The Desk · AI resource
Daily Tasks, Projects and Information: Which Tool Does Which Job
Most of us start with one app for everything, or a different app for every new idea. Both end in the same muddle: tasks buried in notes, notes buried in projects, and nothing quite where you expect it.
I lived in that muddle for a long time. Here’s how I got out of it, and why it matters even more now that Claude does so much of my admin.
Twenty years of to-do apps
Okay, I am an app junkie, so I used to try all the different kinds of apps with all their different promises. I tried to do this: Asana, Things, so many different things. I’ve been trying to do apps since I was 17, so that’s 20 years now: 20 years of to-do apps, and then I realised that actually each tool has a different job. I was trying to manage everything in one, which led to frustration and the inability to use each tool efficiently.
For example, I was trying to manage info in Todoist, but Todoist is set up for tasks and projects, so that wasn’t a great place to manage info. For a while, I was trying to manage projects and tasks, daily tasks, in Notion, which worked for a couple of weeks because Notion is very flexible. Then I realised that it didn’t have the kind of daily reminders and timers and other things that I actually need for my daily to-do list. Notion is best for info management, but it’s not great at task management. Then I realised that we had to split things into three.
The three kinds of management
| Kind | The question it answers | Where mine live |
|---|---|---|
| Daily tasks | What am I doing today, and how long will it take? | Sunsama |
| Projects | What stage is this work at, and what’s next? | Chord (client work) and Todoist (everything else) |
| Information | Where did I put that link that I was supposed to look at? | Notion |
Daily tasks are what you’ll actually do today, with time estimates. They need reminders, timers and a clear view of the day, which is why mine sit in Sunsama.
Projects have stages, clients and deadlines. A project holds many tasks over weeks or months, and only some of them belong on today’s list. My client work lives in Chord, and everything else lives in Todoist.
Information is anything you want to find later: notes, references, research and ideas that aren’t tasks yet. It needs to be easy to search and flexible, and Notion is very good at that.
Why it matters even more with Claude
When each kind has one home, every routine knows where to read from and where to write to. Claude doesn’t have to guess.
Mine work like this:
- My inbox triage creates tasks in Sunsama for anything that needs me today.
- My Todoist sorter files my braindumps into the right projects, and moves anything due today into Sunsama.
- When I save a note or a reference, it goes to Notion.
Mixing them makes Claude guess, and that’s when things end up in the wrong place or get missed. A task saved as a note never reaches your day. A reference saved as a task sits on your list with nothing for you to do.
How to choose your three
- Use what you already have where you can. The split matters more than the brand of app.
- Check each one connects to Claude. Go to Settings, then Connectors, and see which of your tools are there.
- Write down the rule for each, in a sentence, and give it to Claude as part of your setup. Mine is roughly: daily tasks go in Sunsama, projects go in Chord if they’re for a client and Todoist if they’re not, and notes and references go in Notion.
A word on Chord
Chord is the project management tool I made for creatives. It’s not a daily task app, nor an open-ended information management tool.
You can connect it to Claude (full instructions are on the Chord website). And because Chord and Claude can talk to each other, you will be able to pull info from Chord — ask what the latest status is for a client, get info pulled into your morning briefings, or automatically move tasks into your daily todo list.
If you’re a creative freelancer, you can try Chord at withchord.com.
One next step
List every place you currently keep tasks, projects and notes. Then label each one daily, project or information. Anything with two labels is a good place to start untangling.
My next post builds on this: how I run my Claude morning routines in a cascade, so each one knows where to look.
If you’d like help setting up your three and connecting them to Claude, that’s part of what I do in Claude setups.
