It was not easy to say goodbye to Remember the Milk. I’ve shelled out $25 for a Pro account (& I’m cheap when it comes to these things).
I also got a ton of tasks already up & running in RTM. Since they conveniently didn’t put an export feature, this has increased my reluctance to transfer to another task management system.
Another reason for my hesitation is that Toodledo, my best alternative, has an ugly website. I love my websites pretty. And RTM is pretty.
Unfortunately, it seems like pretty is all they have going.
So I remained a blind follower. Much like Apple fan boys are to Steve Jobs (“He said I don’t need MMS, so I don’t!”)
When the developers of RTM said that I don’t need all the features I was aching to have, I decided to believe them: So what if they don’t have subtasks? I can use tags for all my subprojects. I can live with it. Even if I accidentally create duplicate tasks because my tags get buried. Maybe I could just clean my list ever so often.
And so what if they haven’t updated RTM in ages? So what if they don’t publish their roadmap so we have an idea of what’s in store in the future? RTM said Apple doesn’t publish their roadmap either. And, er, they’re like Apple. Right?
But months later, I noticed I spend more time fixing my task list & removing duplicates than actually working with them.
And I needed subtasks, for goodness sake. Since they added a highly useless feature called locations, maybe they’ve changed their minds about subtasks. Right?
A visit in the forums confirmed my deepest fears. A post from RTM said they will not implement subtasks. Ever.
As we’ve now provided several ways to organize tasks (tags, lists, and Smart Lists), we have no plans to introduce subtasks.
A workaround for subtasks might be to use lists and tags — for example, I have a list named ‘Shopping’, and within that list I’ve tagged tasks with ‘supermarket’, ‘mall’, etc. I can then view tasks tagged with ‘supermarket’ in my ‘Shopping’ list, which helps to break down the list.
Hope this helps!
Fortunately, it did help — in making me decide to jump ship.
Pretty is thrown out the window, and I skipped happily to Toodledo, ordered the Plus account, & worked on my tasks from scratch.
It was wonderful. From the first few entries, until I’ve successfully migrated 100% (& more) of my tasks from Remember the Milk. My only regret is not doing it from the beginning, before I got suckered in by RTM.
Toodledo is very straightforward. The best thing about it is how I can configure it the way I want. Don’t want to work with Tags? Hide it. Don’t like Contexts? Hide it. Want to see tasks ordered by Due Date? Here ya go. How about by Folder? And there it is.
It still aint pretty. I still wish they would finally get the service of a fantastic UI designer to help them out.
But pretty isn’t everything. Even if I say so myself.
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