I’m determined to try to do better this year. I’ve got a ton of projects I’m working on, a bunch of pretty covers that need stories to go with them, and I do not have time for procrastinating. I already know I will toss a paper planner in my purse or drawer and ignore it, so digital was the way to go for me. After asking around and testing a bunch, I’ve found one that I think might actually fit my utterly bonkers perfectionist criteria. Or at least, as near as anything might without me having to break down and have something custom coded. Which… no. I don’t have time for that either, or funds. Someone stop me. Enter, TickTick.

Pros-

★ The free version is plenty operational for most, unlike many of the planners I looked at that were unusable without upgrading. Lists, tasks, subtasks, and basic notes are all available for free.

★ Premium is $27.99 a year. Yup… a year. No monthly costs, no per quota gimmicks, no per device limits. Simply $28 buckaroos a year. Even this basic broke B can squeeze that into the budget. I went ahead and upgraded to have access to every option, including calendar views, and I’m happy with my choice.

★ I love that I can set a main goal as a list, say “Update Blogs” and then underneath list all my blogs as subtasks. Once I’ve updated a blog, I can check that one off. No more keeping track of where I’ve been and what I’ve done in a random notepad doc that gets lost or keeping a ton of scribbled notes everywhere. I can make notes right in the subtask about what I wanted to add or do to the blog, what I had to update, things like that. Once it’s checked off, it goes down into the “Completed Tasks” pane.

★ You can color code your tags to keep things separate based on personal, work, businesses… whatever separations you’d like. You can add events as recurring by yearly, monthly, weekly, daily… even multiple days per week.

★It has both web and mobile versions, so when my lazy butt says I’m not going to get online that day, it pings me and says nope… get moving, you have work to do. Trust me, with chronic illnesses, sometimes I need that push! With the mobile version, you can also add tasks on the fly if you’re out and remember something, and then sort it into your actual lists once you’re home and can see everything more on the big screen, if you prefer it. Though, the mobile app is fully functional too, if you prefer to be mobile exclusively.

Cons-

☆ I do dislike that in the “Today” task pane, when I click an item as completed, it brings up the next available item which, for me, is the next week’s recurring task. I’d really rather have it leave that blank until… you know, next week. If I complete something, I want to see that pane empty so I can feel productive for a hot minute, dammit. Plus it just looks cluttered, and my OCD absolutely despises clutter. I’m sure there’s a way to filter it or adjust it to have it not do this, I just have to find it.

☆ It took a minute to figure out how to get the recurring tasks to work properly. It wasn’t immediately intuitive. It assumes the goals and tasks are long-ranging projects, so when you click completed, it marks them ALL completed, not that you’re redoing the task every single week. Thankfully, TickTick has a bustling Reddit community that seems pretty helpful, and I found someone who had asked the same question and it was answered. I was able to follow their directions to get it to function how I wanted it to there.

☆ The help and support center on the website itself doesn’t have a lot of information. It looks like it does, but you really can’t find the answers you need there. I learned that to do what I want with the filters, I need to have a smart list. Can I figure out how to do that on web OR mobile and get it to transfer to the other? Nope. Definitely frustrating.

Overall Thoughts-
There are obviously some learning pains and some quirks. However, I also know I’m a bear with a sore paw when it comes to changing anything in my normal routine, so some of my nitpicking may be not a big deal to others. Or hey, if you figure them out, let a girl know, will you? Overall, I got it to do most of what it wanted it to do within 24 hours. It was fairly easy to guess at functions for the first couple hours, and when things didn’t work, I drilled down and tried other options in the panes.

Simply playing with different settings enabled me to do most of what I wanted without even looking for help, so that’s pretty great, all things considered. The interface is nice, the options are many. I love the way you can break up tasks into lists for different sections of your life. Despite the few nitpicky bugs I have with it, I think this is a solid choice for a digital planner at a great price, and will be continuing to use it to keep myself on track. Well… as on track as I can be, of course.