OmniFocus vs. Things: Which Task Manager Is Right for You?

If you’re looking for a new to-do app and you’re in the Apple ecosystem, you should absolutely consider OmniFocus and Things.

I’ve been teaching people how to use these two apps since 2019. Thousands of people have enrolled in my OmniFocus course and in my Things course.

I’ve also worked with both the OmniFocus and Things teams — consulting with OmniFocus on version 4, meeting the Omni Group CEO, writing for the OmniFocus website, and collaborating with Things on giveaways.

And I’ve seen a lot of people switch between these apps over time.

Watch this video to learn how I think about choosing between these two apps — or keep reading below the video.

To master OmniFocus or Things as efficiently as possible:

Enroll in my OmniFocus course or in my Things course.

Or start by downloading my OmniFocus or Things cheat sheet below:

OmniFocus or Things — which is better for you?

First, some context on how I approach task management. I want a system that lets me capture quickly, review reliably, and make good decisions about what to work on next. I also care about how an app feels to use every day, because that’s what keeps you coming back to it. So I look at the structure of the app, the friction in the interface, the speed of capture, and the quality of the views that help me decide. I also consider whether it fits into the broader Apple ecosystem.

Another thing to keep in mind: switching apps can be costly. You have to rebuild muscle memory and structure. So it helps to choose an app that matches the way your brain works instead of forcing yourself into a structure that looks good on paper but you won’t actually use. That’s the lens I use here.

Let’s start with what these apps have in common. Both are high‑quality, Apple‑centric task managers with fast capture, robust project support, and features for scheduling and planning. Both can absolutely handle personal and professional workflows. Both can be set up simply or in a very detailed way. Both will help if you commit to using them.

Now, they do have meaningful differences, and those differences tend to push people one way or the other. Let’s get into it.

The Things experience

Things is clean and opinionated in a way a lot of people find calming. It’s structured around Today, Upcoming, Anytime, Someday, and Areas of Responsibility. That structure encourages you to keep your list tidy and focus on a small number of things for today. The interface is fast, simple, and generally super easy to use.

Planning with Things often starts from Today and Upcoming. You can assign a task to a specific day and it shows up there when you need it. You can also keep tasks in Anytime if you’re not scheduling them yet, or in Someday if they’re for later. Areas help you group projects by parts of your life — like Work, Health, and Family — so you keep context while keeping things lightweight.

When I’m working in Things, I like how frictionless it is to click into a project, add a few tasks, reorder them, and go back to a focused Today view. It feels like everything is designed to keep you moving forward with a small number of tasks. That encourages good habits, because you don’t get overwhelmed by a giant list all the time.

Tags in Things are straightforward to manage and apply. For example, I like to add the Work tag to each area so that I can then filter my Today list to see only my work tasks for today. If you need to slice your list in a couple of ways, you can do so in Things without complexity.

Where Things really shines for a lot of people is the combination of ease of use and a predefined structure. You open the app and you know what to do today. Upcoming gives a simple view of the week. You can plan lightly and still feel organized. If you prefer a system that stays out of your way and makes it easy to do the next thing, Things is likely a good fit.

There are tradeoffs. Things is deliberate about staying simple. If you want custom views and the ability to organize your tasks and projects just so, you may bump into its limits. For many people that’s a feature, not a bug, because it prevents over‑engineering. But if you love to design custom dashboards for every scenario, keep reading.

One more point about feel. Things has a certain polish and speed on Apple platforms that makes daily use pleasant. That matters, because if the app feels good, you’ll keep using it, and that’s half the battle in personal productivity.

The OmniFocus experience

Where Things is smooth and opinionated, OmniFocus is powerful and flexible.

It lets you organize your tasks just the way you want to with nestable folders, three different types of projects, custom views (“perspectives”), and more advanced tagging. 

Plus, where Things has two dates you can set for each task, OmniFocus has three! You can set defer dates, planned dates, and due dates, to manage your schedule very precisely. In OmniFocus, you can also build views that show you exactly what’s available now, hiding anything you can’t or won’t do yet. That keeps your lists clean without losing information.

Perspectives are the big differentiator. You can create filtered views based on rules you define. For example, you can filter to available tasks in specific folders or with certain tags, exclude anything deferred or on hold, and save that as a Perspective you use every day. If you manage many projects and want to see the right slice at the right time, this is very useful.

OmniFocus also has a built-in review feature, which is awesome. Weekly reviews are the #1 productivity habit and OmniFocus’s Review feature helps you keep projects up to date. If you like a system that’s very explicit about what you’ll see and when you’ll see it, OmniFocus supports that very well.

That power comes with responsibility. If you go all in on custom tags and perspectives, it can become complicated. The trick is to use just enough structure to help you decide, but not so much that you spend your time maintaining the system instead of doing the work. When set up well, OmniFocus can feel invisible day to day while still giving you deep control when you need it.

In practice, a lot of people who pick OmniFocus like to define a few go‑to Perspectives. For example, I recommend creating a custom “Available” perspective for your morning planning — it will hide any tasks that aren‘t relevant right now.

Choosing the right app for you

Which app is better? Wrong question. They’re both absolutely stellar. But which app is right for you?

Go with OmniFocus if:

• You care about the exact way in which you organize your to-dos and projects
• You want to slice and dice your tasks to see a very precise subset of them
• And if you can live with having to click and tap around the interface a bit more, especially on iPhone

Go with Things if:

• You value ease of use and app smoothness
• You don’t mind accepting its organizational structure — especially if having a pre-defined structure would actually stop you from procrastinating!
• And if you can handle a few limitations, such as the inability to attach files to tasks or the lack of location-based reminders

Whichever app you choose, save yourself some time. 

Download my free cheat sheet for OmniFocus or Things below.

Or, for the most efficient option, enroll in my full-length OmniFocus course or Things course today.

You’ll master your app of choice and get a system you can rely on to stay organized and be your most productive self for years to come.

Thanks for reading!

— Peter