Motion vs TickTick

Motion is a task list on steroids! This is why we’ve used it here at Efficient App for the past several years.

You can place tasks within Motion and it will auto-schedule them on your calendar, adjusting them as you have meetings that come up. It’s one of the only task management tools that allows you to actually see if everything you need to get done in a day is realistic (because if you have 5 hours of meetings and 6 hours of tasks, you’ll understand why you’re running around for 11 hours a day and never have time for that book in bed!).

Not only that, you can also manage entire projects as a team within Motion (how we use it), which is super handy if you’re a business.

• More advanced functionality than traditional task management tools
• Valuable for busy professionals and teams who need better organization
• Team collaboration features, including task dependencies
• Schedules tasks on your calendar for you, using AI

• Not ideal for users seeking a free tool
• Lacks integrations with third party tools
• May feel over-engineered for those who only need basic task tracking

Motion combines your calendar and task and project management into one system. Instead of just listing tasks, it takes into account in your actual availability and automatically schedules your work, so you can see what is realistically achievable in a single day. You can use it on your own, or with a team.

You also get an AI Agenda with Motion. How this works is every day, you get a brand new list view of tasks in a document. You can use it to jot down any extra notes or to-dos for the day, and then the next day, you get a brand new list automatically generated for you with task items listed by the priority you previously set.

You can fully manage projects end-to-end within Motion. Beyond it's calendar view, it also has Kanban views and Gantt views and project workflows for repeatable projects (e.g. we use it for our content creation workflow, from scripting to filming to editing as a team).

So if you have any "projects" that you are consistently working on (whether personal or for work), Motion is a tool that can bring it all together.

Simple to-do apps are designed mainly for individuals, with any team features created as an after thought. Motion includes team functionality to help you collaborate on projects.

You can even set task dependencies, meaning one team member can indicate they are blocked until another task is completed. This adds a level of structure and clarity that a lot of traditional task managers miss.

Motions prices range from $19 to $34 per month (Individual to Team plans).

With someone like MKBHD using it, you'd think it would be top-tier, but my dad also uses it, and we feel like that's a better representation of this task management tool. It's a reliable basic to-do list where you can add tasks, set deadlines, organize things with tags, and move on.

It's 100% a step up from Apple Notes or Google Keep, and great for repeatable habits. Matter of fact, Alex still gets notifications from TickTick to take his supplements daily 😄

TickTick works best when you don't want to think about your system too much. They did a great job of leveraging NLP to help you capture tasks fast, but beyond that, it doesn't really evolve with you. The interface feels dated and has a cluttered feel. Plus, their calendar sync only works every 15 minutes.

The upside is that it’s free and dependable. If you compare it to Todoist, Todoist feels more polished and intentional. When you put it next to Superlist, TickTick is far less enjoyable to use but more practical if you want a useable free option. Overall it's a good reliable option, but not something we'd go out of our way to recommend first.

• Fast and frictionless task capture
• Easy to organize with tags and lists
• Simple and reliable for everyday personal tasks
• Very generous free tier (you can use it long-term without paying)

• Collaboration features are weak
• Calendar sync is slow and can lag
• Interface feels dated compared to newer tools
• Doesn’t scale beyond basic personal task management
• Lacks depth for planning, workflows, or meaningful organization

TickTick makes it easy to organize your life into simple buckets making it a great contender for personal management like small admin task or home projects. The tagging system is useful for people who want have some level of organization without having to overthink structure. This makes it flexible enough for day-to-day life, but not built for anything more complex than that.

While it is table stakes at this point, TickTick did nail NLP. It's always nice to have the ability to type in a quick, "schedule grocery delivery for 5pm" and go on about your day knowing it's automatically been tracked. It makes task management frictionless, which makes it easier to stick with.

It's straightforward, and it works. There's not really any level of intelligence or optimization here, just reliable repetition. It is nice to have the ability to create tasks on quick reminder.

• Free: Best for individuals who want a reliable, no-cost task manager for personal use.
• Premium: ~$3/month ($35.99 yearly). Best for individuals who want to prioritize their day and enjoy advanced features like added integrations or multiple calendar syncing.