Things for Mac

Things -- a well-designed to-do list app for detail-minded Apple users -- can help you track your tasks and projects and sync your progress across Apple devices.

Pros

Easy to add tasks: To get going with creating a task, tap the + button, which brings up a blank to-do item that you can name, add a note to, and apply tags to. You can assign a deadline, too, picking from Today, This Evening, or Someday or by selecting a date on the calendar. You can create a checklist for an item, and set the task as a repeating to-do item.

Organize your task: After creating a task, you can sort it into Today, Upcoming, Anytime, and Someday folders. You can move items between folders, and when you mark a task as complete, Things moves it to your Logbook.

Create a project: If you find your task is bigger than one to-do item can hold, you can tap + New List to start a project composed of specific to-do items. Within a project, you can create headings that let you organize your project into categories or milestones, for example. As you work on a to-do item, you can convert it to a project at any time if you find the scope of the task has grown.

Flexible tags: By default, Things gives you five tags you can assign, including Errand, Home, Office, Important, and Pending. You can edit the names of tags, delete them, and create new ones. And you can assign multiple tags to an item or project.

SEE: Best to-do list apps of 2018 for managing tasks on any platform

Cons

Confusing icons: Some of the button icons could do a better job of representing their actions. For example, the New Heading button looks more like an Add Tab button.

Just in Apple's world: The manager is available on Apple devices -- Mac, iPhone and iPad, and Apple Watch -- but not on Android and Windows or via the Web.

Not easy to collaborate: Things lacks the ability to collaborate on tasks within the app. You can share text or items via the MacOS or iOS share function. Cultured Code, the developer of Things, is aware that collaboration is a much-requested feature, but hasn't announced any plans to build collaboration into the app.

A bit pricey: The Mac version runs $49.99, the app for iPhone and Apple Watch is $9.99, and the iPad app is $19.99. You can sync your tasks across apps via the Things Cloud, but you need to buy each app to use it across platforms.

Bottom Line

An easy-to-use to-do-list manager, Things from Cultured Code is a handy way to track to-do items and projects in Apple's world. If you are looking to collaborate with others, however, or want to sync tasks on non-Apple devices, you will want to look elsewhere.