Productivity apps: we tried thirty in six months and went back to two

The experiment began with a simple question: which productivity app is best? It ended six months later with a very different one: why do I spend more time organising my tasks than doing them? This guide sums up what thirty apps taught me, and the two that survived.

The perfect-app trap

Every new app promises that the problem was the tool, not you. You move your tasks in on an enthusiastic evening, enjoy a week of order, and then the chaos returns because the tool was never the problem. By the third month I realised I had moved the same list eight times without finishing half of it.

What remained

1. One simple task app: today's list only, no projects, tags or colour-coded priorities.
2. A paper notebook for ideas and meetings, because handwriting slows thinking down enough for it to become thinking.

"The best productivity system is the one you forget because it works, not the one you remember because it needs maintenance," is the conclusion of six months.

The selection criteria that survived

• Can I add a task in under three seconds?
• Does it work offline and store my data in an exportable format?
• Can I ignore it for a week and come back without guilt?

One last piece of advice

If you are looking for a new app right now, first ask whether you are avoiding a hard task by tidying your to-do list. The answer is usually yes, and the fix is not an app but starting the hard task before opening one.