For years and years, I managed all of my tasks, projects, goals and ideas using a handful of text files that I wrangled in the text editor BBEdit. It was nerdy and time-consuming, but also completely bespoke; the approach fit my workflow, and evolved over time as my working style did, too.

Along the way, I briefly tried out pretty much every task management software that existed. Some, like The Hit List or Omnifocus, I even stuck with for a couple of weeks. But, inevitably, I’d end up chafing under a program’s structure, or run into problems with its stability and data security, and return to my free-form text.

About six months ago, for reasons I can no longer recall, I decided to test out the online task management program Todoist. An extremely fast and fluid web app, it also boasted polished iPhone and iPad versions. So I dumped in my text files, and started using it. And then I kept using it. And using it. Two months in, I reverted to my text approach; after an hour, I started to feel that it was text, not Todoist, that fell short in comparison.

Six months later, I still use Todoist all day, ever day. If you haven’t tried it out, you should. (And sign up for the trial of the premium features; they make the app vastly more powerful, and are certainly worth the the $0.08 a day they cost if you decide to stick with it.)