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Motion isn't just a calendar, scheduler, task manager or project manager. It's really an assistant that takes all of this unique information, and uses it to build your perfect day, making it one of the best productivity tools on the market.
Motion is a great alternative for those seeking a daily planner or a project management solution.
It's differentiation comes into play with their AI scheduler that helps you plan your day (one of Motion's best features). Entering a task with Motion is easy, whether you're on your desktop app or mobile app. Simply tell Motion the task, the length of time to complete the task, the priority, the start and due date and Motion will organize your day based on what you entered and schedule tasks on your calendar into time blocks. For example, say you have a jam packed day, but and urgent task comes up. Simply tell Motion it needs to be done ASAP and it will shift all your other tasks to make space for the new task.
We personally use Motion here at Efficient App after using a myriad of tools over the years, including Asana, Calendly and Chili Piper. We love it as a project management solution, daily planner for time blocking and a meeting scheduler.
For those seeking a project management tool that is simple (< 50 team members), we recommend Motion as an alternative to Asana, ClickUp and Monday. While with Motion, you won't get reporting or dashboards for your tasks, it's helpfulness comes into play with team collaboration as all team members have tasks auto-scheduled right on their calendar. Motion is more focused on helping teams "get more deep work done" rather than "managing the work that needs to get done".
In the daily planning app category, Motion app has the most differentiation as it leverages the AI scheduler. Other tools like Sunsama or Akiflow are for those who want to manually plan their tasks onto their calendar, while Motion is more for the "hands off" type of folks who just want to show up to start their work day and see what's on the agenda to get done.
Motion's meeting scheduler makes it easy to share your availability with others to allow others to book meetings with you. If a new meeting is booked in, your daily tasks will be automatically re-scheduled around your new meeting. Viola! ✨
Overall, Motion is our top choice for an alternative to consider.
Turn to-dos into daily action plans.
Morgen is the best calendar alternative for those who are using iOS or Android and just want something simple. Morgen has a smooth user experience that is intuitive and nice design. It's a great all around calendar for your desktop + phone (although you'll need to upgrade on the paid tier to use it on your phone).
You can schedule meetings via a booking link, and manage basic tasks/reminders within Morgen. We recommend Morgen more for individuals managing personal tasks and simple work tasks.
As a daily planner alternative, Morgen is quite barebones and simple compared to others on the market. We recommend using Morgen if you more so want to dabble with daily planning with basic tasks to see if it's for you.
Amie is a calendar app that helps you manage tasks and easily add emails as tasks to your calendar.
Consider Amie as a calendar alternative if you are just looking for something that is beautifully designed and you want a better user experience than Google Calendar. With Amie Calendar, you can add basic tasks, integrate your emails, and have basic meeting scheduling links. Amie Calendar is best for individuals looking to manage their personal tasks and some simple work tasks/reminders.
Amie currently has a free tier so if you're just looking for a beautifully designed calendar with minimal task management, we'd say it's worth giving it a shot. Especially if the term "anesthetic software" resonates with you.
As a daily planner alternative, Amie is quite barebones compared to others on the market. We recommend using Morgen if you more so want to dabble with daily planning with basic tasks on your calendar to see if it's for you. If you're super serious about time blocking tasks on your calendar, consider another alternative.
The all-in-one work platform Routine is the next-generation platform for professionals and teams to get things done faster!
Routine is for individuals who are looking for a personal app to help with habit building, daily planning, task management and time blocking. It is an alternative for those looking for a personal task manager with time blocking capabilities, but less so an alternative for those looking for a daily planner for professional use.
The reason we categorized Routine for more personal use is because it's yet to integrate with other project management tools and has a less responsive time blocking experience than it's alternatives.
For instance, if you have a last minute task that arises, with other daily planner alternatives like Motion, Sunsama and Akiflow you can simply move around the task into a new time slot, shifting everything in a responsive fashion, with Routine would require you to manually shift all the other tasks around also which is time consuming.
If you're new to time blocking and daily planning, definitely consider signing up for Routine as they have a free forever tier. Their free plan will let you plan your daily habits and tasks and you can see if it keeps you more on track with your specific needs. If you feel like you wish Routine has more functionality for business needs as you're using the app, then perhaps try a free trial of the other daily planners mentioned to see if any can help you get work done faster.
Routine is a beautifully designed app. Both the desktop app along with the mobile app are simply beautiful. We applaud the team for their design decisions 👏
The all-in-one work platform Routine is the next-generation platform for professionals and teams to get things done faster!
Notion Calendar is a free & beautiful calendar app alternative. If you just want a free, nicer looking calendar, that allows for basic meeting scheduling, then Notion Calendar is a great choice.
If you're considering Notion Calendar as daily planner alternative, that's where it falls apart. To use Notion Calendar for as a daily planner, you'd need to be using Notion for task management, which strongly advise against (Read our full Notion Review to understand why). While avid Notion users (who have built their own task management system) may benefit from using Notion + Notion Calendar, this is not recommended for the average person—don't start down this rabbit hole. Instead, use any other daily planner alternative listed and you'll be in a better spot 👌
The all-in-one work platform Routine is the next-generation platform for professionals and teams to get things done faster!
Consider Fantastical as a calendar alternative if you are using the Apple ecosystem and want something better than Apple Calendar. That said, Fantastical is one of the older calendar apps on the market and there are better options for iOS that are more modern (for example Morgen Calendar or Amie Calendar).
Although we would recommend instead picking one of the best daily planner apps as you'll find a lot more innovation, we would recommend using Google Calendar as the foundation for most everyone.
Some of the best Google Calendar alternatives on the market are paid, so if you're using Google Calendar for work, we would recommend you check out Motion vs Vimcal.
There's even free alternatives like Cron or Routine that still use Google Calendar at the core, but are just a more modern calendar experience that we would recommend using daily instead of Google Calendar.