Lots of competitors in this space it seems. I had a similar idea, a todo list + calendar app listed below, but it's interesting to see ideas converging on the idea of timeboxing your tasks.
Ever since Cal Newport wrote Deep Work, it seems like everyone wants to get on the deep work productivity train. I wonder who will win eventually though.
In my experience, productivity apps have more in common with lifestyle brands than, say, email. In that way, there's no winning any more than one brand can effectively own a space.
If I were CEO of one of these products, I'd quickly diversify into other areas in order to differentiate, add value to subscriptions, and better cater to a particular audience. How I'd do that would depend on the lifestyle brand I'm trying to establish. I've heard this called the law of division in marketing.[1]
https://agenda.com fit the bill for me. Offline use (though can only sync today through iCloud and Dropbox, I think, which sucks - but you can sync folders manually), pulls calendar from your system integration, simple payment. You can link your daily agenda items/notes to calendar invites.
Though it does not connect to email, at least today, which was OK for my use cases.
I recently switched from Sunsama to Amazing Marvin, which is less opinionated, has more features, and is cheaper, but doesn't support teams as far as I can tell.
Indeed, I included it to show that even though everyone might seem like they're clamoring for deep work products, the reality is that sometimes people just don't care enough. Level's founder Derrick Reimer had a hypothesis that people hated Slack (and particularly its interrupting notifications) that he wanted to make a product that was async. Turns out people don't actually care enough to change their entire communications workflow.
I think the bigger problem there is missing who the real customer is. Slacks pay-for features are targeted not at the users but at management, and management gets to dictate tools more often than not. Individual developers would absolutely jump on an async platform, but they're not the decision maker.
I run a problem validation platform, The problem which has the most number of solutions is 'Getting things done at individual level'[1].
Just when I think, every possible way to address this has been done there comes another with totally different approach to task management. This is very interesting as each one of them built it because they felt something was missing in their existing task manager.
As long there's a need-gap exists, there's a need for the solution.
Thanks for the survey of similar applications. What I want is (inspired by Deep Work) an application that allows me to do time-blocking for a given day around my typical schedule.
For example, in a given day, since I'm a student, I may have two 75-minute blocks of class and a 45 minute meeting scheduled. I want an app that encourages me to think about what I'll be doing with the rest of my time and fill in the gaps in my calendar with whatever (reading, doing assignments, note-taking, etc.). Does one of the apps you've linked to provide this?
In my opinion, why not use a calendar app for that, like Google Calendar, and fill it out each day yourself? For that usecase I don't see the value in paying for these tools.
I know the founder of Oltra, cool guy. My product is actually mobile first because I found that I liked having it on my phone when I'm out and about. It's still in the building stages though, I've been documenting it on Twitter [0] this month, trying to finish the MVP before the end of the month.
Ever since Cal Newport wrote Deep Work, it seems like everyone wants to get on the deep work productivity train. I wonder who will win eventually though.
- www.getartemis.app (disclosure, my app)
- www.akiflow.com
- www.oltra.io
- www.levelteams.com