The best to-do apps for dog trainers

To-do apps. Do you love ‘em or hate ‘em? Either way, most of us could benefit from some way to easily organize our lives.

In today’s fast-paced and overwhelmingly busy world, it can be hard to keep track of everything you need to do — and when you need to do it. Deadlines get missed, teams get out of sync, information vanishes into the ether, and your blood pressure is high enough to make your doctor faint in shock.

Luckily, there are any number of digital solutions available to cut the chaos so you can focus on your tasks, not your tailspin.

Basic reminder apps

At its most basic a reminder app allows you to allocate specific tasks to specific dates and times. As you complete the task, you cross it off the list. 

You can use Google Calendar (tasks and events) or Google Keep — a note-taking app — to do this on Android or Apple devices. Both systems allow you to share information with other people, but neither are built for teams of people working together.

Google Keep allows you to set location-specific reminders so you see the things you need to remember right where you need to do them. You can also add notes, lists, photos, and audio. It also syncs across all your devices.

If you have an Apple device, you have two nifty little apps that do similar things to the Google versions: Notes and Reminders. Both these systems are free and come with your device.

Although these apps might be perfect for keeping your personal reminders in order, there’s not a huge amount of flexibility to this system. The main benefit of using them over pen and paper is you’re less likely to lose your phone (hopefully!).

So, what to use if you want something just a tad more sophisticated, but not too complex?

Beginner options

Let’s look at two entry-level apps that have free and paid plans. The main benefits to these are the ability to organize your lists, tasks, and schedules more meaningfully.

Teux Deux

This little app bills itself as the place to “plan peacefully” — “organize without the overwhelm.”

If you find that cluttered and busy interfaces make your brain melt, Teux Deux might be a good fit for you.

Features

• Two views 
  • Calendar 
  • “Someday” lists (for shopping list, books to read, etc.)
• Task rollover
• Focus mode 
• Drag/drop
• Recurring tasks using natural language (i.e., drink more water every day)
• No notifications 
• It’s incredibly simple to use
• Available on desktop (pricing applies), free for IOS and Android
• One-week free trial for desktop version

The downside to this peaceful reminder app is that it doesn’t send notifications, only daily email digest reminders. So, if you’re like me — prone to getting stuck on something and losing track of time — you won’t get that reminder ding to pull you back to the real world, so you could still miss things.

Pricing

Annual:

Monthly:

If you’re looking for a super simple personal to-do app that doesn’t bombard you with notifications — bouncing you out of flow each time — then Teux Deux might fit the bill perfectly.

Todoist

Built in the same vein as Teux Deux, Todoist is a slightly more powerful, but still simple to use, to-do app. Its selling point, “Todoist makes it frictionless to get all your tasks out your head and organized in one trusted place”, suggests almost telepathic levels of usability!

Features

• Two views
  • Calendar
  • Board

• Syncs with multiple devices including 
  • wearables 
  • browser extensions 
  • email add-ons
• Quick add — uses natural language to set due dates and appointments
• Recurring dates
• Reminders
• 80+ integrations
• Minimalist design
• Project tools
• Set color-coded priorities
• Add labels
• Include descriptions
• Use sections and sub-tasks
• Templates for projects

Pricing

Todoist can be used for personal organization and teams so if you need a simple to-do app for your work teams, this could be a good fit for you. 

Intermediate options

The intermediate options we recommend offer more functionality and flexibility — but could come with a steeper learning curve than the beginner apps. However, if you’re looking for more than just a simple way to keep lists, these two offer a nice range of tools. Both are suitable for personal and business teams use.

Motion

Motion is a mid-range to-do and scheduling app aimed at those who are trying to juggle far too much but can’t afford to hire a personal assistant. It promises to free up your time by being your AI personal assistant. It can “take all of your projects and tasks and prioritizes and time-blocks them on your calendar” to “dynamically optimize your schedule”. 

Features

• Calendar syncing
  • Google calendar
  • Apple calendar
  • Outlook calendar

• Task management
  • Input tasks easily
  • Recurring tasks
  • Custom time windows for tasks
  • Include task notes

• Meeting assistant
  • Scheduling functionality
  • Booking page
  • Meeting templates including survey questions

• Project management for teams
  • Add projects to calendars
  • Measure how much a team can accomplish
  • Build each team member a custom schedule
  • Automate 90% of project planning

• Integrations
  • Zoom
  • Google Calendar
  • Zapier
  • Gmail
  • Microsoft Teams
  • Google Meet
  • Outlook 365
  • Icloud Calander
  • Siri
• Workload reporting
• Booking app for appointments and meetings

So, if you find you spend more time planning (and replanning, then doing it all again because life got in the way) than you do executing the plan, Motion might be a game changer for you. 

Pricing

The downside? It doesn’t come cheap. (But not as pricy as hiring a VA!)

At the time of writing Motion has a 5-day free trial period. You do need to enter your credit card details to access it. But if you consider that time equals money and time is a non-renewable resource, maybe the cost isn’t so high after all?

Trello

Trello is designed for project management and collaboration — situations where you have teams of people working together who might not be in the same location. Over the last few years, it’s become much more powerful. Trello offers a suite of features to help your business get your work projects completed with minimum hassle. 

At its core it’s based around the boards and cards system. You have a board with multiple columns representing the stages of a project.  You then create cards (the tasks and their details) which move across the columns as they progress through your workflow.

Although it’s powerful, it’s still great for personal use — especially if you’re keeping tabs on complex projects. It’s simple to create lists, set reminders and add details for each task.

Features

Multiple views 

• Board
• Timeline
• Table
• Calendar
• Dashboard
• Map
• Workspace 
• Templates for your projects
  • Automations
  • Rules 
  • Progress tasks
  • Send automated emails

• Integrations — many integrations including
  • Slack
  • Gmail
  • Jotform
  • Mailchimp
  • Microsoft Teams
  • WhatsApp
  • Hootsuite
  • Google calendar
  • Chrome
  • Toggl
  • Google drive
  • Evernote
  • Dropbox

• User case solutions and templates including
  • Marketing 
  • Sales
  • Human resources 
  • Remote teams

Pricing

Trello has a free version for individuals and small teams.

So, if you’re looking for something with a bit more flexibility and power than a simple to-do reminder app, but without the added complexity of one of the advanced options on the market, Trello might be just what you need.

Advanced options

The final three platforms we’ll look at are designed to be used by larger, or more complex organizations. You can use these apps to process workflows in many different departments: marketing, human resources, finance, project management, IT… You name it, these apps can probably structure it for you. 

They’re aimed at teams working together with members in different departments and locations pulling multiple threads together to achieve a common outcome or goal. 

However, depending on your tasks, some of the free tiers could be very helpful even for smaller businesses as they offer a lot more flexibility in tracking and team management than the previously discussed platforms. 

So here they are…

Monday 

Monday is an all-in-one platform designed to cover all your work organization needs. From work management projects and tasks to sales processes and on to product lifecycles, Monday has you covered.

Features

• Multiple views including
  • Dashboard
  • Boards 
  • Gantt charts 
  • Timeline
  • Calendar

• Many Integrations including
  • Slack
  • Gmail
  • Microsoft teams
  • Mailchimp
  • Excel
  • Outlook
  • DocuSign

• High customization
  • Workflows
  • Task management
  • Projects
• Document creation and storing 
• Automations 
• File storage and sharing

Pricing

Monday has a free tier which lacks many of the whizz-bang, fancy-pants options the paid version has. But to be honest, if you only have two people in your team, you’re unlikely to need the added bells and whistles anyway.

Asana

Asana is another all-in-one organization platform, designed to manage complex tasks, workflows, and collaborations. It has very similar features to Monday with the addition of Asana Intelligence, its own AI integration. 

Asana’s point of difference is the ability to set goals across your business and track them in real-time.

Features

• Project management
  • Projects
  • Project views
  • Tasks
  • Custom fields
  • Status updates

• Goals and reporting
  • Goals (including real-time tracking)
  • Reporting dashboards
  • Portfolios

• Workflows and automation
  • Rules
  • Bundles
  • Forms

• Resource management
  • Workload
  • Time tracking

• Admin and security
  • Admin console
• Asana intelligence (AI abilities on the paid plans)
• More integrations than you could possibly ever need
• Project templates

Pricing

The free tier on Asana gives you more options than the Monday equivalent so if you want to give a try to a more powerful organization platform, Asana could be a good choice. Just note that goal setting and tracking is only available on the Advanced plans.

Clickup

Clickup is the platform we at Click & Repeat use. As a business with multiple remote team members who collaborate to get projects completed, Click & Repeat needed a way to keep everyone in the loop all the time. Clickup does all of that and more.

Features

• Multiple views
  • Everything
  • List
  • Board
  • Box
  • Calendar
  • Gantt
  • Timeline
  • Table
  • Map
  • Notepad
  • To do list

• Task management
  • Recurring checklists
  • Recurring tasks
  • Reminders
  • Resolve comments
  • Status templates

• Collaboration
  • Mind maps
  • Comments
  • Chat
  • Docs
  • Whiteboard
  • Proofing
  • Email
  • Calendar syncing

• Resource management
  • Workload
  • Time tracking/activity

• Hierarchical organization
  • Spaces (for departments and teams)
  • Folders (for projects)
  • Tasks (with lists, subtasks and checklists)
• Automations
• Realtime reporting
• Clickup apps
• Premade templates
• Goals
• Milestones
• Integrations with more apps than you’ll ever need
• Integrated AI functionality

Pricing

Like the other big players, Clickup has a free tier — and a very generous one at that. Also like the other bigger platforms, there’s a steep learning curve to using it. However, depending on your needs, it could be worth a look. 

And there you have it. Whatever your organizational requirements, from simple apps you probably already own, to the does-everything-but-make-the-coffee super platform, we have you covered. 

Do you currently use a to-do app or organization platform? If so, which one and why do you love it? Tell us in the comments…

This post originally appeared on clickandrepeat.com