Note: This is not a sponsored post; I don’t receive anything if you click the links in this post. That being said, this blog does not receive incentives specifically for positive reviews — please read our new “sponsored post” disclaimer page here.
The first month of 2020 has been a bit (more) chaotic (than usual), and I’m still on the lookout for the digital planer that will help me get my shit together. My used-to-be-perfect paper system hasn’t held up the same as it used to, particularly because my brain keeps spacing out on the things I should be doing (but really don’t want to). My paper planner simply didn’t have the space to hold every single thing that I tend to overlook when life gets crazy… Things like dishes, and laundry, and washing my face. These things might come easily to others, but they’ve never come easily to me, and the more stressful things with the girls get, the harder it is for me to stay on top of them.
It’s times like this that I’m reminded of the true benefits of planning digitally rather than with pen and paper. I can move things around, cancel, and add things relatively effortlessly, and when plans change at the last minute I’m not forced to look at the list of things I wanted to do but didn’t have time. But when you’re used to using quality paper, beautiful pens, and colorful washi & stickers, moving to a digital system feels boring. Thankfully, I found an app that offers enough benefits that I’m actually willing to overlook all of its shortcomings.
Ready to learn more? Read on to hear what I thought of Bright ToDo.
The Good:
There’s no pressure to upgrade to premium.
I’ve been using Bright Todo for about a week now, and I have yet to see a single prompt to upgrade to premium. This was refreshing since one of my big complaints with Artful Agenda was that you were asked for a credit card before you even got to see the site. Additionally, the only benefit that Premium offers is that it’s ad-free — all features are included in the free version and you can watch a video ad every 24 hours to remove the banner ad for an entire day. Your first day of ad-free is completely free, no ad-watching required. Score!
Premium is reasonably priced.
Once I fell in love with the app, I grudgingly looked for the premium upgrade area because I just knew I’d have to write about this one for the blog… and I was pleasantly surprised with the price! At the time of this post, an ad-free experience is only $2.49 for 6 months. That’s literally 1/7 of the price of Artful Agenda, which didn’t offer nearly as many features (and none for free).
The widget is completely actionable.
I mentioned in the Artful Agenda review that calendar widgets are a must for me. Bright Todo has the perfect widget for the way my brain works. I have mine setup so that my scheduled items (from Google Calendar) are on top, then my daily tasks and habits, then my weekly tasks and habits, then my monthly tasks and habits. I can also pick from two different color themes (light and dark) and edit the transparency to my heart’s content. All to-do items on the widget (tasks and habits) have a checkbox so you can cross them off without even opening the app, and it shows your color codes if assigned.
Color coding! In all views! For FREE!
Not everyone uses color codes, and that’s cool, but for those of us who do, it’s frustrating when a planning app charges you for color coding. (I’m looking glaring at you, Any.do.) It took me a little bit to find where the color-coding was hidden in Bright, and I kind of wish that the categories got a font color or something instead of a “dot sticker” with the specific color. However, because of the next good thing, I fully understand why Bright does it this way.
Missed tasks auto-migrate in an accountable way.
Not only does the app auto-migrating my undone to-dos already help keep me more accountable, but auto-migrated tasks are placed at the top of the day’s list in a contrasting color (optionally). The app also shows me how many days overdue the task is so that I know how far off track I am. I’ve found that this helps a lot. If the number starts to grow more than I’m comfortable with, I have to decide if it’s worth keeping on the list, or if deleting it would be a better option.
The Bad:
I can’t find a browser version.
There may be a browser version somewhere, but since the branding is made up of fairly common (and short!) words, searching has yielded no relevant results, and I can’t find any type of link in the app. To be clear, I have my phone way more than I have my computer, so the lack of browser version only really affects me if my phone is on charge.
Exact color matching is difficult.
I can’t easily match my category color codes to their equivalents in Google Calendar, but that’s because the color selection in Bright Todo is so much more customizeable. You can use hex key codes, ASCII color codes, or a swatch-picker with dozens of options. Since Google Calendar’s colors are painfully limited and sometimes a bit garish, I sort of wish that Bright would let me manage my calendar colors, too. Which brings me to…
Event creation and management isn’t handled directly.
While Bright Todo and the respective widget can sync and display items from your Google Calendar, you cannot use it as a calendar app. This is mildly frustrating, since part of streamlining my life is purging unnecessary apps, and having two apps that would be one planner seems silly. But, attempting to add or edit an event directly from Bright will bring up a dialog in your calendar app of choice. I’ve got it routed through Google Calendar, since clearly I love Google Calendar for event creation — I just don’t like it for task creation. This definitely isn’t a deal-breaker, though, since the commands for these non-native functions will open the appropriate app for you.
There is a learning curve.
I started playing with Bright Todo on a day I didn’t have anything else going on, and I’m so glad that I did. It took me probably a good two hours to really get a feel for the app and learn my way around. Once I did, though, it was second nature — schedule items and task items are distributed exactly how I would distribute them in a paper planner. Everything I want to repeat does, on exactly the schedule I want it to — daily, a defined number of days in between, weekly, a defined number of weeks in between, monthly, a defined number of months in between… You get the idea.
Minor complaint: Daily, weekly, and monthly tasks/habits only appear on the pages they were created on.
As a somewhat obsessive planner, I tend to flip between multiple views more often than I think the average person was, so having things split into different views is probably better for my own compartmentalization. That being said, it would be nice if there was an option to show your weekly and monthly stuff on the daily page, or vice versa. The widget does show everything on the same page, though, which involves a lot of scrolling to see it all. If you need everything to be on one view, do what I did and full-screen the widget. 😉
Minor complaint: it feels incredibly digital.
I tend to prefer digital calendars that at least slightly mimic paper planners, but the good ones are few and far between. There isn’t even a slight “paper feel” to this particular planner, which is mildly disappointing to me. There’s a good part of me that wants to destroy the benefits of the “automation” by copying everything down into my paper planner anyway… But a bigger part of me is already addicted to the simplicity.
Overall:
At this exact point in my life, I think Bright ToDo is exactly what I needed. This isn’t the first time I’ve tried to use Bright, but the first time I got frustrated with the lack of a tutorial (and I didn’t have the spoons to sit down and figure it out). This time, I’m glad I gave myself time to learn it, because it made all the difference in the world.
If you’re looking for a digital planner that mimics what you can do in a paper planner, and don’t necessarily care whether it looks “too digital” or not, Bright Todo has a wealth of brain-freeing features. I love the “set it and forget it”-ability of the habit function, and that I don’t have to go to a separate page when I want to switch between one-off tasks and repeating “habits.” While the framework offers a LOT of functions, there’s still room for customization (such as the only tangible difference between “tasks” and “habits” being that habits repeat, so I use them as repeating tasks instead).
Does it sound like Bright ToDo is the app you’ve been waiting for? Download it on the Google Play Store here. I’m not aware of an iOS app for Bright, but if you know the URL, please drop it in the comments.
Do you use Bright Todo for your digital task list? Do you have any tips and tricks for me that’ll help make it even better? Drop them in the comments (or tell me what you use instead)!
Semi-Planned Chaos 