Microsoft To Do Is Awesome, and Helps Manage ADHD
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!