Creating tasks fast without everything freezing
So I opened both Todoist and TickTick side-by-side last week (which was mistake number one — they really don’t like that). I was rebuilding a weekly recurring task template and trying to speed-copy over 15 subtasks from my onboarding sequence into both apps.
The difference? Todoist started lagging after five pastes, and my cursor kept jumping up to the parent task. TickTick, weirdly, stayed smooth — I could paste 20 checkboxes into a task note area and hit save without any flicker. I even tried hammering CMD+V repeatedly just to see when it’d break, and guess what? It didn’t.
Todoist also did this thing where it would briefly show the task, then “refresh” the list and the newly pasted task would vanish. I had to back-arrow and return to see it again. It’s tiny, but if you’re adding a ton of microtasks, it’s the kind of behavior that makes you start muttering to your coffee mug 🙃
Also, TickTick lets you use markdown-style inputs when typing quickly — just hitting dash-space auto-converts to a checklist without needing to switch views. Todoist keeps that locked down and feels like it wants you to slow down and think about structure before just dumping stuff in. Which, yeah I get the design logic, but also no thanks.
Keyboard shortcuts that actually make sense
This is where Todoist weirdly falls apart. For something that looks minimal, its keyboard system is anything but minimal. There’s a separate shortcut for quick add, navigate up/down, go to today, go to inbox, and archive — and they all feel just slightly off.
For example: pressing A brings up a new task in the inbox, and Q opens the Quick Add — but half the time I end up hitting Tab or Enter and the whole thing collapses without saving. Then if you try to undo, the keyboard focus jumps to the search bar. It feels like juggling five balloons in slow motion.
Over in TickTick, the keyboard shortcuts are…basically just plain text logic. From the main view, I can hit T for today, I for inbox, and N for new task — and that’s it. No twitchy floating windows accidentally closing. No modal dance. Also, if I type `%Work` it’ll tag it automatically, and hitting `@due tomorrow` parses instantly. Todoist does that, too, but TickTick’s parser felt more forgiving for mistypes. And let’s be real — I’m typing half this stuff while walking or in a cell zone with 2 bars 🙃
Handling recurring tasks without accidental cloning
This is the one that made me switch teams for a few weeks.
So in Todoist, I had a recurring task every Monday that involved checking three admin accounts and issuing a weekly review. The task was set to “every Monday,” and the subtask list was nested inside. But when I marked the parent task as done… the subtasks just sat there.
They didn’t reset. Not only that — they stayed checked, so the new instance of the Monday task would appear with already-completed subtasks. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
TickTick, on the other hand, asks if you want to clone the subtasks with each new recurrence. You can decide whether to reset them or leave them behind. That tiny prompt saved me from retyping my full “Weekly QA checklist” at least six times.
Also, weird bug — in Todoist, if you clone a recurring task with subtasks, then move it into a different section or label, the recurrence breaks unless you re-add the date manually. I tested that three times in a row. No idea what’s going on there.
Sorting by time that actually works
Okay, this one got me yelling at my screen. In Todoist, I assigned four tasks scheduled for the same day, three of them with specific times — 8am, 1pm, and 5pm. The fourth was just a date, no time.
Guess where the un-timed task ended up? Smack in the middle at 2pm. Why??
The logic on how Todoist sorts un-timed tasks seems inconsistent. Sometimes it shows them at the top (before timed events), sometimes in the middle (??), and sometimes they get buried at the bottom, depending on how many projects you’re showing. It drove me crazy for an entire afternoon.
TickTick lets you manually drag tasks around even inside the Today view. If you care about order, not just timestamps, this makes a big difference. Also, dragging feels instant, whereas Todoist takes about a half-second per move — not a big deal for one change, but if you’re trying to plan a 12-task day, it adds up fast.
Smart lists vs filters actual usability
Todoist’s Filters feel like SQL in disguise. You can build one that says `@writing & !#stalled | today` and yeah, it works… but remembering that syntax six weeks later? Forget it.
I had a filter called “Urgent Always” that stopped showing correct results after I changed one tag, and I still don’t know why 😅 It turned out the ampersand order impacted priority, which… okay. But I didn’t learn that from the app — I had to Google it.
TickTick’s Smart Lists are less powerful but more approachable. You drag tags in visually, click to include or exclude, and hit save. Search still isn’t as strong, but for daily flows, it means I can make a “Deadline Today + Unlabeled” view in about 15 seconds. Not perfect, but real-world usable.
Also, TickTick gives you sorting inside those smart lists — so your filtered view doesn’t feel stuck in presentation order. Todoist just drops the results with no real way to re-sort by priority or manual drag.
Calendar sync that behaves during sync storms
Here’s where things got especially weird.
I had both my apps hooked into the same Google Calendar. When I changed a deadline inside TickTick, the update hit my calendar in about 10 seconds. Pretty darn fast.
Todoist? It backfed the update in twice. Once instantly, and once again a few minutes later… with a second unlinked version of the task. Somehow both were active events in my Google Calendar, like dark twins.
TickTick uses a direct calendar layer with more predictable update packets. I tried pushing 20 tasks forward by one day and got a single calendar sync wave. Todoist looked like it was rebuilding the whole day each time — which is just painful if you have notifications on.
Also, in TickTick, you can adjust start and end times directly from the built-in calendar view (drag-and-drop style), and it syncs out in both directions. Todoist doesn’t even let you set a duration unless you’re using third-party logic — everything is just point-date-time.
Notifications that aren’t totally random
This one’s simple. TickTick’s notifications have never not triggered for me. If I set a task for 1pm and say “remind 5 minutes before,” my phone buzzes at 12:55. Consistently.
Todoist? Sometimes it works. Sometimes it fires 15 minutes late. Once I had three reminders all trigger exactly 47 minutes behind schedule — just enough to be useless. I submitted a bug report and never heard back.
Also, TickTick supports location-based reminders out of the box. Walk into the office? Reminder hits. Todoist still doesn’t do this, unless you hook into IFTTT or some third-party system. And even then, half the time your webhook triggers twice or your zap overheats.
Feels funny to say, but the notifications are what kept me from missing three dentist appointments 😅
Collaboration or accountability partners without accidental sharing
I once shared a Todoist project meant for just me with a collaborator by mistake, and they got about 50 backlog tasks dumped into their inbox. Because the project had tasks auto-assigned, they thought I was yelling at them. Not great.
In TickTick, shared lists are clearly marked and show who’s been added. You also have to manually assign people, and there are no accidental forwards. Plus it tells you if someone completed something — a tiny icon pops in — which helps prevent that awkward “Did you do it?” message.
I’ve used both apps in collaborative sprints, and the big difference is that TickTick actually lets you leave notes attached to completions. So if you finish a shared checklist item, you can say “used alternate version of graphic, client approved,” and it stays inline.
Todoist, in contrast, buries comments in the activity log, which is fine if you like scrolling, but bad if you’re trying to keep everyone moving fast without things falling through the cracks.