Organizing Tasks with Areas and Projects in Things
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Organizing Tasks with Areas and Projects in Things
Things by Cultured Code is one of the best task management apps on any of Apple’s platforms, and its adoption of deep Shortcuts support this year makes it one of the most flexible too. However, the app’s design is also very opinionated, which is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, those strong opinions are part of why the app is so well designed. Self-imposed constraints impose a simplicity that results in an elegant interface. On the other hand, though, those constraints can make the app feel confining at times.
A good example is something that came up in the next episode of AppStories. Federico was explaining how he’s using Things, and I immediately recognized that he was struggling with something that has been a problem for me, too: the rigid design of Areas, Projects, and tasks. The problem is that Projects aren’t a great fit for one-off tasks. Things approaches a Project as something that has a beginning and end, with multiple steps in between. Projects are meant to be completed by a due date and disappear from the app when they’ve been completed.