How Todorant works

Todorant is a todo manager that uses behavioral psychology to help you get things done. It runs on the web at todorant.com and as apps for iPhone, iPad and Android, and you can host your own server. It's made by Nikita Kolmogorov.

Most productivity apps are great at storing, organizing and automating endless lists of tasks, and that is exactly where they fail you: a list that keeps growing doesn't get anything done. Todorant cares about the one thing that matters, which is finishing what you planned. It does that with four simple ideas, backed by a carefully tuned set of limits and praise that makes the primitive part of your brain crave completed todos the way people crave sugar.

Four ideas

Todorant grew out of more than twenty productivity books and methodologies. When they failed one by one, the parts that worked were combined and simplified into a single system that you can learn in a minute.

The rules

These are the rules the app shows when you start, and they are always in Settings under How to use.

  1. As soon as you get an actionable task (receive an email, phonecall, text, or if you see anything of interest that has to be put on your todo list) — create a todo for it right away. Do not wait, you will forget about it if you do not take it down.
  2. Todos should always be actionable and as explicit as possible. If a task takes less than 2 minutes, then do it right away and record it as completed.
  3. You either add a specific date or select a month while creating a todo. You cannot pick current month without selecting a specific date. This is done to relax your mind. If you trust the system and put everything that needs to be done on the correct date — you will encounter it at the right time. Huge amount of willpower is wasted on being constantly stressed about "that other thing that I need to deal with but I am not quite sure what it was". Learn to trust and relax.
  4. First thing you do each month is planning ahead. You take all the tasks assigned to the current month and you sort them in the correct dates. It allows you to filter out outdated tasks and keep your mind in peace with, knowing exactly what you need to do this month.
  5. First thing you do in the morning is planning your day. Have a glance at your Planning section. Can you handle everything? Distribute tasks that cannot be dealt with today. Redistribute any tasks left undone from the previous days.
  6. Unless it is an emergency, do not look at the planning section after you have finished planning. It will be way better psychologically if you only focus on one task, so keep your eyes on the Current section. Trust the system, it remembers everything. Do your job and relax your mind.
  7. Current section contains only one task that you need to focus on — nothing else. You can have more than one task a day, the amount of tasks as well as progress bar is displayed for your convenience. You are not allowed to jump between tasks — you should deal with every task linearly, one by one.
  8. Frogs are special types of tasks you generally do not want to deal with. Usually they are the tasks left behind for months and even years. Todorant ensures that you handle frogs first thing every day. In the morning your willpower reserve is large enough to handle even the most outrageous tasks. And after you finally deal with a frog — you receive just enough happiness to be smiling throughout the whole day. You feel proud of yourself when you deal with frogs.
  9. You are allowed to skip current task — but try to do so as rarely as possible. You cannot skip a frog. If you failed to complete a task and had to redistribute it twice, it becomes a frog.
  10. If the current task is too high level, then break it down to a list of subtasks. As soon as you break it down, the task is marked as completed.
  11. Add as much relevant information about the todo as possible. Add links to specific emails (gmail on web allows you to do this), websites, notes (like evernote), documents (like dropbox), leave phone numbers or add any information you might need to complete the task. Todorant is not meant to be a point of reference for you — instead it should act as a catalogue of links to the reference information relevant to specific todos.
  12. Feel free to join our multi-language group on Telegram to share experience and tricks on how to be more productive — @todorant_feedback! Your feedback about the service — suggestions, wishes and complaints — are highly welcome.
  13. Use the edit mode (the list order icon on top) on the Planning page to change the task order. If you want to assign a task to a specific week, just assign it to Monday and reassign it during the planning phase on Monday morning.
  14. Todorant does not have and will never have repeating tasks — the only thing they do well causing anxiety by hanging over you as unfinished tasks. If you need to complete repeating tasks — add all of them manually, your brain will thank you for conscious tasks.
  15. Todorant does not have the concept of "Projects" as it has proven itself to be demotivating, some of the "folder" never get open. Projects "Fitness" and "Self-improvement" send their regards. Instead, use #hashtags.
  16. Frogs will always appear on the top of the list.
  17. Todorant does not have notifications about the upcoming tasks with the exact time set.

What's inside

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