Show HN: I built a task manager that separates "do" and "due" dates
apps.apple.comHi HN,
I’m the founder of Zesfy, a productivity app that I’ve been developing over the past few years. It’s designed to seamlessly integrate your tasks with your calendar, allowing you to transform your to-do lists into actionable events in just seconds. Here are some of its key features:
- Task Progress: Automatically update your progress based on subtasks completed
- Step: Create step-by-step breakdown of the subtask
- Target: Organize tasks with due date
- Session: Insert multiple tasks to calendar event
- Space: Filter event from specific sets of calendars
App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/zesfy-planner-calendar/id64799...
I have ADHD and hence am generally quite interested in apps in this space.
Maybe it's just me but I found the app controls to be way too small, too many onboarding walk through steps and way too much information density in the Task screen.
Progress, Highlight, Due Date, different lists - it's a lot.
It seems to me you wanted to pack a punch, but it's so dense and so many steps involved that it falls into the productivity fallacy for me: It's increasing my executive disfunction and makes it harder and cumbersome to add tasks instead of reducing it.
One app that really works for me, does one thing and does it well is for example Due: https://apps.apple.com/de/app/due-erinnerungen-timer/id39001...
Not affiliated in any way with the app or it's creator.
When it comes to apps like these, less is more for me.
For years I have been fiddling with the idea of a personal task management system that synchronized status, due dates, prioritization, planning, projects, etc across platforms, and came to a conclusion that nothing beats a flat text file (with own notation for all the above) synchronized well across devices via something reliable yet lightweight like google keep, that I "scan, update, reorder" at least once a day.
One huge insight was a notation to keep track of blocked tasks (usually by other people) and what/whom to "poll" periodically to check the status.
In my own markdown-driven workflow with tool support (https://github.com/coezbek/rodo) the solution for me is to only look at tasks relevant today and just move blocked tasks 1 or 7 or n days into the future so they show up again then.
I pay for Todoist because all the other synchronization stuff requires my attention or somehow is not supported well.
Ideally I would like to have git available on iPhone and Apple tablets then I could use my repo that I have notes in on laptops and android phones.
Well I am pissed by poor text editing on iPhone anyway so I will go back to android and then I can go back to text file with git on private repo.
> Ideally I would like to have git available on iPhone and Apple tablets
I'd like to introduce you to Working Copy
- https://apps.apple.com/us/app/working-copy-git-client/id8966... - https://workingcopy.app
This looks great but... to work with a github repo I have to give:
* read and write access to ALL gists
* read and write access to ALL repos, public and private
* read and write access to SSH public keys
That's a no from me.
Getting things done (GTD) has a notion of “waiting for”. Lots of people successfully follow GTDs structure methodologically.
> and came to a conclusion that nothing beats a flat text file (with own notation for all the above) synchronized well across devices via something reliable yet lightweight like google keep
Checklists in Apple Notes also works well for this if you’ve already bought into that ecosystem. I only wish it could track list items, so I could get basic stats on velocity.
It's not so much a task database that people need. People need a way to structure their day. I find the calendar approach a lot of these apps use to be too cumbersome. I want structure, but something looser.
I'm working on my solution to this, that I call a "process manager." You have prompts that are composed of the prompt text, a recurrence pattern, and some prefill or "carry over" state. Essentially, a human version of a Turing machine.
Each day has a list, of the prompts that are due to show up that day. You can print it from your phone, and keep the paper folded and always with you.
Processes > projects. Our life is naturally process based. If you use food as an example, it's not enough to go grocery shopping once or make a meal once. Instead, "staying fed" is a never ending process. You can subordinate those tasks to that process, though.
So processes like that need to be managed, and currently there aren't any tools for that I know of.
I launched it on Testflight yesterday if anyone wants to give a spin: https://testflight.apple.com/join/2VNkUqy9
I am planing on adding more powerful features, like the ability to script the prompt instead of having it be static text.
This fairly easily achievable with a tool I built called Nestful
https://nestful.app
Nestful is built on a different but similar premise called Spontaneous Productivity:
https://blog.nestful.app/p/spontaneous-productivity
Initial feedback: it opens to a blank screen, and adding a prompt opens a form with a bunch of fields like “prompt”, “prefill”, and “category”, which bounced me. Would love some concrete starter examples to understand the idea and give it a shot!
Yeah definitely not ready for prime time yet. I'm working on a reddit community to discuss this concept though, will add some prompts and how to use it there.
https://www.reddit.com/r/PromptYourself/
I have ADHD as well, and Due has been an absolute lifesaver and core of my life management for years now.
Why Due over built-in Reminders app on iOS. Reminders has grown into a pretty neat app over the years. With iOS 18 it can even do Kanban view. Reminders on iOS also has the unique system advantage of having it's notifications stay on top of others until marked done. No other app has this permission as others I have tried, the notification just gets buried and I sometimes miss them.
With that said, Reminders remains just a tad basic for me for full life/project management. I just need deeper nesting! Currently in "My Lists" you can only go 2-deep. A folder then a list. I need folders inside folders.
I've been playing around with Twos App (https://www.twosapp.com/) for a month which replicates Bullet Journaling. But it is too complicated I think for my needs. I don't need my notes/journals inside my todo's app.
How badly do Twos want to SEO rank on searches for Things?
https://culturedcode.com/things/
Just use a text file where you drop all your todo items. At the end of every week bring to the top everything you plan to do next week. At the end of each day bring to the top everything you plan to do tomorrow.
I’m confused why you have both Zesfy (https://apps.apple.com/il/app/zesfy-planner-calendar/id64799...) and Sepnia (https://apps.apple.com/il/app/sepnia-calendar-tasks/id151493...).
They look very similar.
Sepnia was my earlier app, and Zesfy is designed to replace it. I’ve kept Sepnia available for now to give users time to migrate to Zesfy before I take it down. I hope that clears up the confusion.
The App Store flow is about abstract features so to me it doesn’t speak to value.
Eg it’s easy to know when something’s due, but really hard to know when to work on what —- what to do when. Saying “schedule easily” sort of buries the lede.
I wonder if a leading panel talking about the frustrating churn of planning ( implicitly trading the urgent against the important) would activate more people and also provide the right keywords for finding the app via search
Nice, it looks good and polished!
I liked the on-boarding. I don't like the first screen being a pitch for a subscription, but I get that you probably need to sell hard to get subscriptions.
I've recently launched a small app on the app store and it's no where near as polished! How long have you been working on it?
Thanks for the kind words. I'm glad that you like the onboarding.
I get your point about the subscription screen. It's something that I've been experimenting for a while. I found many users activate the subscription during the onboarding, that's why I keep it.
I've been working on this app for almost 5 years at this point. Also, congrats for the app. Feel free to share the link, I'd love to check it out.
> I found many users activate the subscription during the onboarding, that's why I keep it.
I think this is the toughest part for me as a technically inclines person - selling. It's something I want to become more comfortable with.
> almost 5 years at this point
Well done persisting. That is a lot of hard work! Any tips on keeping up motivation? I've been working on my app for only a few months now and had to dig deep a few times to keep going.
> Feel free to share the link, I'd love to check it out.
Thanks, I'm still working on making it a bit more marketable, but here it is: https://dingdongdoorbell.com/
A friend of mine is working on a an app to help devs sell stuff - he might benefit from your feedback - https://gitwallet.co/
I'm always interested in potentially helpful systems for organizing my tasks...
But I'm not interested in another rent payment, full stop.
Excited to try this out. Will the app edit my iOS calendar, or is it isolated off?
I love that you’re treating tasks as calendar events. Tasks take time, so that’s how it should be.
Personal Opinion—This is not for me as I follow a different pattern after learning from many others. However, here is my feedback from your landing page and the app screenshots.
I believe you should try to have case studies or some sort of Customer Archetype/Profile on the landing page.
Who is this App for?
The interface (from the screenshots) does look clean, but in my experience, apps/software that help people “get things done” are better off with more contrast colors, prominent design differences between modules, etc. The low-contrast Pantone-blushed neomorphic-ish design becomes a slippery, harder target to hit when used in tools that should do their job and get out of the way.
Very important distinction! Apple recently added an “Early Reminder” feature that allows similar functionality which I am very grateful for.
And since Sonoma and iOS 18, Calendar and Reminders are finally integrated, so it’s easy to see upcoming reminders.
I can't install it because I have an older (2020) Intel mac and it requires an M1 or later chip. Is that an accident or is there a real dependency on Apple CPUs?
Yes. iOS apps can run natively on Apple Silicon Macs, but not on Intel.
I will give any “Data Not Collected” app a fair chance. The design/UI look suite polished from the screenshots. Look forward to trying it out!
Thanks for giving it a try. I'd love to hear your experience, feel free to let me know.
Is “do date” the same as what is commonly called a “start date”? The latter is the most useful date IMO, in conjunction with being able to hide all tasks whose start date hasn’t been reached yet.
For todos anymore, I just create issues in my VCS UX of choice(self-hosted Forgejo for me), but Github, Gitlab, Gitea, etc all do the same sorts of things. I think they do basically everything on the above list, with the exception of calendar exporting. Though I'm sure one could write that fairly easily if they wanted.
I just keep a private repo called 'mylife' and everything goes in it, my private notes/journals/etc are just text file git commits in the same repo.
That said, if I was looking for a new system, outside of my control, I'd def. check this out.
Thanks. It’s interesting to see how you leverage tools you already use. I’m curious about how you review your tasks for the day. Do you go through your text files one by one and pick out the most important tasks to focus on?
I developed Zesfy because I needed a mobile app to manage all my work, but I couldn’t find one that met my needs. What the review process look like if you're on mobile? Are you using a specific app?
Looks great! Cool idea and a very clean interface. One note on the website: the "Calendar / Todo / Project" nav buttons throw 404 errors when clicked.
Thanks for the kind words and for pointing that out. I'll get that fixed right away.
I’m wondering if there are any apps that combine the functionality of a todo list and a calendar with the concept of a daily agenda. I use Notion to do this but it requires manual work.
Each morning I create a daily agenda. I pull in my calendar entries. I also pull things I plan on doing from my todo list. I generally work off of my daily agenda.
When the day is over I put everything with doing back to the todo list.
Sunsama is the best at this:
https://www.sunsama.com/blog/time-blocking
More importantly, it offers a guided daily ritual to help through it gently, and make it a habit. This is shown in the second half of the blog post.
Check out Twos App (https://www.twosapp.com/). The interface makes it pretty easy to move tasks around, has integrated Calendar and can keep notes/journal as well.
Not affiliated, just been trying it out for a month now. Developer has been very responsive as well.
It's going to be work to get it set up, but Emacs + org-mode will do those things for you. Example:
That's a TODO item in the PROG state (TODO->PROG->DONE, I like 4-letter words to keep the columns aligned) with priority C, and the meeting is scheduled from 1800 to 1830.Clicking on the date or calling `org-agenda-list` which in my instance is bound to `C-c a a` will show something like this:
Unfortunately (or fortunately?) this doesn't sync my work office365 calendar. I can sync Jira tickets though :)I remember using Lotus Organizer for this until I switched over to macOS a few years ago. I still haven't found a good alternative that combines it all in one place and is as lightweight. It had all those goodies like automatically moving undone ToDo's to the next day, a lot of options for reminders/due dates, schedule conflict checker etc.
Notion is great, but I too find the extra work distracting and unnecessary.
Todoist handles this pretty well now with their new calendar view and updated Google Calendar integration. I believe it also handles other calendar services.
I do something similar, and I've come to appreciate the manual work. It lets me take a moment and reflect on what's important before I copy it over to/from the endless list.
Around 8... maybe ask on /r/productivity! You just reminded me I'm paying for Skedpal but not using it..
If you’re an Apple person, consider Things. It’s a classic.
How can I show my Google calendars on here? Also, any plans for a desktop app? I hate interacting with calendars on my phone :(
Zesfy syncs with your iOS calendar, so if you’ve already added your Google account to your iPhone’s calendar, all your Google events will show up in the app. Just make sure to turn on "Show iOS Calendars" on the app settings and you're good to go.
I'm planning to add supports for iPad and Mac in the future, probably PWA too if there is enough demand for it.
NotePlan is my favorite comparable app. It has super nice apps for Mac desktop and iOS. It also syncs your data to your iCloud account in text files so very good for privacy in that you are not storing you data on their servers.
It's absolute bonkers to me that anyone would pay 8-10 USD per month in this day and age for an app like this.
Not saying all SaaS = bad, but for the functionality it provides, there are boatloads of cheaper options out there.
Value is relative, so maybe I'm also just too poor.
This was totally my excuse as a kid… I thought “due” meant “do”
Interesting, might recommend this to some others that use a calendar in this way but feel like Omnifocus can already essentially do this with forecast view.
It is not quite the same but Things from Cultured code does the
- do vs due date
- subproject progress view
and is just generally a super awesome app that brought me a lot of peace
I'm a Things user, but I bounce between that and Apple Reminders for household/shared tasks. I'd love a good do/die app that supported multiple accounts and assigning tasks.
This is beautiful! It's so pleasant to look at. Like the other commenter, I have ADHD and I felt a bit overwhelmed with the tutorial but when I have more brain space I'll give it another go. Needs more dark mode!
Also the privacy policy is great.
I don't have a problem with the subscription page being the first thing a user sees, even though I never subscribe to, well, anything personally and am against the XaaS economy. It's clear, simple, very easy to dismiss, and doesn't feel coercive or full of dark patterns like many other apps. It's also a bit different for me when it's a solo/small/indie dev instead of a megacorp. It's nice to know how much I'm in for before I start using and integrating something like this into my life. It really annoys me when that info is hard to find. I would love the option to pay a once off price, though I realise this can be challenging for funding ongoing development. One app I love (forScore) has a one off price ($30 AUD) with the option to pay a subscription ($15AUD/y) that has only a few minor benefits and extra functionality for the end user (which is explicitly stated) but is available for people who want to donate a bit on top to help fund ongoing development. I did a year or two of this subscription because it's such an amazing app I get a lot of value from and if it were made by Avid/Sibelius it'd probably cost $700+ and require a ridiculous subscription on top to use the basic features. I don't know if that model is something you'd ever consider. Either way I like the way you've clearly communicated the subscription prices.
Missed opportunity.. should have named it dodue.
>separates "do" and "due" dates
That's a great distinction to make.
Thanks. I was surprised to find that only a handful of productivity apps offer these features. Hopefully, you find these features useful.
Do you have any plans for an Android release?
I’m open to an Android release in the future, but right now, I’m focused on supporting Apple devices first.
What’s the difference between the free and pro?
You missed an opportunity to name your app "DoDue"
I’m honestly just shocked you didn’t call it DoDue with a lead in like that.
Looks sharp though! Nice work!
What if you're due to... Do the dew?