AI Productivity: Using the AI Assistant in Todoist

Todoist has a new AI Assistant built into the tool that you can add to the program. After I installed the Todoist AI Assistant, I opened up the task “clean out the car” and asked it to generate subtasks. It specified subtasks which I added with a click. Then, I could assign dates or even set them up for habits. We can all expect to see AI added to many of our tools and apps. From email to productivity tools, developers are creating add ins that access the newest in language generation to help us be more productive. Now might be the time to do some digging as you work to streamline your workflow. This tool has some very useful features for me.

Then, after I added the Assistant, I tried it out on several tasks.

Cleaning Out My Car

So, first, I looked at the task of cleaning out my car. Once it generated the list, I just checked the items I wanted to add as subtasks and it added it right to my list inside todoist.

I did try it on planning a vacation and it was a bit wordy for me, so I didn't add those tasks.

However, subtasks are just one type of thing that it can do. When you click on the three dots to the right of a task, you'll see three options:

• Give tips for completing task
• Make task more actionable
• Break task down

Rewriting Tasks to Make Them More Actionable

So, nontypical tasks give the “rewrite tasks” trouble. For example, in the graphic, you can see how I asked it to make “Finish Senior Movie” more actionable. No matter what I did, it reworded it as “purchase tickets for the senior movie.

This was totally not what I wanted here. As I ran the AI Assistant on many tasks, I found that the best tasks were the simple household tasks like planning a birthday party for our son.

I also tested the feature “give tips for completing task” with my son's birthday and it gave suggestions and also said it could be added as comments.

I used Todoist as a place to hold tasks and I do plan on paper every week and day, so I don't want too many subtasks. But, when I asked for it to generate items for creating my living will, it gave me tips to do things I didn't know how to do.

I do think this could be useful for some types of tasks, particularly those that are new that you have not done before. For those you have done, some sort of template would be better.

In the many tools I use, I'm finding AI capabilities. I just installed a Chrome Extension called Manganum with ChatGPT built into it, and many tools and extensions are starting to add this capability. Additionally, a tool for my blog has SmartContent creation built in. That said, I will not use AI to write this blog except for the Grammarly tool I've used for a few years.

What type of AI tools are built into the things you use every day? I'd love to hear what you're using!