Todoist
Smiles Davis, why make things harder?
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Sometimes the best way forward is back to basics
All that’s new in the Todoist-verse – August 2025
Hey! It’s
Denise from Todoist. 👋
August has this funny way of making everything feel like a fresh start, doesn’t it?
You’re back from vacation (or watching everyone else return from theirs), and there’s this renewed energy in the air. September’s around the corner, Q4 is approaching fast, and suddenly you’re thinking: “Okay, how am I actually going to make this all happen?”
Whether you’re coordinating with colleagues on year-end priorities or just trying to get your own momentum back, this month let’s focus on the basics – they tend to make things feel less intense.
Back to basics: The power of simple systems
When life gets busy, these three simple principles matter more than any elaborate setup:
Build a structure that makes sense to you. Set up projects in a way that mirrors how you naturally think about work and life – whether that’s “Work/Personal/Side Projects,” per-client setups, or goal-driven buckets like “Q4 Sales Targets.” 💡When your Todoist reflects how you naturally think about your responsibilities, everything falls into place.
Team tip: If you have a team workspace, you can also use folders to organize your team projects. Plus, folders sync to all your team members’ accounts, meaning everyone sees the same organized structure.
Automate the routine stuff. Weekly carpool duties, monthly inventory checks, annual contract renewals – anything that repeats should be a recurring task. One setup, zero brain space wasted.
Use templates for repeated processes. Back-to-school prep, new client onboarding, monthly payroll processing – any multi-step process that happens more than once gets turned into a reusable template. You’ll never reinvent the wheel (or miss a step). Here’s how you create a template.
Enhanced quick access on desktop – See today’s and tomorrow’s tasks + calendar events straight from your tray menu. Jump into work without opening the full app. Click a task to get to it, or click an event to open it in your browser. Perfect for those quick check-ins between meetings.
Visual recurring scheduler – Setting recurring tasks with natural language usually works like a breeze, but complex patterns like “every three weeks on Thursday until Oct 31” can be tricky. The new visual interface takes away the guesswork – just set it visually.
Real simplicity in action
Twelve years ago,
Frank Bravo, CTO at Embarcadero Media, was drowning in systems so complex that it took more time managing the workflow than doing actual work.
He ditched the chaos, switched to Todoist, and completely rethought how he approached productivity – both personally and with his team.
The team built an elegantly simple workflow: emails from their ticketing system automatically become Todoist tasks for the assigned team member. Recurring maintenance tasks, individual projects, and customer support tickets all flow into one unified system.
Today, Frank and his team live by one ironclad rule: “If it’s not in Todoist, it doesn’t exist.”
Frank’s recommendations for staying organized
After a solid decade of working in Todoist every day, Frank offers three practical tips:
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Create your projects – “If you don’t have good organization, it’s gonna be just a junk drawer of tasks.”
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Leverage labels – “Use labels to track status and categorize your work.”
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Use the calendar integration – “Connect your calendar so you can assign things to days and times.”
When simple starts to feel messy
Many of you already use Todoist with others – perhaps even share projects with people from work.
But multiple shared projects are starting to encroach on your personal space, or your colleague’s project naming approach is ... different (how many emojis does one project need?). What used to feel clean now feels cluttered.
That’s where team workspaces help: a dedicated space that keeps personal and shared projects separate, with zero extra complexity. Same Todoist principles, just applied to teamwork.
See how team workspaces work →
Complexity is the last thing you need when you’re trying to rebuild momentum. Step back, ask what’s working, and let the rest go. The answer is usually simpler than we think.
Here’s to a bit of housekeeping.
Productively,
