My wife and I are good examples of the vastly different approaches in terms of volume and structure. Some people maintain only short task lists related to specific contexts or projects. Others use task lists to help manage all aspects of their working and personal lives. I definitely fall into the latter category. Even when I was a teenager I was a list maker. If I don't make lists, I start to feel overwhelmed and anxious. That means I tend to have a lot of lists and a lot of items on those lists... so I need a tool that can help me avoid being overwhelmed by the lists that are supposed to keep me organized. My wife is just the opposite. She makes short lists for very specific projects, completes them, and throws them away. My lists are constantly churning with new tasks being added and old ones been completed, re-prioritized, or deleted. My dependency on lists led me to the popular David Allen GTD methodology some years ago, which many of these apps are based on. I read his book back then. I can't say I follow GTD accurately, but I certainly use some parts of it that stuck with me.
Because my wife uses short lists that are around for shorter periods of time, she is more likely to use paper or a simple note app like the native iOS notes or Google Keep. I have tried to get her to use a shared task management app with me, but she wouldn't have it!
I even proposed switching to a dead simple app that offered shared tasks as long as she was willing to use it, but she just doesn't feel the need to use an app dedicated to managing tasks and projects. Google Keep is as close as we get to sharing tasks and notes between us. I suppose I also got her to agree to a shared grocery list app (Bring), so she isn't completely averse to the idea of a task app.
As for my volume: I complete around 40 to 50 tasks a month. I'm not a perfect task app user, so sometimes I catch up during a weekly review of my tasks and I mark a bunch completed, delete a few, and add a few. I'm better at regularly adding things than I am about regularly completing them, but I try to keep a short focus list and choose two or three items from that to add to my list for Today. I try to keep Today short and sweet, and I do a quick daily review of my important tasks to determine what I will focus on for the day. I currently have almost 400 items in my task app, but most of those are items for someday or things that may not be tasks but I don't want to forget about them. I keep those lists hidden from my main focus views, because they aren't urgent or even things I actually need to do (but I might want to). I review them periodically to delete the cruft, but they are not part of my daily or weekly reviews.
I suppose I like TickTick because I do manage large number of lists and items. It's flexible enough to allow me to filter things in different ways that make sense to me, and it combines advanced features with an interface that is very fast and simple to work with. I've used other apps that left me feeling overwhelmed because I probably put more things on my lists than I should. TickTick is one that I stuck with because I have been able to maintain lots of lists and items without feeling overwhelmed. I think some of this is thanks to a well designed app, and some of it is due to me getting better at this stuff over time. There are some things I wish TickTick did that it doesn't do. I may even consider switching to something that can integrate natively with the tools I use at work (mostly Jira).
Sean
