I’ve often pondered: what exactly is the role of a Todo List supposed to be?
By current market “productivity standards,” Todoist, which I currently use, is undoubtedly top-tier. It features project hierarchies, tag management, natural language input, and even Karma scores to gamify your progress. To organize my life, I subscribed to the Premium version, attempting to use the GTD (Get Things Done) philosophy to keep everything in perfect order.
But recently, I realized an awkward truth: The biggest problem with Todoist is that, generally speaking, I simply don’t open the app.
Conversely, WeChat—a social app criticized by countless people for being bloated or even called a “productivity black hole”—has unexpectedly become the place where my execution is strongest.
Todoist Is a “Creditor,” WeChat Is “Life”
I carefully reviewed my behavioral patterns.
My Todoist is sitting there, filled with tasks: trivial chores, school assignments, and plans I want to do but haven’t started. When I pick up my phone out of boredom or a desire to relax, my finger subconsciously slides toward WeChat, Xiaohongshu (RedNote), or other social media apps. Who would scroll through a task list out of boredom?
Opening Todoist means pressure to me. It feels like a strict supervisor or a creditor holding a bill. The backlog of overdue tasks, with every red date, is screaming at me: “You didn’t finish this again.” This creates a psychological resistance—subconsciously, I just don’t want to see it.
WeChat is different. It is the gateway to traffic; it is life itself. I open WeChat to see what friends are posting, to check group gossip, or simply out of habit to clear those red notification dots. While clearing dots isn’t exactly pleasurable, it’s at least not painful, and even carries a subtle expectation of “social reward.”
Therefore, whenever I have something truly important that absolutely cannot be forgotten, I don’t write it in Todoist. Instead, I set a “strong reminder” within WeChat or send it to the “File Transfer Assistant” and pin it to the top.
Because I know I might ignore a Todoist pop-up, but I will absolutely never ignore a WeChat message box.
Why Did “Precise Management” Fail?
I used to think that as long as the tool was powerful enough, I could become an efficient person.
Todoist solved many pain points I had with Google Tasks: sub-tasks, tags, filters… It felt great. I spent a lot of time building projects, tagging tasks, and setting priorities. Looking at that organized list, I did have the illusion that “I have everything under control.”
But the reality is: The time I spend “managing tasks” often exceeds my expectations, while the time I actually spend “executing tasks” is often far less.
This is simply the greatest irony of modern productivity.
Often, for quick, temporary tasks, I’m too lazy to categorize or tag them; for truly important, massive tasks, I feel that simple tags can’t capture their complexity. The result is that Todoist has become an awkward “warehouse.” It stores countless things I want to do, but it hasn’t become the “launchpad” to execute them.
I even frequently bump tasks from “Today” to “Tomorrow.” As long as there is no hard deadline, the tasks in Todoist are just lines of pale text with no binding force.
True Binding Force Comes from “Connection”
Why do I definitely check notifications from WeChat (or DMs on Instagram/social media)?
I just realized it’s because of social relationships.
Behind the red dot is a person. Not replying might offend someone; ignoring a group notice might mean missing critical information. This social attribute, based on “face” or “responsibility,” gives WeChat a type of mandatory power that Todoist can never possess.
A Todoist notification can be swiped away because it was sent to myself. A WeChat message must be dealt with because it was sent to the “social me.”
Returning to Instinct
I’m not saying WeChat is the best Todo List—it obviously isn’t. Using it to manage complex projects would be a disaster.
I haven’t fully decided to unsubscribe from Todoist yet, as it’s still a decent container for homework and chores. But my mindset has changed, and I might unsubscribe at any moment in the coming days.
I’ve started to realize: Tools that fight against human instinct will eventually be given the cold shoulder.
If a tool requires immense willpower just to open, it becomes part of the resistance itself. Perhaps one day, I will abandon complex tagging and filtering systems and return to a flexible, controllable plain text list.
Because what I truly need is not a more powerful app, but a place that flows with my attention, allowing me to spend less time “organizing” and more time “doing.”