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Todoist’s human-formatted due dates

When people think of scheduling, they rarely think, “I need to have this done by April 9th.” Instead, they think, “I need to have this done by the end of the week” or “this is always due on the first Friday of the month.”

The organization platform Todoist keeps list makers on top of deadlines with its unique date formatting. Users can type in text like, “every month on the 5th,” and Todoist will automatically convert it to the appropriate recurrence. This even works for text like, “next Monday,” or longer strings like, “every other week starting on March 5th.”

If an item on the to-do list doesn’t happen, users can select from several options to reschedule.


Of course, Todoist offers the standard functionality that one would expect from a to-do list—prioritization, labels, multiple list creation, and more—but the ease of entering dates is what makes this product really stand out.

What makes this really good UX:

  • Rather than going through multiple steps to enter a date and select a recurrence, users can type in the date as they would say it naturally, and Todoist recognizes the format.
  • Rescheduling also matches how humans think, offering choices like “today,” “tomorrow,” or “this weekend.”
  • Users have the option to keep to-dos in sync with their calendar for increased visibility. A two-way sync in Todoist’s premium version allows users to reschedule either from within their calendar or the app itself.
  • When a to-do is added or edited, a row appears below the item description showing users what other functions they can use. These include adding labels, assigning priority, making comments, moving items to different lists, and more.