Things 3 Review: Still the Best Task Manager for Apple in 2025?
If you've spent any time in the Apple productivity world, you've almost certainly heard of Things 3. In this Things 3 review, we're going to cut through the hype and give you an honest, detailed look at whether Cultured Code's flagship app still deserves its legendary status in 2025 — or whether newer competitors have finally caught up. Whether you're a seasoned GTD practitioner or someone just trying to stop dropping the ball on important tasks, this breakdown will help you decide if Things 3 is the right tool for your productivity system.
What Is Things 3? A Quick Overview
Things 3 is a task manager designed exclusively for the Apple ecosystem — iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple Watch. Developed by Cultured Code, a small German software studio, it launched in 2017 and quickly became the gold standard for beautifully designed, intuitive task management on Apple devices.
Unlike sprawling project management tools like Asana or Monday.com, Things 3 is built for personal task management. It's opinionated software — meaning it has a specific philosophy about how you should organize your life, loosely inspired by David Allen's Getting Things Done (GTD) methodology. You won't find Kanban boards or team collaboration features here. What you will find is one of the most polished, focused, and genuinely enjoyable productivity apps ever built.
Pricing:
- iPhone: $9.99 (one-time purchase)
- iPad: $19.99 (one-time purchase)
- Mac: $49.99 (one-time purchase)
- No subscription required
That one-time pricing model alone sets Things 3 apart in an era where virtually every app charges you monthly forever.
The Things 3 Interface: Beauty Meets Function
Open Things 3 for the first time and you'll immediately understand why designers and productivity enthusiasts love it. The interface is clean without feeling sparse, and structured without feeling rigid.
The Sidebar and Views
The left sidebar (or bottom navigation on iPhone) gives you instant access to:
- Inbox — Your capture zone for every idea, task, and commitment
- Today — A curated daily list that combines scheduled tasks and items you've manually pulled forward
- Upcoming — A timeline view showing scheduled tasks across future days
- Anytime — Tasks without a specific date but assigned to a project
- Someday — Your "maybe later" bucket, a proper GTD parking lot
- Logbook — A record of everything you've completed
This structure maps almost perfectly onto GTD's core lists, and it's genuinely rare to use software that implements a productivity framework this gracefully. The Today view in particular is a masterpiece of design — it shows you exactly what you've committed to doing today without overwhelming you with your entire backlog.
Areas, Projects, and Tasks
Things 3 uses a three-tier hierarchy:
- Areas — Broad life categories (Work, Health, Personal, Finance)
- Projects — Goal-oriented collections of tasks with a defined end
- Tasks — Individual action items, each of which can have subtasks, notes, deadlines, and tags
This hierarchy is flexible enough to handle complex workflows but simple enough that you don't need a PhD in productivity theory to use it. You can drag tasks between projects, schedule them with a tap, and add detailed notes using Markdown formatting.
Quick Entry and Keyboard Shortcuts
On Mac, the global Quick Entry shortcut (Ctrl + Space) lets you capture a task from anywhere without switching apps. On iPhone, the widget and Today view integration means your most important tasks are always one swipe away. Power users will also appreciate the deep keyboard shortcut library on Mac — Things 3 may have the best keyboard navigation of any task manager on the platform.
What Things 3 Does Exceptionally Well
After years of updates and refinement, Things 3 has a list of genuinely best-in-class features.
1. The Daily Planning Experience
The friction to plan your day in Things 3 is virtually zero. You can pull tasks from any project into Today with a simple drag, use the "This Evening" section to separate work from personal tasks, and set up repeating tasks that automatically appear when you need them. Research from the American Psychological Association consistently shows that planning your day the night before reduces decision fatigue and improves follow-through — Things 3 makes that habit almost effortless.
2. Natural Language Date Entry
Type "buy groceries next Thursday" and Things 3 automatically parses the date. Type "call Mom in 3 days" and it schedules accordingly. This kind of natural language input removes the cognitive overhead of task capture, which is critical — studies show that the harder it is to capture a task, the less likely people are to actually do it.
3. Apple Platform Integration
Things 3's integration with the Apple ecosystem is second to none:
- Reminders import — Siri-created reminders automatically flow into Things 3's Inbox
- Calendar integration — See your meetings alongside your tasks in the Today view
- Apple Watch app — Mark tasks complete right from your wrist
- Shortcuts support — Build powerful automations with the Apple Shortcuts app
- Focus Modes — Filter your task list based on your current Focus Mode
4. Tags for Cross-Project Filtering
Tags in Things 3 are underrated. You can tag tasks with contexts like "Online," "Home," "15 Minutes," or "Deep Work," then filter your entire task universe by tag. This is pure GTD context-based productivity — instead of asking "what's on my to-do list?" you ask "what can I do right now with the time and energy I have?" That shift in framing is genuinely powerful.
5. Reliable Sync via Things Cloud
Things Cloud sync is fast, silent, and reliable. It works across all your Apple devices without requiring a third-party service, and it's included in your purchase price. This sounds basic, but anyone who has dealt with sync conflicts in other apps knows how much this matters.
Things 3 vs OmniFocus: Which Should You Choose?
The Things 3 vs OmniFocus debate is the defining rivalry of Apple task management, and it's worth addressing directly.
OmniFocus is Things 3's most serious competitor — a feature-rich, deeply customizable powerhouse built for serious GTD practitioners. Here's how they stack up:
| Feature | Things 3 | OmniFocus 4 |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | One-time purchase | Subscription ($9.99/month or $99.99/year) |
| Learning curve | Low | High |
| Customization | Moderate | Extremely deep |
| Design | Beautiful, opinionated | Functional, complex |
| Perspectives/Filters | Tags + Areas | Full custom perspectives |
| Web access | No | Yes |
| Collaboration | No | No |
| Best for | Most Apple users | Power GTD practitioners |
Choose Things 3 if: You want a beautiful, intuitive daily planning tool that you'll actually enjoy using every day. You're not a productivity hobbyist who loves tweaking systems — you just want to get things done.
Choose OmniFocus if: You need granular custom perspectives, have extremely complex project dependencies, or are a hardcore GTD practitioner who needs every feature David Allen ever imagined.
For most people — even serious professionals — Things 3 is the better choice. Its constraints are features, not bugs. The best task manager is always the one you'll actually use consistently.
If you're still evaluating your options, this comprehensive guide to the best task managers for personal productivity is an excellent starting point before committing to any tool.
Where Things 3 Falls Short
No honest review skips the weaknesses. Things 3 has real limitations you should know about before buying.
No Collaboration Features
Things 3 is a solo tool, full stop. If you need to assign tasks to teammates, share projects, or comment on work items, you need a different app. This is a dealbreaker for managers or anyone working in a team context.
No Web App
You're locked into Apple devices. If you ever need to access your tasks from a Windows PC or an Android phone, you're out of luck. For the committed Apple user, this is fine — possibly even a feature. For anyone with a mixed-device life, it's a real problem.
Limited Project Views
Things 3 only shows tasks in a list view. There's no Kanban board, Gantt chart, or calendar-style project view. Complex projects with many dependencies can start to feel linear and flat.
Slow Feature Development
Cultured Code is a small team, and they ship updates slowly. Things 3 hasn't received a major new feature release in some time, and some users feel the app is beginning to show its age in an increasingly competitive market. That said, the team has a track record of exceptional quality over quantity.
Who Should Use Things 3?
Things 3 is the right choice for:
- Apple-only users who want the best-designed task manager on the platform
- GTD practitioners at an intermediate level who want structure without complexity
- Students and knowledge workers who manage multiple projects simultaneously
- Anyone tired of subscriptions who wants to pay once and own their software
- Creative professionals who care about the quality of their tools
Things 3 is probably not right for:
- Team managers who need collaboration and task assignment
- People who regularly work on non-Apple devices
- Users who need advanced project visualization like Gantt charts
- Anyone who wants AI-powered task suggestions or prioritization
Building Better Habits Around Your Task Manager
Here's the truth that most task manager reviews won't tell you: the app is only 20% of the equation. The other 80% is the system and habits you build around it.
Research published in the European Journal of Social Psychology found that habit formation takes an average of 66 days — not the commonly cited 21 days. Building a daily review habit, a weekly planning routine, and consistent task capture behavior takes sustained effort regardless of which tool you use.
This is where combining a task manager like Things 3 with a broader personal development system pays dividends. Tools that reinforce daily habits, encourage reflection, and connect your tasks to your larger goals dramatically increase follow-through.
If you're looking for a framework to build those habits around your productivity system, this resource on building a complete personal task management system walks you through the principles that make any tool — including Things 3 — actually work long-term.
The most effective productivity practitioners don't just capture tasks. They:
- Do a weekly review — Clear the Inbox, review all projects, identify the next week's priorities
- Plan each morning — Spend 5 minutes setting up Today before opening email
- Process, not just capture — Every item in the Inbox gets a decision: do it, defer it, delegate it, or delete it
- Connect tasks to goals — Know why each project matters to your larger life vision
Things 3 can support all of these behaviors beautifully — but only if you build the habits around it.
The Verdict: Is Things 3 Still Worth It in 2025?
Yes — with some important caveats.
Things 3 remains the most beautiful, intuitive, and enjoyable task manager available for Apple users in 2025. Its one-time pricing is a genuine competitive advantage, its daily planning experience is unmatched, and its Apple ecosystem integration is best-in-class. For the majority of individuals looking to manage their personal tasks, projects, and commitments, it's still the first recommendation.
The app's limitations are real — no collaboration, no web app, slow development pace — but they reflect deliberate design choices rather than oversight. If Things 3's scope matches your needs, you'll find very little that beats it.
Our rating: 9/10
Things 3 earns its reputation. The question isn't really "is it good?" — it clearly is. The question is whether its particular strengths match your particular workflow. For most Apple users who want a focused, beautiful, reliable personal task manager, the answer is a resounding yes.
And if you're building a more complete personal productivity system that goes beyond just task management, remember that the best results come from combining great tools with great habits, consistent reflection, and a clear sense of what you're actually working toward.
Try DailyWins Free — Build the Habits That Make Your Task Manager Work
Even the best task manager in the world won't save you if you don't have the habits and mindset to use it consistently. That's exactly the problem DailyWins was built to solve.
DailyWins is a free iOS app that combines daily task completion, habit tracking, and book-backed learning — giving you the behavioral foundation that makes tools like Things 3 actually stick. Instead of just listing what you need to do, DailyWins helps you build the daily routines, growth mindset, and personal accountability practices that high-performers use to follow through — every single day.
Here's what you get with DailyWins:
- 📋 Daily wins tracking to build momentum and consistency
- 📚 Bite-sized insights from leading productivity and self-development books
- ✅ Habit tracking grounded in behavioral science
- 🎯 Goal connection so every task links to something you actually care about
- 💡 Daily prompts to keep you growing — not just busy
The research is clear: people who combine structured task management with deliberate habit systems are significantly more likely to achieve their goals. DailyWins is the missing piece that turns your to-do list into genuine daily progress.
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Start building the habits today that will make every task manager — including Things 3 — work the way it was always meant to.