I use to-do apps to remind me of tasks that I need to get done throughout the day, week, or later in the month.
I don’t rely on them to note down quick work ideas or thoughts that randomly come to my mind, as there’s too much friction in the process.
By the time I take out and unlock my phone, open a to-do app, and start typing, half the thought is already gone.
However, a new feature in Todoist — my go-to to-do app — finally solves this problem.
It actually keeps up with my brain, turning my random thoughts and half-ideas into properly organized to-dos.
Typing kills half my ideas
Real ideas don’t come structured
The problem with most to-do apps is that they expect you to structure your thoughts before you can type, categorize, and schedule them.
In reality, that’s not how ideas show up.
I often get my best ideas and work-related tasks while walking, at the gym, or driving. And they never arrive neatly packaged; instead, it is all a random thought.
At that moment, I want to quickly note down these ideas before they disappear. That’s not possible with current to-do apps.
Even with a quick add widget on my screen, typing a task forces me to translate my thoughts into text, adding unwanted friction.
More often than not, I end up noting down the first idea and losing the rest.
I recently tried a different approach — one that lets me capture tasks the same way they form in my head.
For the first time in a long while, my to-do list actually started keeping up with me. This is all thanks to Ramble, a new feature in Todoist, my go-to task manager for years.
I have multiple projects, shared lists, and a constantly overflowing inbox in Todoist. It does a great job of helping me organize my work.
However, like most to-do apps, it has always suffered from the same problem: getting tasks into the system quickly and without friction.
But Ramble changes that.
It lets you add tasks to Todoist using your voice, and because it’s powered by large language models (LLMs), it understands natural speech and turns it into the right action automatically.
This is also what makes Ramble work magically. Almost all to-do apps support voice dictation, but that simply converts speech to text.
This is how task capture should feel
I ramble, and everything else happens automatically
Ramble understands my intent, the date, and projects I’m referencing, and acts on it accordingly.
This ensures that I do not have to revisit and organize tasks later; Ramble already takes care of them.
Essentially, I just speak my thoughts into Todoist, and it turns them into actionable tasks, assigning them the right time, date and even the project.
So, for example, when on a walk, I can tap the Ramble shortcut and say something like, “Remind me to talk to XYZ tomorrow afternoon for ABC project.” Or, I can ramble, “This Saturday, sit down to try Claude Cowork for my NAS project.”
In both cases, Todoist will smartly understand the task, time, and the linked project and add it to my inbox.
Even better, I can make quick corrections on the fly. If I set the wrong deadline while speaking, I can simply ramble again to change it.
For quick access, I have a Todoist Ramble widget on my home screen alongside a tile in the Quick Settings panel.
What makes Ramble so effective in daily use is that I don’t need to pause between tasks or rely on specific commands.
I can ramble through multiple tasks across different projects in one go, and Todoist handles everything, adding each task to the right project automatically at the scheduled time.
It’s the ability to speak multiple tasks together, and Todoist adding them reliably, which ensures my flow of thoughts doesn’t break.
This is not possible when typing multiple tasks at once, because it forces me to structure them in my head before I’ve fully thought them through.
Another reason why Todoist Ramble works for me is that it supports over 40 languages, and I can seamlessly switch between them while speaking.
So, I can start a task in English and switch to Hindi mid-way, and Todoist will still be smart enough to understand and add the task correctly.
Thanks to Ramble’s reliability and ease of use, I can capture ideas while working on other projects, instead of stopping whatever I’m doing.
It has now become a core app of my ultimate mobile productivity setup.
Ramble is AI done right in productivity apps
For all the slop that has flooded the internet with the AI boom, Todoist’s Ramble provides that when done right, AI can solve a real, everyday problem.
I don’t have to think about how I want to use this feature; it seamlessly fits into my life, removing a major friction and enabling me to become more consistent about capturing ideas.
Out of the dozens of to-do apps I’ve tried over the years, Todoist’s Ramble is the first feature that genuinely changed how I get tasks into my system, and that’s what makes it stick.
