) that originated years ago as the Wunderlist app, which they bought, sunset, and converted the foundation over to what is now Microsoft To Do. It works with free personal Microsoft accounts, as well as business Microsoft Entra ID/365 accounts, and integrates with Microsoft 365 accounts to optionally let you see flagged emails and tasks assigned to you in Microsoft Planner alongside your own personal tasks. It's been such a great part of my life for several years now that I thought I'd provide a positive rant in the hope that it may be helpful to someone else!

High Level Overview​

I've never quite managed to solve the issue of staleness in to-do systems, but it's a significant problem! The systems that avoid stale data often don't hold enough information to be useful for supplementing the forgetting parts of my brain. Conversely, the ones that do hold enough data end up being ignored until some things get stale. However, Microsoft To Do has been a game-changer for me. It resurfaces enough tasks frequently enough, and the "My Day" view offers a manageable number of "do today" items (though I sometimes overestimate my capabilities!). This balance has made it the longest-lasting solution for me.

Occasionally, I do revisit old, stale items and find things I still need to do. I also maintain lists that are collections without due dates, such as "check out software X." These lists don't interfere with my main to-do items but are easily accessible when I need them, thanks to tags and search functionality. Microsoft To Do also serves as a quick brainstorming tool on my phone, and adding new tasks is a breeze.

Before Microsoft To Do, I stuck with Microsoft OneNote for the longest time, originally going back on around 20 years ago, just as OneNote moved from local-only application to cloud-backed (thus finally being available easily from mobile, as smart phones arrived and became popular!). OneNote's checklist functionality was incredibly user-friendly: Ctrl+1 added a checkbox, checked it, and removed it in a cycle. I could create lists, drag and drop to reorder, make sublists with tabs, and format text to emphasize urgent items. When overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of tasks, I'd create a new page, copy only the urgent items, and start fresh. This method worked for a while, but the mobile app proved too cumbersome for quick use. Eventually, I tried other apps, stuck with Toodledo for a while, also tested Todoist and a vast number of others (because of course, trying new apps is more fun than doing the items inside!), and finally transitioned to Microsoft To Do after it was developed from Microsoft's acquisition of Wunderlist.

My Day: The Feature​

The headlining feature for me in managing my tasks with Microsoft Do is the "My Day" view. It's a feature I've not seen duplicated elsewhere, though it's very simple: A special list that resets to empty every single night at midnight. I really hate deleting a to-do item, or acknowledging that I might not get something done, or even picking through the very long list of items I have to choose from at any given time, to focus on a few. With other task list apps, I would accumulate items until my list was so large I would just start using another app from scratch to avoid cleaning up the old items that I couldn't bear to delete (and lose them) or mark complete (if I hadn't, but to keep them around for reference), or even to move them to a someday list!

Microsoft To Do forces the issue. I don't have to pick what not to do each day, I have to proactively pick what to do. It does helpfully suggest things I might want to add back to my list, either because of the due date, or because I had them on yesterday's My Day list and didn't complete them. But the My Day list ends up much shorter and I can more easily find the things that need work today, without seeing past and future things I do want to track but don't have the mental space for, and would otherwise be paralyzed in the endless lists of possible items!

I absolutely do lose track of things I really intended to, and still need to, do. But I also make a ton of progress on finishing the things I have the capacity for, and it's much harder for me to forget entirely that an item does need to get done. If an item stays undone for a few days, there's at least a strong chance I didn't need to do it as much as I thought I did, but it's more likely to be because I've seen it and decided other things were more important than I entirely forgot the item existed.

ADHD​

I told you this would relate to how To Do helps manage ADHD. The whole thing, recalling what needs to be done from the highest to the lowest levels of priority, is really relevant, but the My Day list has been an excellent allowance for tempering and balancing my ADHD tendencies to collect too many tasks, not being able to prioritize among a long list of to-dos well, forgetting things quickly when not in front of me, liking to collect and not delete things, underestimating the time it will take to complete things. This has made it the longest-lasting solution for me (several years now!) since using OneNote similarly for a while, but that was more free-form.

My Lists​

What does my Microsoft To Do look like? I'm not going to share the individual to-do items, but I'll share a partially-redacted list of my collections and lists where I collect both "lists" and "to-dos." This is un-edited, and in reading through it for redaction, I actually realize that a few of these I could probably consolidate or do without because I don't use them as intended, ha! I'll probably do that in the future. But it's a good overview of how I'e organized Microsoft To Do at a high level, and I always add new items to the correct list (or if I add them from My Day, I immediately drag to the correct list on desktop, or swipe-to-move on mobile--it says on the My Day list for the day if created there, as well!). Tasks that are collections more than todos generally don't get a due date. Here's what the left-column of my To Do looks like:

List of the Microsoft To Do collections and individual sub-lists that I use personally.

Other Options​

In the last few months, these are some of the to-do/scheduling/time-blocking apps I've tried or am trying, to supplement To Do's limitations mostly, not replace it. I like both, but haven't fully switched to either of them. This is in addition to the notes I made about OneNote earlier, which I used before To Do even existed (and frankly, before Wunderlist was created!).

NotePlan​

Recently (as in about two months ago), I discovered NotePlan through a recommendation. NotePlan is a Markdown-based to-do and note app with scheduling features. Initially hesitant to try or pay for it, I realized it was included in my SetApp subscription (referral link). I installed it and have started experimenting with it. It might not become my main to-do app, but it could solve some meeting note issues I have with OneNote, especially as I'm transitioning to Markdown for notes. VS Code, with a few extensions, has also been impressive for Markdown. It's lack of integration with Microsoft To Do and some of the shortcuts I need to learn to fully utilize it has kept me from adopting it fully, though I've used it off and on for several weeks and still like a lot of things about it. It excellent mobile and desktop apps.

Sunsama​

I've was also recently told about an app called Sunsama (referral link) that I'm trialing, and as of this writing have not purchased. It does integration with Microsoft and Google email and calendars, has a heavy focus on daily tasks including scheduling and time-blocking, but although it integrates with Todoist, it does not yet integrate with Microsoft To Do.

The Sunsama feature ideas board has the most votes of any idea on this integration (second-most are for Google Tasks integration), and it sounds like perhaps they will add this within the next year. If so, this feel more likely to be useful to me. In the meantime I struggle with figuring out how to undo marking an item complete if I check one off accidentally, the mobile app is not as fully featured as the desktop or web versions, and it does not integrate with Microsoft To Do which causes a lot of duplication. However, Microsoft To Do does not offer the levels of calendar integration, time-blocking, or email-linking features I would love to see added.

Superlist​

I have only used this a bit here and there, but a somewhat new entry in the to do list marketplace is Superlist, which is notable because it's from the original creator of Wunderlist, a new venture after selling Wunderlist to Microsoft that eventually became To Do, as I mentioned. It's not something I've fully embraced, but it's a bit more in-depth, adds even more sharing features, a lot more free-form tasks and editing, and also introduces syncing with other services, including Microsoft To Do lists if you want, which is quite handy! I've only tested this a bit, and I don't know if it's for me, but I'm keeping an eye on it, and I do sometimes create specific short-term lists for packing and such in Superlist separately. So far I've only used the free version. The integrations are impressive (email, Google, Microsoft, GitHub, Slack, and more, some just in the Pro version) and the founder clearly understands todo lists. Worth a look, but To Do seems a bit cleaner and faster for my needs today.

Amazing Marvin​

I've heard good things about the to do application Amazing Marvin for tracking to dos and projects in an ADHD-friendly way. There's only a paid version, and I'm not sure that it has integrations that would be helpful to me, but it sounds pretty amazing (it's even in the name!). This is on my list to check out, but I thought I'd mention it here in case it stands out to you and you have time to look into it before I do!

The Good and The Bad​

Pros​

In the meantime, I've not found a better todo management system than Microsoft To Do, in part because of these main positive features:

  • The "My Day" view offers a manageable number of "do today" items that forces a daily reset.
  • It's quick to open and use, making it well-suited to serve as a quick brainstorming/to-do capture tool on my phone and computer.
  • I can organize hierarchical lists of tasks, some of which may be collections and some which may be tasks.
  • It suggests daily tasks with a somewhat smart algorithm help repopulate "My Day" view each day, but requires my confirmation.
  • Tags, due dates, reminders, sub-tasks, and starred items are balanced in an easy-to-understand and fast-to-use (but any of these can be ignored if you don't want/need to use or think about them!) interface while remaining quite powerful.
  • Surprisingly (because I tend to care about text more), I love the ability to name lists in To Do with an emoji icon as the first character, which is displayed very nicely and visually makes the lists easy to select visually. You can see examples of this in the screenshot of my collections and lists above!
  • You can optionally add a note (URLs become links automatically) or attach a file or image to a task for later reference, which is incredibly useful for tracking the source of todos, ongoing informal progress in a longer task, or information about necessary information to complete a task (I often link to a help desk ticket URL if I need a reminder to complete a particular ticket later, for example).

Cons​

The main cons I've found with Microsoft To Do are:

  • There's no integration between Outlook for macOS and To Do, making linking to an email that opens in Outlook impossible (you can create a task from Outlook in To Do but it opens the email in OWA on the web, and you can't create the task in the To Do app and link to an email easily after the fact).
  • Microsoft Copilot for Office 365 cannot add/see/manipulate To Do items, which is substantially limiting in my efforts to test and use Copilot AI.
  • There's no ability to add tasks to a calendar or time-block tasks if I wanted to, which would be a nice shortcut for scheduling some items.
  • The macOS desktop app keeps my todo list in front of my all day, but does not support multiple Microsoft accounts (like work and personal), though the iOS app has been updated to support multiple accounts. (However, you have to intentionally switch on the mobile app, which makes it harder to use two accounts easily.)
  • It does not support Markdown, which would be a nice bonus.
  • You cannot easily from the apps (mobile or desktop) obtain a link to a given task item for linking back to the app from elsewhere, which would be incredibly handy. Especially since I do the reverse, adding links from other items like help desk tickets, inside To Do task notes!
  • Flagged emails can listed in from Outlook inside To Do, but I use flags in emails differently and this would be overwhelming in To Do, so I disable that feature.

Conclusion​

This reflection started out as a comment in a discussion thread, but started to feel like a blog post, so I've turned it into one. I have a perpetual desire to master to-do lists perfectly and consistently while trying new ones, but that seems like a pipe dream unless I make a career out of reviewing to-do list apps (which sounds terrible and not fun)!

For me, the pros of Microsoft To Do have outweighed the cons, given the durability of getting To Do integrated with my daily life, at work and home. I hope it continues to grow and resolve some of the cons, but for now, it's good enough.