With so many task management options today, why Task.it?

TL;DR: Today, to do lists are separate from calendars because it takes too much work to reschedule them if you don’t get them done. But what if an automated assistant rescheduled tasks if you didn’t get a chance to finish them. This is the premise of Task.it.

THE STORY:

Our lives are finite. Yet our possibilies are nearly infinite.

Is it any wonder our task lists outstrip our capacity to complete them?

Counted in numbers, if we are in the lucky average, we will receive 2.5 billion heart beats; 4,000 weeks; 82+ years.Reading 10 minutes a day before bed finishes one book a month or 720 books in a lifetime. Taking one vacation each of one's adult years gifts us 60 vacations.

Steve Jobs said, "People think focus means saying yes to the thing you've got to focus on. But that's not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully. I'm actually as proud of the things we haven't done as the things I have done. Innovation is saying no to 1,000 things."

We believe an incomplete task list is simply evidence of our bold efforts to bring something more into that finite span of our lives. It is the beginning of us saying "no" or "later" to some things.

But how do our tools ensure we make the most of those minutes, those weeks, those years? How do we ensure we don't wake ten years from now and think we somehow missed it?

Today, our tools to survive and thrive are To Do lists, Reminders, and Calendars.

But each is broken in its own unusual way.

1 - TO DO LISTS ARE BROKEN

Our to do list is meant to help us manage our tasks. Why are they so ineffective at helping us know when to say no?

Consider traditional to do lists and how good they are at helping us say no. To Do lists can endlessly grow. Most to do lists never tell us we are overscheduled - or give us a glimpse into how much we have overtasked ourselves - or help us know whether we have time to accept an optional meeting. Many of us are overtasked but have no simple way to seeing our total task load "at a glance." As Peter Drucker conveyed, "we cannot manage what we cannot measure." In the absence of measures of our task burden, we are caught in a cycle unable to manage ourselves out of it. The result you may have heard is that the CEO of a leading to do list application shared that a significant number of their users have over 70 items on their to do list that they reschedule daily and rarely complete. We are drowning in the effort to manage the tasks that fuel our dreams and ambitions.

2 - REMINDER SYSTEMS ARE BROKEN

A reminder is meant to help us complete a task. Why do most reminder systems pop-up notifications at times when we cannot address them?

Getting Things Done notes that "One missed e-mail, untracked commitment, or decision avoided can have hugely magnified consequences." Yet, our Reminder systems fall short as well. Not only can reminders swell endlessly, they interrupt us in the least of convenient times. The first reminder goes off while we are in a meeting. We delay it for 24 hours. The next instance goes off in the middle of work for a deadline. We delay it another 24 hours. The third reminder goes off just after we left the computer and we miss it. Days later we suddenly realize the deadline ahead and scramble to make it.

3 - CALENDARS ARE BROKEN

A task is a commitment of our time. Why do task managment tools have us put them into lists rather than onto a calendar?

Now, consider our calendars. Once in the past, you may have had the sudden insight, why not use a calendar as a to do list - particularly when a to do item is a commitment of time on the calendar. For those who have tried to use a calendar as a task list, you rapidly discovered an unfortunate truth: life doesn't go as planned - the resulting effort of rescheduling tasks makes the approach unworkable. A meeting runs long - a phone call interrupts - and suddenly - the to do you have scheduled needs to be rescheduled. It seems simple. But wait. As you shift one ToDo forward you find a cascading problem. The next highest priority to do must be rescheduled, then the next, then the next. Soon you have spent so much time reshuffling and rescheduling your to dos - you may have missed another to do. The rescheduling starts again.

To do lists, reminder systems and calendars can all be redesigned to work in a better way.

FIXING TO DO LISTS

We believe to do lists can be fixed. Instead of to do lists that can swell infinitely - we believe our to do list should remind us of the finiteness of ur time. At a glance, it should be clear if we are available or busy - even within the context of all we have to do.

FIXING REMINDER SYSTEMS

We believe reminder systems can be fixed. Instead of reminders being pushed upon us, reminders are better when pulled.

We believe deadlines should never come as a surprise and that the most perfect reminder is the reminder that occurs only at the moment when it can be addressed.

FIXING CALENDARS

Lastly, we believe the solution is simple: our calendars can reflect the time of our lives - and our commitments into the future.

INTRODUCING TASK.IT

To that end, we created a tool that embodies solutions to the challenges above. Task.it enables anyone to use their favorite calendar. Tasks are commitments blocked as time onto the calendar. The result is you can leave reminder systems behind. The task itself is the reminder. When a task appears on the calendar - it is time to pursue it. Perhaps most importantly, we recognize that life can resist the best efforts to plan it. We embrace flexibility. If a task is unfulfilled, we reschedule it.

In this way, we believe we can empower us all to embrace serendipity. The call from your boss, the important customer that stays long, the colleague that is sharing an epiphany - you can push off a task to continue what's important in the moment.

Pause to rest, refresh, and re-energize. All of this becomes possible because at a glance, you can see your tasked commitments laid out before you. See what tasks fit within the deadlines set for them. Know when you must say 'no' and when you have the flexibility to say 'yes.'

Know when you have the flexibility to say "no" or "yes."

In short, we have created Task.it to turn any calendar into the flexible tool of managing our lives within the near infinite possibilities ahead for us and as a tool for building a better one.

In short, life doesn't always go as planned. Rest easy, we'll reschedule it.