NoteCircle — Stay on top of your daily todos and long-term routines

I have to admit that I’m addicted to making plans and adding a checkmark on completed tasks. There were always many small notes, planners, and schedulers on my desk to manage tasks better and improve productivity.

Like other List Lovers, drawing a line through completed tasks and looking at the list at the end of the day gives me a sense of achievement and these positive feelings encourage me to plan and complete more tasks.

However, I have confronted some issues when using notes and to-do-list apps. I frequently couldn’t complete some of my tasks, so I had to rewrite them on the next page when using physical notes. In apps, I wanted to keep the completed tasks as an achievement but they disappeared immediately after completion. Other list-making apps didn’t let me assign less urgent tasks to the coming week as they only had two statuses: current and completed.

So around a year ago, I decided to design a new todo app to meet my needs, and two weeks after I began the NoteCircle was launched.

The design concept of the NoteCircle started from my struggles of using other tools. As a user, I wanted to focus on today’s tasks first but at the same time, I wanted to see the previous days’ lists as an achievement. Also, an app needs to allow me to make plans ahead on a daily and weekly basis.

One more thing! (Yes, I admire Steve Jobs and watched all of his presentations) When I looked at my daily tasks, I found that there were three different groups of them:

First, we have daily todos, which are tasks created and completed on the same day.

Second, routines, they are recurring tasks on a weekly basis, for instance, going to yoga every Monday and cleaning my flat every Friday.

Third, events which are repeated monthly or yearly, such as paydays and birthdays. Also, there are one-time events like going to a concert and graduation.

Later, I found that some of our users wanted a separate list for grocery shopping and packing checklists. And these lists are a bit different from the three groups above because they are grouped by a topic rather than being assigned to a date.

Are you following me so far? I know it’s quite a lot to take in! All these needs and discoveries. Does it sound crazy to blend all these features into one app? If so, you might be surprised upon opening NoteCircle for the first time. The interface design is very intuitive so that you would easily grasp how to improve your productivity with this app.

Of course, the app still has room for improvement, and may not fulfill some users’ needs. Since it has a different structure compared to other competitors. But most of the feedback we got from our users said it’s quite easy to use and helps them be more productive. Plus, it’s a damn beautiful app. (That’s a real quote)

Now I’d like to introduce key features that make the NoteCircle more appealing and unique. (iOS: the full version is available, Android: only limited features are available)

Monthly Report — Track your progress with a monthly overview

Productivity is not quite visible in our lives. Maybe that’s why we like the feeling of ticking a check-mark and seeing a completed list at the end of the day. The monthly report is one of the ideas we had for visualizing productivity. It shows how many tasks were created and completed both daily and monthly, through graphs and a calendar. I was unsure whether users would engage with it often, but they frequently check their reports to gain a feeling of achievement once tasks are completed.

Weekly Routine — Schedule recurring chores as routines and get reminders

Numerous research and behavioral scientists have said that building routines is one of the keys to improving productivity. Managing routines with NoteCircle is not only efficient but also helps users by combining routines and daily to-dos. Here is why: routines are comparatively easy because they are already a part of our lives. Hence, we are likely to finish these tasks first then follow on to others. However, routines are also easily skipped because we think we can easily put them off until later. In such cases, these routines are left behind on our lists and bother us until we complete them. Overall, regardless of when we complete routines, the combined approach will increase our productivity.

Pending todos — Easily roll over uncompleted tasks to the next day in one click.

We might have incomplete tasks at the end of the day due to procrastination, other priorities, or just adding too many tasks to be accomplished in a day. The Pending Todos gives the option to users that enables them to move incomplete tasks to Today’s list with one tap. Taking into consideration users who are irritated by having to check pending tasks, it takes up a relatively small space before opening and also can be opted-out of in the Settings.

Weekly Goal — Set a weekly goal and priorities your tasks accordingly

Although it may seem strange I often created tasks that I have already done since I like the satisfaction of ticking off a checkmark. I also add minor tasks that take less than 10 mins to complete for the same reason. One day I found myself completing 15 tasks a day, although absurdly, none of them were my priority. With the Weekly Goal, users can create long-term challenges and break them down into small tasks to assign throughout a week. Since the goal is pinned to the top of the daily lists, it prompts users to question whether they should work on their priorities that day.

Google Calendar Sync and more…

Google Calendar Sync is only available for users who sign in with their Google account. Users can load upcoming weekly events and add them to either their to-dos or events with one tap.

Including the Google Calendar sync, there are more features that help users organize their daily tasks in NoteCircle. But I’d like to introduce them later as they’re still in beta.

Get a glimpse of how these features are designed! Our users say they open the app more often than needed because it looks super nice.

Since we launched the first version of NoteCircle, we have continuously improved the product based on users’ feedback. ( If there’s any chance, we missed replying to your comment, just know that we really appreciate all your ideas and suggestions )

Now around 12K users have been using NoteCircle monthly. We haven’t secured investments yet, therefore, we do not have a large budget for advertisements. However, more than 80% of our users found NoteCircle through word of mouth alone.

About — Genau Studio.

We’re a design studio based in Berlin and Seoul. We create digital services with beautiful design and seamless experience. Over the past year, we launched 5 mobile apps alongside the NoteCircle. We act fast, focus on experience design, and more importantly pursue products beloved by users.

Please follow us to get updates on our journey.

The NoteCircle is available for iOS/iPad 14.0 above only and has limited features for Android users for now.

NoteCircle: https://apps.apple.com/app/notecircle/id1528859917

Genau Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/genau_studio/