What are Task/ToDo apps lacking that causes people to still use post-its or a notepad instead of one of the thousands great web ToDo/Task Management apps?

I'll paste an answer I just gave to All the tasks in your life, both in and out of any task management app, are inherently related because their completion depends on your time. And for some reason, 'your time' is never part of these apps. Personally I think that what's missing is reality. In so much as most task management apps that I've used are just pretty ways of viewing what you have to do. It's cliche but true in that most of your time is spent managing the manager. Take an 'overdue' task for example. All task management applications have them. The turn red and you move them to another day. What's missing is reality. There is really no such thing as an overdue task. You still have to do it. It is a 'still due' task. Just like every other task in your list and the absence of it's completion affects every other task you have in your life. If it is truly something that needs to be done than it's not-doing pushes something else out of the way. All the tasks in your life, both in and out of a task management app, are inherently related because their completion depends on your time. And for some reason, 'your time' is never part of these apps. I'm a bit biased because for many years I was a task-management-app-addict but never found the sense of peace I was looking for in using an app. Some were good for collaboration. Some were easier to enter task then others. Some had great iPhone apps, etc. But none let me sleep better at night. So I created my own and we launched a month ago. http://taskk.it. I won't sell it too much here because that is not what your question was. I guess in summary, I'm saying that with all the task management apps available, and all the people still looking, something is missing as you have noticed. It's not simplicity, it's not sexiness, it's not platform, it's the set of rules that these things are built on. The engine for task management needs to change.

Most of the thousands of todo apps are not actually much better than a piece of paper. The ones that are require an investment of time to use, and a certain interest or obsession in personal productivity and technology that most people just don't have. Even GTD can be done with paper alone.

When using a paper, you start with a clean sheet everyday. With a to do app, you actively need to manage your to do's and prioritise them, which is actually a task in it self, and paradoxically not very productive.

I think because people has to manage task in really difficult interface and every task on their own. I've never used these apps very long time because everything depends on you, even if tasks are from other people. Its really annoying for me. Honestly, we've started building a solution for it. We call it mail-to-do client. You can check it on http://3feeds.com.

Ease of use. Paper is there, it is instant, whether writing or reading (unless of course you lose it ;) ) Regards handheld devices, one of the most annoying issues is the list isn't always inf front of you. You turn on the device, search the app, load it up, maybe switch to a view that suits... Paper... it's there on the desk, or shove in your pocket. You just need to grab and glance. And if you want to add something, it takes a few seconds on paper. On a device you have to type (which is slower) or write (which is clunkier still). And then you might have to add ancillary info such as priority, due date, category... Desktop todo apps should be a little more usable, as they at least can stay visible at all times, tho they still tend not to. Another thing about paper lists is it is not time restrictive. Many todo apps want to diarise our lists. Basically, todo apps tend to over complicate things. Ironically, when we use a todo app, we actually expect it to do more than just make a list. I mean - we can make a list in TextEdit or NotePad or on a piece of paper. So we look for an app that will manage our list and make us more efficient... Thus the list itself becomes less efficient. My ideal todo app would do several things: 1) Visible and usable as soon as I turn on my device. The first thing I see. 2) No complicated diarising or due dates. 3) Simple prioritization by drag and drop ordering 4) Time based view using time based categories. That is, on Saturday, I don't want my list full of stuff I have to do for work. If I categorise something as home, I want the app to only show me those todos when I am at home. Ditto work.

1  I think it's impolite to fiddle with a device in a meeting with colleagues or clients.  No such stigma attaches to writing necessary follow-up actions on a piece of paper. 2  For me, any solution that lacks an offline mode, with synching when back in touch with the server, is unusable, in any context, not just confined to todo lists.   The fashion for cloud-based approaches that lack this basic functionality, something that Lotus Notes was offering over twenty years ago, continues to bemuse me.

Some very nice observations in the comments here. There is a well known saying, that "you don't use sword where needle is enough". Lets look at various tool and see their pros and cons: Paper: Paper is probably the best way to manage personal to-dos. Needless to discuss its pros as they are already discussed here in detail. The problem with paper is that it seriously lacks effective collaboration. If you are talking about 30 people company and collaboration among them, paper can't take you further. This leads us to second best alternative Email. Email: Everyone knows how email works. Sharing information over it is much simpler as well, compared to on piece of paper. In-fact some to-do applications are built around the same inbox concept to reduce the learning curve of a new workflow for people. However we have heard lot of Email overload stories. Soon your inbox becomes full of long email threads, that are difficult to track. Include spam, marketing and personal emails to it. Your work emails will sooner or later get lost in the sea and overwhelm you. Thats lead us to moving to specialized todo/project management app, where you can keep all work related stuff at one place. Todo managers/Project Management Now there are loads of them. Asana, Trello, Basecamp. All comes with their own feature sets. If you have long term projects they work just perfect. You can get your team learn to use them and adapt the workflows. However if you have bit shorter term projects or you need to share to-dos with not so tech savvy people, people tend to fall-back to email or some kind of shared text docs or even back to paper. So this lead us to specific set of requirements: 1. You need one place to keep organize the to-do, which everyone can access. 2. Tool should add least possible learning overhead for quick adaptability by not so tech savvy people, ex. your clients. Better, it should at-least imitate flow of writing on piece of paper. 3. Should provide a way to discuss on tasks, attach files, images and docs to them. We are working on a product to meet exactly same requirements. If you are interested in early access to the Beta, checkout http://taskify.io.

Not a direct answer to this, but the newly launched Pendo iOS app is closer to paper with its simpleness, and people might want to try it out https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pendo-write-notes-organize/id805451002?ls=1&mt=8

Paper-based todo lists have some distinct advantages over electronic ones, including but not limited to: greater flexibility in terms of look-and-feel (e.g., you use an outline form, I use just a straight list of single level bullets) greater flexibility in terms of physical location (e.g., leave the post-it note on your computer monitor, hand it to someone to whom you've delegated the todo, ...) reliability (e.g., the recording device is never down or unavailable while you're on the phone) etc. When we built our app (LifeTopix - http://www.lightarrow.com/lifetopix), we recognized the appeal that a paper-based system has, and made sure that we could offer some compelling features that make using a new app worthwhile. Examples include seamless integration so that a todo to go shopping can tie directly to your shopping list, and that shopping list can include things you need for the trip you are planning, and that todo can be "location aware" so that you know that that todo is for a store near where you currently are, etc. But as powerful and flexible as LifeTopix is, the low-tech, paper-based version may still be preferable to some set of people - different strokes.