Once upon a time, in the mid-2010s, I decided (perhaps foolishly) to get a Bachelor's degree. It took five years and I learned a lot about my time management skills in the process. Namely, I learned that I'm really bad at managing my time and remembering to complete assignments.
What's a ghost to do? Like any other sensible millennial, I turned to technology to aid me. I was a new inductee into the world of smartphones and was eager to see just how smart my cheap little device really was.
As there is now, there were a good half-dozen different task management apps available in the Google Play store, and I downloaded them all to see which I liked best. That was when I fell in love with the now-defunct Astrid.
I used Astrid for almost two years before Yahoo bought and killed it (thanks, capitalism). When that friendly little octopus finally bit the dust--on my BIRTHDAY, no less--I was distraught without reprieve. I needed another task manager, but I didn't want another task manager. I'd found my one true love and it had been taken from me. I felt like a widow, adrift and hopeless.
It was during that hopeless period that I discovered the to-do app I ended up keeping for most of college and beyond: Any.Do.
What is Any.Do?
If you're familiar with task managers, you probably know Any.Do as well as the other big names that are still with us, like Wunderlist or Todoist. Structurally, Any.Do is not that different from most other to-do apps. You're able to input tasks, set reminders for those tasks, and organize them into task lists or categories. In fact, most to-do apps are largely built from the same foundation, and vary only in aesthetic and bonus features.
The Good
If you're looking for a minimalistic, responsive, no-fuss task manager, Any.Do has got your back. Its simplicity is both beautiful and elegant. Inputting and organizing tasks is easy. The mobile and web apps run smoothly with virtually no lag and sync almost instantaneously.
Any.Do's most novel feature is the Any.Do Moment, a daily reminder and module that walks you through each of your daily tasks, one by one, and allows you to sort and prioritize them for the day ahead.
The app has also has recently rolled out a new grocery list function that appears quite promising, and something I haven't seen in other to-do apps, at least not at the level of sophistication Any.Do's version has.
The free version of Any.Do is fine, but the Premium version is really where Any.Do stands out. You can add location-based reminders, customize recurring tasks, and add up to 100GB worth of attachments to your tasks. Finally, for a separate one-time payment, you can even hire a personal assistant to help you complete your tasks, at about 13 bucks per task. Not even the fanciest bullet journal can do that!
The Bad
It's worth noting that Any.Do is the to-do app that I currently use and have been using on and off for years. I stand by the assertion that it's a great and powerful app that's bound to make any casual user happy. All that said, I do have my share of gripes.
First and foremost, the free features of Any.Do are extremely limited, almost to an insulting degree. Back in my college days, Any.Do had four different priority levels you could tag your tasks with. Nowadays, you can only mark them as "priority" unless you're willing to shell out the dough for Premium. Recurring tasks and location-based reminders are also locked behind a paywall, despite those features being free in other apps. The Any.Do moment is another thing that used to be free, but now you only get 5 Moments per month on the free plan. You can't even change the theme color without shelling out money. There's also no native desktop app, which I wouldn't consider a deal-breaker but is extremely frustrating.
If you've never used a task manager app before, you might not be too bummed about Any.Do's weaker points. However, if you're coming from Wunderlist, or used Any.Do a few years ago and are just coming back to it, you might find yourself starved for functionality.
Final Thoughts
There's a lot about Any.Do that pisses me off, but there's no denying its prominence in the task manager world, or our long and rich history together. I probably owe my college degree to the Any.Do team. But, when compared to Wunderlist and Todoist, Any.Do comes up a bit short in the feature department. The things it does have are cool, but you really need the Premium plan to unlock Any.Do's fullest potential, which I find terribly unfortunate as both a poor person and a notoriously stingy one. That said, I wouldn't want any of my griping to dissuade someone from checking Any.Do out; it's one of the Big 3 Task Managers for a reason.
I can't make a fully honest comparison between Any.Do, Wunderlist, and Todoist at this point, but I intend to change that over the course of this blog. All I can say is that Any.Do is good, will absolutely get the job done, but is perhaps a bit too simple for task managing power users.
Ratings
Approval Meter: 💚💚💚🖤🖤
The Okayest Task Management App on the Internet
Spooky Meter: 👻
If you can't figure out how Any.Do works, I feel bad for you, son.