Create (or integrate with) a TODO List app inside Toby#34

Either create a TODO List app inside Toby or integrate with an existing one.

Please list your favorite TODO app below and whether you’d like to see an integration or not.

Would be grerat to integrate with any.do

Todist!

markdown note apps are crazy trending right now and rightfully so in my opinion. bringing the power of .md files to the spotlight, such as RoamResearch, Obsidian. An .md note taking app or todo list would be insanely powerful and have longevity, in my opinion. Viva la Toby!

Todoist

ClickUp

Asana. I think an integration could be both ways - e.g. you could sync teams & workspaces with Asana projects, so that they match each other. But I’d refrain from building a separate To Do App, as there are tons of really good ones already out there, I’d rather laser-focus on a useful integration of the top X existing ones.

Notion

ticktick, of course.

Todoist please

Todoist, but yes, Obsidian!

If this happens, you HAVE to do Evernote, the GOAT!

I don’t usu bother tossing in my two cents about tech related stuff bc I don’t know anything about it. I’m not working (long hauler - yay me) and when I was I didn’t collaborate. I am, however ADHD with other neuro-divergent badges and apparantly COVID blessed me with the brain trauma symptoms of a stroke patient - so sayeth my cognitive rehab specialist. This means I struggle more than ever to organize and coordinate, plan, implement, remember, and prioritize. I need tools like Toby just to do everyday lving life stuff. I’ve tried every free new tab extension for chromebook (apps are wonky on these things so I don’t bother with those) to-do and prioritizing and listing apps for my Pixel phone (I’ve even tried using shopping list apps to organize my everything). I give up on phone apps - phone screens are small and suck me in, so I go down rabbit holes. I still go down rabbit holes on my chromebook but if I remember to check my Toby tab every so often, I’m able to redirect myself to my original goal.

Now, all of that unnecessary TMI being said, the reason I’m using up 🧠 cells and every bit of focus and vocab my medications and supplements impart to me to comment here is bc for some reason, the Developers (or whatever - maybe that word isn’t a catch-all for the company, I don’t know tech) of Toby have managed to create a ‘New Tab’ extension that my brain understands. It’s not just CLEAN and SIMPLE but also 😊 FRIENDLY-LOOKING.

Being able to change the layout of the collections is a big deal. I’ve recently learned that I learn by doing and by picturing what I’m learning and I also think in color as well as words and full sentences (that one really sucks). Colors make the most sense to me, so the option to customize colors for collections in all views and choose whether to color is applied to the background or the outline of the collection view would be very helpful. I love the color design that Toby has now with the left side one color (a color for each space would confuse me) but would love the ability to choose my own theme from a color wheel.

Roman (2 yrs ago) had a great ideas. Keep Toby free of integrations, keep it a single workspace with its own todo lists and filtering by clicking a tag. Not sure what he means by ‘if toby opens API’ tho. BUT I don’t like the idea of the todo list living on the right side. Maybe the to do list would follow with the chosen view?

& Tim Heymans (8 mo ago) also had a good idea. But i feel integrating to the user’s prefered todo app would require the makers of Toby to cut deals with every todo app company and that sounds crazy. I don’t know what Zapier is but I know I wish I knew how to IFTTT.

And then there’s Joel Thomas (a year ago) whose ideas are reminiscent of another new tab productivity extension that uses tons of emoji symbols and sub lists and which I find overwhelming. Please don’t do that :)

Just to clarify, my suggestion wasn’t to throw emojis everywhere lol I was just using them in my comment to point out tasks are basically just “special notes, with a bunch of stuff added on top” whether that’s color coding for priority or attaching dated reminders to them etc etc.

Basically, I was advocating for the Toby team to build up the (currently bare-bones) note taking/attachment experience to a strong solid foundation, and then once that’s in place use that well established baseline experience as a launch point for any further “notes++” bells and whistles (read: “task management”) features that may be developed down the line.

This way, if Toby user X decides they just need a check box and nothing else, they can toggle that, write their reminder, maybe even attach it to a relevant tab or link and be done - no fuss, no muss.

But if Toby user Y isn’t satisfied with that simple plain “note+checkbox” aesthetic and really wants to go wild with throwing emojis everywhere like I did above lol or color coding their Toby todos just as @Amemoryoftrees suggested as being useful for Toby collections, they can do that too.

And if Toby user Z would just rather be able to send a note they just jotted down to generic-todo-app-name-here.com or on the flipside if they attach one of those todoist/trello/thingamabob/whatever links to a note they’ve just taken and rich task preview is shown for additional context etc etc, they can have that experience too…

But, all starting from the atomic unit of Toby notes.

Trying to duct-tape and zip-tie (Todoist lists over on this side and a Trello board on that side and sync ClickUp when you click down here but Asana when you click elsewhere, Jira when you jump to another panel introduced to Toby, git-pull to reveal the latest Github tickets when type in code, Monday.com tasks that auto sync to your Toby every monday, TickTick when you tick this checkbox twice, Microsoft Tasks for the Apple Reminders haters and Apple Reminders for the Microsoft Tasks haters, and if you want to check your Confluence it can be found when you look towards the very center of this confluence of chaotic) 3rd party integrations will inevitably disappoint some other group who wanted their favorite app to be supported, but if you try to please them all then Toby ceases to be.

Keep it simple, strong and straightforward. Improve Toby Notes forest and foremost, and in so doing build up Toby Tasks as an in house solution – which can optionally support connecting with various other app APIs in a limited capacity i.e. forget about syncing everything in a users to do list over to Toby. Keep Toby clutter free by only pulling in the essential metadata, updates, etc. But the main focus must and should remain the quick and easy note/task idea capture experience in Toby. Just as painless as the experience of saving/restoring tabs currently is.

My $00.02 cents anyway, for whatever it’s worth :)

Microsoft ToDo

Zapier