Use case
A to-do list you actually look at
You wrote it down. That was the easy part. The hard part is the moment three days later when the list is still open in a tab you have not looked at, because a list only works if something makes you come back to it.
Most to-do apps are good at holding a list and bad at making you look at it
Writing something down is not the problem. Every to-do app, including the sticky note, does that part well. The failure happens later, when the item needs to resurface at the exact moment you can act on it, and instead it sits at position fourteen on a list you open when you remember to, which is not the same as when you need to.
A to-do list without a delivery mechanism is a filing system. It is honest about what you meant to do and silent about when you should do it. That is fine for someday items. It is not fine for the call you have to make before 5pm, or the thing that only matters if you do it before you leave the house.
Timelee treats a to-do the same way it treats every other reminder kind: as something that has to reach you, not just something that has to exist. You write it once, and you choose how hard it should be to ignore.
Three ways a plain list quietly fails
None of these are about laziness. They are about a list that never asked to be looked at.
It scrolled past the thing that mattered
A to-do list treats every line the same. The urgent call and the vague someday task sit next to each other with no difference in how loudly either one asks for attention.
It only works if you remember to open it
A list app is passive by design. If the habit of checking it slips for two days, so does everything on it, and nothing tells you that happened.
It became a graveyard of good intentions
Old items sit unfinished long enough that opening the list starts to feel bad, which is exactly the moment people stop opening it.
A to-do in Timelee is not just a line of text
Six things you can attach to any item, so the list carries more than intention.
A priority that means something
Low, Medium, High or Urgent, with a priority view that regroups the same list into First, Then and Later.
Steps, for anything that is not one action
Break a to-do into a checklist so what rings is the next step, not the whole project.
Tags that cut across categories
Type #bills or #client inline and filter to one slice of the list without leaving your folders alone.
A category it actually belongs to
Work, Personal, Grocery, Home and more, each with a live count so you can see what is piling up before you open it.
A repeat, for the ones that come back
Daily, weekdays, or the specific days it actually happens, with an end condition so it stops when the thing is over.
A delivery setting
Most items should sit on a plain alarm. A few deserve a full-screen call, or a real phone call if a notification has already let you down once.
Capture in one line, clear it in one pass
Quick add exists because the moment you think of something is the worst possible moment to fill out a form. Type the to-do, press Enter, and it is on the list. Add `!high` for priority, `#tag` for a tag or `@work` for a category on the same line, and Timelee pulls them out as you type.
Focus mode is the other half of the problem: the list is full and you want to stop organising it and start clearing it. Focus shows one item at a time. Enter marks it done, S skips it, Esc leaves, and it tells you how many you cleared when you stop.
Neither of those exists to make the list prettier. They exist so that adding something and finishing something are both fast enough that the list stays trustworthy instead of becoming a place things go to be forgotten more slowly.
- Quick add parses priority, tag and category inline as you type
- Focus mode runs one item at a time, keyboard-driven
- Both work from the web dashboard, at your desk
What to decide when you add a to-do, not after
- Whether it needs a time at all, or whether it genuinely belongs on someday
- A priority, even a rough one, so the list can sort itself later
- A category, so it does not sit in the general pile with everything else
- Whether it repeats, and on which days specifically
- A delivery setting one notch above what you think you need
- Whether it is really several steps wearing one line of text
Timelee is not a project manager
There are no boards, no dependencies, no Gantt charts here, and that is deliberate. A to-do in Timelee is a line, a priority, an optional set of steps, and a delivery setting. If you need to plan a project with a team, that is a different tool. If you need the things you personally have to do to actually reach you, that is this one.
Questions about to-do lists in Timelee
How is this different from a plain to-do app?
Delivery. A plain to-do app has one channel: a notification you clear the same way you clear everything else. A Timelee to-do can ring as an alarm, a full-screen call inside the app, or a real phone call, chosen per item.
Can I break a to-do into steps?
Yes. Add a checklist to any to-do so the reminder that rings is the next concrete step rather than the whole thing at once.
Do I have to set a time for every to-do?
No. Items without a time sit on the list without a delivery setting. Give one a time and a delivery channel only when it genuinely needs to reach you at a moment.
Can I add a to-do without opening the full form?
Yes, with quick add. Type it, press Enter, and use `!high`, `#tag` or `@work` inline to set priority, tag and category as you go.
What happens to a to-do once I finish it?
It moves to History, and stays there, so you can check later whether something was actually done rather than just remembering it that way.
Is the to-do list free to use?
Yes. To-dos, priorities, categories, tags, repeats and the delivery channels short of a real phone call are all part of the free core.
Move three things off your head and onto a list that rings
Sign in with Google, add them with quick add, and give one of them a delivery setting above a plain alarm.