unnotable vs Todoist
Todoist is a very good todo list. If your day is a list of things you already know how to do, it may be all you need. unnotable holds todos too, but it was built for the other kind of thing: the ones that never make it onto a list, because you don't know what the first step is.
Where Todoist is stronger
- Recurring tasks and reminders. Todoist will tell you about the bins every Tuesday. unnotable sends no notifications, on purpose, and has no recurrence.
- Natural-language dates. Type “every other Friday at 4” and it's scheduled. In unnotable a date is a date you pick.
- Teams. Shared projects, assigning, comments between people. unnotable is for one person.
- Everywhere, and polished. Native apps on every platform, integrations with calendars and email, and more than a decade of refinement.
If that's what your work looks like, use Todoist.
Where unnotable is different
- The vague stuff has a home. A note can be a thought to sit with, a thing to do, a thing to find out, or scratch you haven't sorted. A todo list takes one of those and calls the rest “someday”.
- Notes turn into notes. Write on a thought, lift the loose ends out of the writing, and each one is a note of its own, attached to the sentence it came from. A sub-task in Todoist is a smaller task. A child in unnotable is where a thought went next.
- Nothing is red. Due dates exist. But nothing counts how far behind you are, nothing turns red, and in review a month late scores the same as a day late. A tool that keeps score becomes a creditor, and people stop opening it.
- Review, not a daily digest. When you have a spare moment, Review surfaces what's been waiting, with a question rather than a count. Work through as much as you feel like.
- AI that proposes. Chat with a note, or connect Claude. Whatever they suggest waits under Proposals until you commit it.
Side by side
| Feature | Todoist | unnotable |
|---|---|---|
| Quick capture | ✓ | ✓ |
| Due dates | ✓ | Yes, and they never turn red |
| Recurring tasks | ✓ | — |
| Reminders and notifications | ✓ | None, on purpose |
| Natural-language dates | ✓ | — |
| Grouping | Projects and labels | Topics, typed as @slug |
| Sub-tasks | ✓ | Unfold to any depth, attached to the writing |
| Items that aren’t tasks | — | Think, Research and Scratch |
| Writing on an item | Comments | A thread, with the notes that came out of each entry |
| Overdue counter | ✓ | None, on purpose |
| Review queue | — | ✓ |
| Board | ✓ | A timeline, Last to Later, and a kanban by topic |
| Calendar | ✓ | ✓ |
| Shared projects, teams | ✓ | — |
| Apps | Native on every platform | Web, on any device |
If you're switching
You don't have to. Plenty of people keep errands in Todoist and
thinking in unnotable; the two don't talk to each other. If you do
bring your list across, the only syntax to learn is ! at the
start of a line, which makes it a thing to do, and
@topic anywhere, which files it.