How to Turn Google Into the Best To-Do App Ever

For a certain kind of (slightly uptight) person, it’s easy to spend far more time futzing with your to-do list than actually, you know, doing the things on it. You can spend hours playing with new apps—Wunderlist! Todoist! Any.do! Asana!—and new methods—Kanban! GTD! Pomodoro! The Eisenhower Matrix! These are all real things! I understand that wonderful wash of organizational bliss that you get from taking all the crap on your floor and stacking it in neat piles. Have you actually, you know, accomplished anything? Of course not. But you feel fantastic.

Personally, I’ve spent countless hours testing and tweaking every productivity app and system I could find. Eventually, I realized the answer’s been right in front of my face all along. Over the last few years, Google has quietly built the best to-do list app on Earth—without building a to-do list app at all. Making it work for you is easier than you think, too. It’s all about a single word: reminders.