After failing to stick with any task management apps, I became obsessed with finding a solution and decided to build my own. It has taken over two years and the result is Sorted. You can read more about it on TechCrunch and the SCMP.
Since starting the development of what would become Sorted, many have asked me, why another todo app? Trust me, I’ve asked myself that question a lot as well. Like many, I’ve tried numerous task management apps. All the usual suspects, but none stuck.
I was perplexed. How is it possible with so many todo apps out there that not a single one worked for me?
What was the issue? Missing features? In app rewards to keep me motivated? A robot that yells at me when I fall behind? Or does the problem lie with me?
My problem with existing todo apps
As I delved into these issues in depth, a few things became clearer to me. It can’t be a features issue. I’ve used OmniFocus and many other full featured, jam packed, top of the line todo apps. They have all the features, bells and whistles to make David Allen proud. Yet I couldn’t stick with my routine for more than a few months at a time.
Then there are those delightful and simple apps like Clear. I love it. Their UI and design is amazing and, as you can tell, Clear served as a key inspiration to the final design of Sorted. I was in love and awe, but I only found myself truly using it to keep track of groceries lists and random notes. When I did try to use it for task management, I quickly found my tasks lost amongst too many lists.
In between Clear and OmniFocus are a plethora of apps. Things, Todoist, Wunderlist, Asana, Due, RTM, 2Do, etc. They are all great task managers, but something still felt off and I just couldn’t stick with any of them.
Now let’s step back a little. Over the years of trying different task management approaches from GTD to Pomodoro, I’ve found that your regular, everyday task management really boils down to:
1. Knowing what to do (tasks)
2. When to do it (time)
3. All without keeping everything in your head
The key for me was to remember that task management is a marathon. Consistency is key. Keeping it simple also makes task management all the more easy to stick with.
So after many late nights and head bashing, I had my hypothesis:
What if this is a UI/UX issue. If I can make task management extremely quick and painless, then the app just might stand a chance for me to use personally.
Going in I knew I hated date pickers. They are really big, slow and pull you out of context. How can I properly schedule my tasks if I don’t know what else is on my plate? I also hate pop-up menus. They are faster than date pickers, but they are rigid. I don’t always want to snooze my task to a specific date or time, and pop up menus also hide context.
Another issue I had was when plans change. I know it’s important to make plans and proactively make time commitments to tasks, but none of the apps available made it easy for me to adapt my plans to changes. This often left me with stale information with which I could not base new decisions on. Does a cancelled meeting mean I can shift some stuff earlier? Does the traffic delay mean I should rain check certain tasks and reprioritise?
Lastly, gesture and direct manipulation just feels really natural on iOS devices. Was there a way I could push this envelope to a greater extent than other apps?
So with those things in mind Sorted officially began as my personal obsession. Over the next two and a half years, I continued bashing my head against the problem. I learnt iOS programming. Built a prototype. Used it at my day time job. Then built another prototype.
Designing Sorted
I first got rid of date pickers and replaced it with a “time ruler”. I integrated date changes to work with a hide-able mini calendar, making it seem like I’m selecting tasks and dumping it to a specific date. It started to feel good. It started to feel like my good old physical 43 folders (tickler file) system, just in a sleeker and more mobile form. The rest came more easily. If this feels like working with physical folders, then I should also have a way to pinch and spread tasks apart. Just like spreading paper on a large day planner.
Great! The prototype was working. Task management felt much quicker and a lot easier to stick with. I can plan quicker and stay on top of my schedule faster. Yet after some time I started getting really annoyed with tapping to select multiple reminders. The incessant “tap tap tap” or “chomp chomp chomp” started to get to me.
So during lunch with my friends one day, I blurted out, “Why can’t we select multiple things with a single swipe?” I stopped mid-sentence and contemplated. Then I went home, remembered the pull to refresh gesture that was patented and bought by Twitter, bought a book and learnt about patents. But that’s another story for another day.
The core of Sorted was complete. I was happy with it and it kept me organised. I eventually showed it to my team at Mind Fund Studio. They used it. They liked it. We all became obsessed with task management in a good way. So with the help of my small but dedicated team, we polished things up, came up with a name and decided to go ahead and release Sorted into the world.
First week feedback
We have been live for just over a week now and user feedback has been more than we’d hope for:
…it could become one of those must-haves for your iPhone — TechCrunch
Mind Fund Studio’s patented swipe-and-select feature could be a breakthrough for scheduling apps — SCMP
Started using this earlier this week, as a replacement for a mixture of other applications, and so far I love it. It has a great combination of speed to enter and manage my tasks, as well as power user features.
Why spend 1000 days building a todo app?
Because it has become an obsession. What started out as a personal app for myself evolved into something we think might benefit others.
Please try it and let us know what you think. In the mean time,#StaySorted.
Leo Tumwattana
Leo is the CEO of Sorted. Sorted is available for iOS download on the App Store.
If you enjoyed this article then please recommend it to your followers. And why not follow us while you’re at it ;-) We mainly hang around on Twitter, Facebook and Medium
