Stop Forgetting Things: Taskly Helps You Remember Everything, Easily Manage Tasks and Goals

Have you ever felt this way: You open your phone every day, and there are a dozen to-dos in your notes, but by evening, you still haven't done what you needed to. It's not that your memory is bad—it's that what you jot down is too scattered: grocery lists mixed with work tasks, workout reminders squeezed in with meeting times. Eventually, you stop looking at them altogether, rely on your brain to power through, and keep forgetting things anyway.

I've tried many tools, from system notes to third-party list apps, but I always run into the same problem: They only record things, never help you sort out priorities. Last week I used a daily planner called Taskly Planner, and its biggest difference is—it forces you to turn "scattered stuff" into "things to do today," and it won't let you gloss over it.

Taskly's First Impression: Not Too Fancy

After downloading and opening it, the page is clean. At the top is today's date, and below are three sections: Tasks, Goals, To-Do List. No flashy animations, no community feed. The biggest button on the interface is "Add New Task." Clicking it lets you fill in a title, set a time, choose priority (High/Medium/Low), and also link it to a "Goal."

This "Link to Goal" option made me pause for a couple of seconds—with the list apps I used before, tasks were just tasks, listed one by one, checked off and done. But Taskly fits your tasks into a bigger framework. For example, I set a goal of "Run three times a week," and then each running task is automatically categorized under that goal. At the end of the week, the goal progress bar shows you how many times you've completed.

The benefit of this design is obvious: You're not just "checking in"—you can see exactly how much closer you are to your goal.

Observations After Using It for a Week

The first three days were the toughest. Because it forces you to spend five minutes each morning planning what to do that day. Not just jotting down a random list, but picking the three most important tasks from the ones already in your "Inbox" and marking them as "Today's Focus."

On the first day, I marked four, only to find I couldn't finish them all. Later I got wiser: I only marked two core tasks plus one easy little thing. My completion rate went up significantly.

On the fourth day, I tried mixing work tasks with personal goals. For example, writing a report in the morning (work) and organizing my wardrobe in the afternoon (life). Taskly's schedule view shows things on a timeline, so it doesn't feel messy. Also, unfinished tasks from previous days are automatically carried over, but they don't bug you with red dot notifications—I like that: it keeps pressure without creating anxiety.

A Somewhat Unexpected Scenario

That same week, I happened to take on a temporary project that required completing several research tasks within three days. In the past, I would have stuffed a bunch of links into my WeChat favorites and relied entirely on my memory for deadlines. But this time, I directly created a new goal called "Temp Project" in Taskly, then broke the research steps into several subtasks, each marked with a different priority. When the project ended, I could clearly see how much time each step took and which steps were holding things up.

This "goal-driven task" model is very practical for tackling projects, because it doesn't let you just bury yourself in individual tasks—you always know what each task is serving.

Who It's For, and Who Might Find It Redundant

Taskly isn't one of those "install and you'll be disciplined" magic tools. It's more suitable for people who already have some planning needs but lack a concrete framework to implement them. If you only have one or two fixed tasks per day, or if you prefer writing things down on paper, it might feel a bit redundant for you. Also, its team collaboration features are almost nonexistent—no shared lists, no task assignment—so it's purely a personal tool.

Another thing I care about: It doesn't support natural language input. For example, if I type "meeting at 3 PM tomorrow," it won't automatically recognize the time and event—you have to fill them in manually. If you're used to quickly jotting things down in notes and having them auto-recognized, this step in Taskly might feel a bit slow.

A Few Practical Tips to Wrap Up

1. When you first start, don't set more than two goals per day, or you'll easily get discouraged.
2. Set up recurring events (like weekly workouts) in advance so you don't have to add them manually every time.
3. Spend five minutes on the weekend reviewing your goal completion—it's more useful than staring at numbers every day.

Taskly won't suddenly turn you into a productivity guru, but it can help you take that messy tangle of to-dos and find a thread to pull. At the very least, I didn't forget to pay my property management fee this week—that's progress for me.