Show HN: Godspeed is a fast, 100% keyboard oriented todo app for Mac

Show HN: Godspeed is a fast, 100% keyboard oriented todo app for Mac(godspeedapp.com)

328 points by DanielDe 2 years ago | 223 comments

Hi everybody, today I'm launching version 1.0 of Godspeed, a todo manager built with two priorities in mind: speed and 100% keyboard orientation. Every action in Godspeed can be done from your keyboard and will respond instantly. It's like Superhuman for your todo list.

Godspeed has everything you expect in a todo manager like shared lists, labels, smart lists, boolean search operators, and cloud sync. If you're already a user of an app like Todoist or OmniFocus you should be able find everything you need in Godspeed.

I think the most appealing thing to most HN users would be the keyboard orientation. Literally every single action in Godspeed is doable from your keyboard. I'm so serious about this that I built "hardcore mode" to completely disable the mouse - this both helps you break the habit of reaching for your mouse, and keeps us honest about 100% hotkey support.

You can fully customize the hotkeys, but if you're into Vim or Emacs you'll feel right at home by default.

We've got a 2 week free trial with no limitations, and then offer subscription or one-time purchase options.

Thanks for checking out Godspeed, I'd love to hear your feedback!

https://godspeedapp.com/

kareemm 2 years ago |

Love it. I've been increasingly dissatisfied with Things.

Specific things I'm looking for in a Todo manager:

1. iPhone <=> Mac apps and syncing

2. Hotkeys + Speed

3. Shared lists (you don't even mention this until I get into Guides, but I love it)

4. Smart lists

5. Nesting

6. Pasting images

7. Projects + subtasks

8. An inbox

9. Snoozing to the future

10. Focus mode (gets rid of everything else EXCEPT for the current task... really nice as a reminder when I start a task, hop into a meeting, and flip back to the todo list to see what I'm meant to be working on and it's staring me in the face vs. seeing a long list of items). Don't think you support this - first saw it in Amazing Marvin.

Concerns:

1. How painful will it be to import from Things?

2. What if the app goes away? I don't want to lose my stuff or switch again, it's a pain. How big is your company? Are you a going concern with real customers or is this a side project that will fall by the wayside?

3. I do love not paying a subscription for Things. I like the $150 one-off fee for 18m. Would consider that.

Regardless, going to play with it today. Seems very promising!

lelandfe 2 years ago | |

$150 is $90 more than getting Things for iOS and macOS. I'm a big Things user, will be curious to see if this is worth the price.

Shame that it only nets you 18 months, and seemingly no support guarantee. I'm also curious how limitless bug fixes for older versions is going to work out. "Godspeed will never stop working" feels like a bold claim to make given enough time in "never." I've been using Things for 6 years now.

kareemm 2 years ago | | |

Agreed re: 18 months. Been using Things for 8-9 years now, tried Sunsama, Todoist, and Amazing Marvin but keep coming back to Things.

Godspeed looks interesting enough vs Things to kick the tires b/c:

1. Speed of date picking and moving todos (choosing dates in Things is a mouse operation and I do it multiple times a day. It's 2024 guys, we don't need calendar pickers when we have command palettes)

2. Image support (super annoying I can't include files in Things. Again... 2024, come on)

3. Sharing lists (can't do in Things which doesn't respect that todos are often collaborative / shared)

mtillman 2 years ago | | |

I'm a big fan of Things (started with V1) and am happy they're getting stiffer competition. Will help both products and I'll benefit.

DanielDe 2 years ago | |

I'm happy to say it looks like we tick 9/10 of those boxes!

> 10. Focus mode

You're right, this is the one we don't support. But we've gotten requests for it, including from my cofounder, so its coming!

> 1. How painful will it be to import from Things?

I'm not sure if Things lets you export tasks, but if they do I'm more than happy to run a one-time custom import for you (or any other Things user). There's also the simpler way, which is copying a bunch of tasks to your clipboard and hitting ⌘+Shift+V in Godspeed to paste tasks from clipboard. It'll respect indentation and bullet characters.

> 2. What if the app goes away? I don't want to lose my stuff or switch again, it's a pain. How big is your company? Are you a going concern with real customers or is this a side project that will fall by the wayside?

Important question, thank you for asking it. First, if the app goes away, you're able to export your data from Godspeed. Currently it exports as JSON, but we're going to add other export formats in the future (as well as attachment exporting, which we don't currently support - though all your attachments are stored in a particular folder in ~/Library).

We're small right now, just a few people. But this app is pretty cheap to run and we use it every day (I don't want to brag, but I'm currently at the top of the charts for # of todos with 22,000 :p). So for what its worth, we intend to be around for a long time.

Thanks so much for the feedback and for checking it out! Happy to answer more questions, either here or daniel@godspeedapp.com

cweagans 2 years ago | | |

> I'm not sure if Things lets you export tasks, but if they do I'm more than happy to run a one-time custom import for you (or any other Things user). There's also the simpler way, which is copying a bunch of tasks to your clipboard and hitting ⌘+Shift+V in Godspeed to paste tasks from clipboard. It'll respect indentation and bullet characters.

The local Things database is just a sqlite database. https://culturedcode.com/things/support/articles/2803570/

adamweld 2 years ago | |

I'm surprised no one in this thread has mentioned Workflowy[0].

It is extremely minimal and elegant, does everything that you're looking for (on first glance), and is completely free. Not to be hyperbolic but the interface is ingenious in it's power and simplicity. Give it a shot.

[0]: https://workflowy.com/basics/

ternaryoperator 2 years ago | | |

> "and is completely free"

It's not completely free. [0] A set of features are available free. The complete set of features runs > $4/month, depending on whether you pay monthly or yearly.

[0] https://workflowy.com/pricing/

deanishe 2 years ago | | |

> I'm surprised no one in this thread has mentioned Workflowy

It's an online service, isn't it? Not a local application.

brainchild-adam 2 years ago | | |

Logseq (https://logseq.com/) as an offline-first, open-source variant.

karyb 2 years ago | | |

And https://dynalist.io/ is in a very similar vein

FredPret 2 years ago | |

Do you have Things for Mac? I loved Things on my iPhone until I saw the Mac version is another CAD 70.

Now I use vanilla Obsidian with checkboxes - super simple, and I own the file.

There's no snoozing though - you have to cut-paste a task into a different todo list if you want to move it.

I'm sure there's also a plugin that would make it more org-mode-ish.

xianm 2 years ago | | |

> you have to cut-paste a task into a different todo list

I wrote a template for my Daily Note which includes a Tasks section. Underneath the list of tasks for the day, I use a Dataview to create a collapsable "Backlog" section, which selects all uncompleted tasks from my Daily Notes folder with a created time before the current file. It ends up looking something like:

  ### Tasks
  - [ ] Task 1
  - [ ] Task 2
  
  >[!todo]- Backlog
  > #### 2024-03-18 (1)
  > - [ ] Uncompleted task from 2024-03-18 Daily Note
  >
  > #### 2024-03-17 (2)
  > - [ ] First uncompleted task from 2024-03-17 Daily Note
  > - [ ] Second uncompleted task from 2024-03-17 Daily Note

The cool part about this, aside from being able to show/hide the Backlog, is you can mark a task as done from the Backlog section, and it will update the original Daily Note file, and remove it from the Backlog section.

Here's the Dataview query I'm using:

  >[!todo]- Backlog
  > ```dataview
  > TASK WHERE startswith(file.folder, "Daily Notes/") AND !completed AND file.ctime < this.file.ctime AND file.link != this.file.link GROUP BY file.link
  > ```

kareemm 2 years ago | | |

I have both Things for Mac and iPhone. The money's trivial for organizing my life. I don't want to spend a second more in my todo app than necessary and would rather pay to have things just work.

jamil7 2 years ago | | |

It's a one time purchase for both though, I've used it almost daily (at least during the week) for 3 years or so now.

devrob 2 years ago | |

Somewhat off topic, does anyone use Paper/Pencil (specifically bullet journals), Apps and Digital Calendars with what feels like not much effort? I haven't been able to come to a happy medium between them all.

Also Concern #3, is there a subscription for things? o.O

al_borland 2 years ago | | |

I think the more tools you have, the harder it gets. I see some of these productivity guys, like Ali Abdaal, on YouTube and their systems look like a nightmare, with 8 different apps depending on the type of data.

The easier I make it on myself the better.

At work, after trying seemingly everything, I think I hit my stride with Obsidian. I have a plugin to show a calendar that works with the daily notes. I setup a template for that with a todo heading and a notes heading. I treat that kind of like a bullet journal. Each day I move over the stuff that wasn’t finished from the last day. The notes section is to give me a scratch pad for stuff that I only need that day. Other notes go to their own page to easily find later (with none of that zettlekasten nonsense). If I have a lot in my mind at the end of the day, especially on a Friday or before vacation, I’ll fill out the daily note for the day I plan to be back in the office, so I can remember where I left off. I can also open up a future daily note to add an item if I need to follow up on something on a certain day. For normal meetings I use Outlook, because I have to.

At home, the above system doesn’t work so well, because I have a lot less going on. I don’t need something that requires daily interaction like that. I have been writing up some ideas for an app I plan to write that will hopefully solve this problem for me. Time will tell how that plays out. In the meantime I’m using Apple Reminders and Calendar in a pretty basic form.

danielecook 2 years ago | | |

I use a notebook and pen. It's like having another screen, except it's my list of todo's and its always open and in front of me.

I write a list of todos, check them off as I go, then rewrite that list once the page is full or after a few days - leaving off those that are done. I've found it works better than any app (and I have tried many).

monooso 2 years ago |

I'm curious how this is better than (or even significantly different to) Todoist [1], a well-established cross platform application which also supports natural language task creation [2] and a keyboard-driven workflow [3].

[1]: https://todoist.com/ [2]: https://todoist.com/features [3]: https://todoist.com/help/articles/use-keyboard-shortcuts-in-...

Timothee 2 years ago | |

In my experience (as a long-time Vim and Vimium user), the keyboard shortcut support in Todoist was not good enough. It does cover most areas of the product, but I remember it not _feeling_ great. As if it was built first for mouse-use, with keyboard shortcuts added to it.

I tested Godspeed for 10-15 minutes, and I'm very impressed by what they built. There's a massive difference in how it feels to me.

Beyond that, I can't tell yet. Todoist certainly has an advantage in depth of the product, but for the keyboard-driven approach only, Godspeed is top notch.

pflenker 2 years ago | |

I know people really seem to love natural language task creation, but I almost always found it lacking. The date picker Things has, and Godspeed promotes, works much better for me.

monooso 2 years ago | | |

It is sometimes a pain. Thankfully, Todoist has both.

2bitlobster 2 years ago |

What's the file format? I hope the best for your app, but I hope I can still use those files if something happens to the company. I converted to .txt files 10 years ago for everything todo, but wouldn't mind a specialized utility for it!

DanielDe 2 years ago | |

We use a proprietary sync engine, so there isn't some known file format you can edit. I totally understand your objection to this!

We do, however, store the data locally in a sqlite database (~/Library/Godspeed/godspeed-db.sqlite). You shouldn't directly edit it or things won't sync properly, but you can use it to easily read your tasks if you'd like!

newman314 2 years ago | | |

It'd be awesome if you can emit/ingest Markdown. That way, Todo can act as a different frontend to what essentially amounts to a bunch of files that I can then view via a different app.

grncdr 2 years ago | | |

That file (and entire directory) doesn't seem to exist on my system

TehShrike 2 years ago | |

I'm curious as well – if there was a SQLite file somewhere that I could read from to hook up e.g. an Alfred plugin or whatever, that would be valuable.

DanielDe 2 years ago | | |

There is indeed a sqlite file! ~/Library/Godspeed/godspeed-db.sqlite. But you shouldn't edit it or things won't sync properly. Feel free to read, though!

niels_bom 2 years ago | |

If I have todo items that are 10 years old it’s a sign I don’t really care about them.

For (PKM) notes it’s a whole different story.

leokennis 2 years ago |

I will be unable to leave the stock iOS Reminders app:

- I do a lot of my tasks away from my desk, so when I have my phone with me but not my laptop - A todo item without a reminder/due date is “dead” to me, it’s the reminder to actually do the thing that adds the value

The stock Reminders app is the only app on iOS I know of that can keep persistent notifications on the Lock Screen, even after locking and then unlocking the phone. A reminder will stay on the Lock Screen as notification until marked as complete.

Any other todo app can give me a one time notification. But if I don’t act on it, the notification is gone (or hidden below the fold at best) and unless I open the app, the todo item is again “dead” to me.

This is definitely Apple allowing its own apps access to features closed off for others, but this unique capability is what will keep me on the stock Reminders app forever.

sleight42 2 years ago | |

Couldn't reminder apps implement "nagging" such that dismissed notifications are re-notified until some action is taken?

Agreed, this is Apple taking advantage of private APIs in much the same way that got Microsoft in so much hot water in the late 90s/early 00s.

havaloc 2 years ago | | |

https://www.dueapp.com/ is what you're looking for

> Couldn't reminder apps implement "nagging" such that dismissed notifications are re-notified until some action is taken?

rahilb 2 years ago | |

I too had this problem so I developed an app that integrates Reminders and Obsidian to solve it; I create all my notes & tasks in Obsidian and my app syncs them to Reminders.app so you get the best of both worlds :)

HN submission: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39764919

hipjiveguy 2 years ago | | |

but can you add a reminder with Siri ?

kstrauser 2 years ago |

Coming from an OmniFocus user:

How do I script it? OF's automation is a must-have, as that's how I integrate it with my other apps. Extensive Shortcuts support (ala Things) is a minimum. AppleScript or JavaScript is better.

I won't use a to-do app without a start date. Don't remind me to renew my driver's license 3 years in advance. I don't even want to see that. Everything that's due far in the future that I couldn't be working on today even if I wanted to is just a distraction.

I can't deep link directly to an item. That means I can't use it with things like Hookmark, or have a note in another app that links back to its related project.

I can't legally use it without end-to-end encryption. That's a deal breaker for anyone in a regulated industry, and I don't want to have one to-do app for work and another for personal stuff.

This looks really cool! Each one of the above items would keep it out of the running for me, though.

jamil7 2 years ago |

Great work! Keyboard wise, it works really well. I found the onboarding panel persisting there the whole time kind of annoying. I wanted to dismiss it but could only minimise it. It sort of forces you to go through every feature upfront, rather than progressively disclosing features to you.

Nitpicks, but some of the ways in which it doesn't behave like a mac app I don't like. I don't like the non-native looking font. The sidebar isn't collapsible or resizable like a mac app, but I guess you could add an editor-style shortcut to toggle that. If you have a mouse plugged in you get scroll bars everywhere. It seems to maintain its own undo/redo stack? The shortcuts for undo/redo work but the menu commands for them won't.

Edit: typos

DanielDe 2 years ago | |

Ah you can actually dismiss the onboarding panel from the command palette, sorry that wasn't more obvious!

The sidebars can be collapsed with ⌘+; and ⌘+', though we also intend to make them fully resizable soon too!

You're right about the undo/redo stack, we need to improve its integration with the system so those work properly.

Thanks so much for this feedback! Keep it coming!

mrinterweb 2 years ago |

This looks great and I appreciate the demo period and the option to buy one-time. Do wish the buy one-time had a longer update length. The subscription looks like the better deal. The $149 / 18 months is $8.28/month. Guess the upside is you get to keep using the app without updates after the 18 months. I have subscription fatigue so I do appreciate the one-time purchase.

dijit 2 years ago |

Looks extremely nice. One thing that I’ve had serious difficulty with though is keeping my Jira/Asana and Google Tasks all linked up somehow.

I guess it’s a non-goal, but do you envision a future where you would integrate with those solutions? Of course any integration would hopefully sync lazily in the background instead of blocking the render…

blowski 2 years ago | |

My local, private todo list serves a different purpose to Jira. Keeping the two in sync is manual but not difficult.

Every morning I have a routine of selecting my tasks from Jira. During the day, I just try to keep Jira up-to-date. And then at the end of the day, I ensure Jira is up-to-date with my progress.

I've tried multiple times to automate them, but the automation ends up with more costs than benefits.

kareemm 2 years ago | |

Boy would I love an task manager to respect the fact that work happens in other tools, and provide a centralized layer on top of the tools I integrate with.

conception 2 years ago | | |

Sunsama is a tool like this if you use the apps it integrates with.

smcleod 2 years ago |

Looks nice, then I saw the price… wow - that’s a lot of money for a subscription for a single tool.

tailspin2019 2 years ago | |

It’s quite similar to Omnifocus’ pricing FWIW

lycopodiopsida 2 years ago | | |

Omnifocus asks this price for a major version (4-5 years of updates) and has much more features - omniautomation, sync encryption, review, defer dates. Also, omnifocus and its makers have a reputation they have built over decades so they can ask for that money and I will pay because it is my GTD foundation for over a decade. I may use something else for a while but will always come back to OF with a relief.

This one is a new app, light on features but worse conditions for the same price. Can‘t forbid to get overconfident, I guess?

smcleod 2 years ago | | |

$110 AUD per year is insanely expensive!

Fnoord 2 years ago |

I'd love this for Nextcloud, having it sync to there, in an openly documented format. You see, I already got burned by Google Keep and their proprietary format once. So then it'd be worth it to buy an application like this with a good UI and decent keybindings. But not for this price... 150 USD for 1,5 years of software updates.

Look at Sublime Text. Sublime Text 3 was released in 2013, and Sublime Text 4 in 2021. That is approx 8 years of software updates for a big piece of software, top of line. For what was it like 100 USD? If you bought it later in the dev cycle, you'd get a discount on next. And it is cross-platform and native (no Electron). So you really are looking at 1 USD per month. A bargain.

I've been looking at Obsidian and Zettlr (not exactly same) but these too are just Electron apps. Although they seem to be cross-platform, and the document format is just MD. Zettlr is even FOSS.

What Nextcloud doesn't have (for me at least) is that the MD files can be edited and viewed by me and my wife at the same time. So with regards to one use case (grocery store shopping list) that is a minus. On Google Keep it worked, sort of.

Maybe if you have a high income this is peanuts to you, but for me, it just isn't. Especially not right now.

replete 2 years ago | |

We already have CalDAV, but few implement it. I prefer using a caldav server (e.g. email host) because if you have a life in task items, and your software is proprietary and they don't care about import/export - it sucks. 2Do or OmniFocus, not seen anything better yet. I tried for ages to make tasks work in Obsidian, all the plugins, dataview setup - it just felt clumsy and kludgey to work with, so I gave up and let obsidian do what its good at, notes and templates

thornjm 2 years ago |

Not sure if you already have this but something you could steal from the medical world is shortcuts to describe relative dates / time:

n+60 (is now + 60m)

n-10 (is 10m ago)

t+1 (is today + 1d)

w+2 (is two weeks from now)

m+12 (is 12 months from now)

syvl 2 years ago | |

Our date picker already supports similar queries: 60m, 1d, 2w, 12mon. You can even combine them, like `2w+3d`.

(I skipped n-10 because it doesn't support picking dates in the past.)

Thanks for sharing, it's interesting to learn about the medical shorthand regardless :)

blipmusic 2 years ago | |

Wouldn't a "month" risk being many days off the intended target date, since it's a non-fixed timespan? E.g. how many days is "1 month from today" (March 20)? You mention medicine, so I assume there's something obvious I'm missing (then again, perhaps the constantly shifting dates for health care appointments where I live say otherwise ;D).

speg 2 years ago | | |

You just increment the month. March 20 m+1 is April 20.

If the date is invalid, like January 30 m+1 then you fallback to next valid date, February 28/29.

pgt 2 years ago |

Consider making an Obsidian[^1] plugin, or writing to Obsidian-compatible Markdown files :)

I use Obsidian + Rollover Todos[^2] plugin with Cmd+Enter set to cycle through checkbox states for todos.

[^1]: https://obsidian.md/

[^2]: https://github.com/lumoe/obsidian-rollover-daily-todos

replete 2 years ago | |

This could be good, however it would need an amazing panel UI to do GUI management - text only isn't quite enough IMO.

I tried hard to make task management in Obsidian a thing, and gave up, it just isn't good at it. Tasks, Checklists, all way too clumsy to rely on every day, at least for me

paradite 2 years ago |

Sadly I use Macbook with Android.

syvl 2 years ago | |

Android, Windows, and a web version are on the roadmap! If you'd like, you can drop your email address at the bottom of the page and we'll let you know when they're available. (We won't spam you with small product updates / marketing, just the major updates like a new platform.)

ahstilde 2 years ago | |

same! We're pretty rare.

distalx 2 years ago | | |

Like finding a single sock in the dryer.

notkaiho 2 years ago | | |

But we do exist!

ricardobeat 2 years ago |

This looks amazing, but oh do I miss the days where small productivity apps cost $9.99 for a perpetual license. Maybe $29 tops for something more feature-packed.

subpixel 2 years ago |

I'm interested but I have recently learned that making lists is easy, playing with lists is fun, but actually scheduling work on my calendar is the only thing that gets it done.

James_K 2 years ago |

Am I the only one who feels a sort of tension between the silicon-valley-chic of this website and the simplicity of the software being presented? It seems to just be a list of things with some slight structure added. The big selling-point is responsive UI, but I feel that should be the minimum we expect from software. I personally prefer a pen an paper for this kind of thing. I guess this is primarily for collaborative use, but I'm not seeing much on the site about how good it works as a ticketing system. Perhaps some testimonials from organisations/teams that have used it would be a better thing to lead with than a strange technical statement which most users won't understand. I'm a fairly technical sort of guy myself and I don't exactly know off the top of my head what 50ms latency feels like or how it compares to other note taking software.

syvl 2 years ago | |

> The big selling-point is responsive UI, but I feel that should be the minimum we expect from software.

Agreed! That's a big part of what motivated us to build Godspeed.

> Perhaps some testimonials from organisations/teams that have used it would be a better thing to lead with than a strange technical statement which most users won't understand. I'm a fairly technical sort of guy myself and I don't exactly know off the top of my head what 50ms latency feels like or how it compares to other note taking software.

Appreciate that feedback! Today is our 1.0 launch, we'll definitely add some testimonials in the coming weeks.

For what it's worth, a response time of 100ms is perceived as instantaneous [0].

[0] https://www.pubnub.com/blog/how-fast-is-realtime-human-perce...

syvl 2 years ago | | |

We say "<50ms" rather than "instantaneous" because a lot of companies will claim that their software is fast and not actually meet a specific threshold. This claim keeps us from cutting corners – we're serious about keeping everything blazing fast, even if that means it takes longer to build.

James_K 2 years ago | | |

> For what it's worth, a response time of 100ms is perceived as instantaneous

That's not true. From the source you cited:

> Increasing latency above 13 ms has an increasingly negative impact on human performance for a given task. While imperceptible at first, added latency continues to degrade a human’s processing ability until approaching 75 to 100 ms. Here we become very conscious that input has become too slow

The 100ms figure was in regard to conversational interactions with a computer.

replete 2 years ago |

I signed up to over 20 todo apps yesterday, and it was miserable how clumsy UI is. If you're using task management to run your life, you are dealing with tasks hundreds of times a day and it needs to be flippin' quick and versatile enough that you can actually achieve a workflow - GTD is an excellent benchmark here. Oh and all these apps don't have start date, many of them don't even have the ability to star.

Not hosting my own data is a dealbreaker though unfortunately, so I stick with 2Do which I think is massively under-rated and has brilliant sync options. 2Do is a one man band and I'm worried we might not see another version. Making smart lists based on tags, due dates, starred, and then being able to make multiple smartphone widgets for multiple lists is not something I've seen anywhere done anywhere near as good.

Godspeed OP, this looks like a great first release and hope you make it work.

lifeisstillgood 2 years ago |

I am currently rethinking my awful home organisation

A dropbox folder for each “case”/“project”.

A dropbox folder for each outside compmay

A password manager

Some gaffing with scripting to tie it together

I think pythonista ought to be part of it too

Edit: @DanielDe - apologies for that brain dump.

You built an app and launched it - fantastic. Honestly That’s an achievement most of us on HN cannot even claim. - my honest congratulations

I hope you find a niche and make 10,000 true fans happy.

I would love to hear your views on how to stay organised in life (or rather, how shall I put this, I don’t see organised as a pre-active thing but a post-active thing. It’s like project management - it supposed to remind you of the important things, to follow you around and capture the right information (#) not control or constrain your actions.)

Anyhow - congrats. Break a leg :-)

(#) the most obvious is monitor my communications - like capture my phone calls and keep that alongside the name of the contact in my phone list. But because iOS no-one can do that. I get it but also I don’t.

Anyhow I think I want a unicorn.

DanielDe 2 years ago | |

I have no problem with a brain dump :)

Really appreciate the kind words! Indeed, actually launching is hard. Like everyone, I've got a big pile of abandoned side projects sitting in a folder somewhere.

I think we're pretty aligned on staying organized. For me, the most important bit is "capture". I need to be able to get tasks out of my head and into a task tracker from as many places as possible. Then later I can triage them.

Godspeed attempts to help with this by offering a global hotkey for quick entry, and an iOS app with Siri and shortcuts support. We also intend to add "log a task by email" soon.

smoldesu 2 years ago | |

I remember Projectpad being really close to what I wanted in this regard: https://github.com/emmanueltouzery/projectpad2/

Shame it appears to be abandoned.

devrob 2 years ago | |

u/lifeisstillgood look into "Building a Second Brain" and Tiago's PARA method, could help?

KingGeedorah 2 years ago |

> However, 18 months after a one-time purchase, you'll no longer get access to new or updated features.

Is this normal for SaaS?

1123581321 2 years ago | |

It's increasingly common. This particular one is a bit of a headscratcher since typically pay-once-for-an-update period is presented as a de facto subscription, but this also has a subscription.

In this case, you'd pay $150 for an 18-month window of updates, or $144 for two years of updates (or, if you like, $72*1.5 for the same 18-month window, assuming you're going to pay another $150 at month 19 for something interesting.)

Contrast that with Agenda, which is $35 to buy with 12 month of updates, or about $100 for a life-time of updates. The tradeoff is more straightforward as you're just deciding whether to bet on more than three years of features.

Or contrast with OmniFocus which is $150 for the major version, which typically is on a 4-5 year cicle, or $5/mo. In that case you're just betting that you'll use the current major version more than 2.5 years.

(I'm ignoring cashflow discount; you get the idea.)

(The app itself is fun and fast to use, and I'm not complaining or demanding special treatment. I'm just interested in how these things are priced.)

jarrettcoggin 2 years ago | |

I've seen this a handful of times with libraries and other software. Typically, it's a year of updates, so 18 months is on the more generous side of things with this model.

input_sh 2 years ago | |

It's definitely more popular on MacOS than elsewhere.

bonestamp2 2 years ago | | |

A lot of enterprise software is on a 1 year "maintenance" cycle too. In some cases, you no longer get support and you can continue to use the latest version from that year, and in other cases the license completely expires and you can't use the product at all.

chr-s 2 years ago | |

I wonder what kind of pain is involved with maintaining every new feature release with bug and compatibility fixes forever*.

zharknado 2 years ago |

Congrats on the launch! Some weird, random feedback—-I found the background music in your demo video surprisingly distracting! That probably seems petty but for me it was the strongest impression from interacting with your post.

The super bubbly chime vibe didn’t match my expectations for your brand based on the copy, value prop, fact that you’re posting on HN, etc. Reminded me a bit of the flat, corporate videos I’ve seen from B2B orgs, like “look, our tool is compliant and exciting, really!” (Just the music, overall it’s fine).

Music also doesn’t match the low, quiet LockpickingLawyer-esque voiceover. Which I thought was fine, seemed sincere, scrappy, matches the brand.

I’d experiment with different royalty-free music options, and maybe lower the level a bit more and/or boost the voiceover to make it easier to understand. Hope this is helpful!

DanielDe 2 years ago | |

SUPER helpful, thank you! Honestly, I was pretty torn about the music choice, so it's good to hear this feedback. Will definitely consider a change in the future.

And good to know I sound "sincere". That'd be at the top of my list for how I'd like to come off!

chrizel 2 years ago |

Your privacy policy is very short and missing some important information. Where are your servers located? What cloud providers do you use? Do you use encryption in transit and at rest? How do you protect my data? Where are you located?

Because task managers are storing a lot of sensitive information over time this is an important topic for a lot of people. The website should cover these questions.

gala8y 2 years ago |

Apart from it being probably a great app...

"Pay once $149 keep it forever, ongoing compatibility updates + bug fixes, 18 months of new features"

...this is not old skool pay once payment. It is just one payment for 18 months of subscription to new features which makes it slightly more expensive than monthly subscription. Go figure.

DanielDe 2 years ago | |

The difference is that with the one-time payment you get to keep the version you have forever, including bug fixes, compatibility updates, and cloud sync, which are all ongoing costs for us.

With the subscription, you lose access when you stop paying.

So I think it is pretty comparable to an old school one-time payment, but with bug fixes and compatibility updates added on top.

threetonesun 2 years ago | |

The "old skool" was pay once, get (usually) 0 updates and then pay again for a new major version. The keep it but stop getting updates model is better than that, usually.

microtonal 2 years ago | | |

You mean like Things, which I bought in 2017 and am still getting updates for?

danielscrubs 2 years ago |

Im paying for TickTick. For me to switch it would need:

1. “today’s commit list” which is different from “today’s list” with a one click way to “commit”. If not done that day I have to commit again.

2. Being able to hide task’s that are not currently doable (because of date interval or a dependent task not done).

3. Date interval for when something can be done is different from deadline date.

4. Share and edit one list with family members, unfortunately they use Android.

Overall I think most task managers miss that the managers are there to help against anxiety. Out of sight out of mind. It took me some time to figure that one out because I don’t notice that I am anxious.

p0w3n3d 2 years ago |

I've found an annoyance, that disallows me to enter ń letter, as right option+n (used to enter polish letters on polish keyboard) is mapped to navigate over lists. I think app should have possibility to distinguish between left and right option, and/or maybe an editor of keystrokes

DanielDe 2 years ago | |

We've actually gotten exactly this complaint from a Polish user before, so we added an option to disable Option hotkeys while editing text: Settings [⌘,] -> Text [3] -> [O]

coldtea 2 years ago |

Looks good.

An important question: can we sync it with our own method (e.g. Dropbox or SyncThing or whatever) or is there a hardcoded sync to the company's Cloud?

It's a matter of privacy and freedom to move the data as we see fit.

DanielDe 2 years ago | |

The sync engine is proprietary, so you can't use your own provider. We wanted very tight control over syncing to achieve our goals with speed and shared lists. I totally understand your concern, though.

For what its worth, all of your data is stored locally in a sqlite DB. You shouldn't edit this DB or syncing may not work, but you should feel free to read from it if you'd like ~/Library/Godspeed/godspeed-db.sqlite

daft_pink 2 years ago |

I really love the infinite nesting. I’m curious about snoozing on recurring tasks. After using OmniFocus I feel making tasks disappear and review are really important useful features to me.

DanielDe 2 years ago | |

I'm glad you asked about this, because snoozing recurring tasks is one of the 2 big reasons I wanted to create Godspeed in the first place (the other was the date picker). The way this worked in OmniFocus was _infuriating_ to me.

When you snooze a recurring task in Godspeed you use the same date picker as for setting a date, so you have full power and flexibility to choose whatever date/time you'd like. And it only snoozes _this instance_ of the task, without changing future recurring due dates.

madrox 2 years ago |

Well done. This is everything I love about Omnifocus but with better collaboration. If you can give me a Windows version so I can also use this on my personal workstation this is an instant buy.

syvl 2 years ago | |

Thank you! Windows is on our roadmap, if you'd like you can drop your email address at the bottom of the page and we'll let you know when it's available. (We won't spam you with small product updates / marketing, just major updates like support for a new platform.)

adamweld 2 years ago | |

Try Workflowy, it has good native and web apps and a great minimal but powerful design and is completely free.

https://workflowy.com/basics/

madrox 2 years ago | | |

I've tried workflowy before and it didn't stick. Something about the combined notetaking aspect made it difficult for me to conform to.

sixtram 2 years ago |

Is this a native app or Electron stuff?

amandle 2 years ago | |

It's electron based.

sgt 2 years ago |

Can I have it only sync through iCloud? I'm just concerned that I buy the lifetime version and then the Godspeed API disappears after a couple of years.

syvl 2 years ago | |

Unfortunately not. I can understand if that's a dealbreaker for you.

There are a few reasons we're not using iCloud: 1. We eventually intend to support other platforms, like Windows and the web. 2. Though they're admittedly rare, we've heard some iCloud horror stories. @DanielDe (OP) lost some files using iCloud Drive, so it's hard for us to trust it. 3. We wanted much tighter control over syncing to provide the particular experience we were aiming for. Things like live cursors for shared lists, and the way our offline experience works, are tightly tied into our sync engine.

sgt 2 years ago | | |

Never had an issue with iCloud in at least 5 years, so I believe it is now probably ultra stable.

It is not necessarily a deal breaker, one can always just export/backup regularly.

maxmcd 2 years ago |

Is there a story about what mobile access might look like? Would be good to have some kind of access on the go even if the macOS app is the daily driver.

sgt 2 years ago | |

The mobile app is linked on the page: https://godspeedapp.com/ios

darnochuang 2 years ago |

I like the idea to manage my TODOs with keyboard as the first-class citizen.

Two questions: 1. How can I keep offline without uploading data to cloud? My company won't allow me to do so and I want to manage business TODOs safely. 2. While I'm offline, how can I back up my TODOs? So I can restore them after I reinstall Godspeed?

DanielDe 2 years ago | |

Glad you're liking it!

> How can I keep offline without uploading data to cloud?

There's no first-class way to do this right now. Godspeed will work perfectly fine offline, but you can't disable sync. However, if you really wanted to, you could disable network access for the app in the Network inspector of the Electron devtools ([⌘+Option+I] to open dev tools, then click the Network tab).

> While I'm offline, how can I back up my TODOs? So I can restore them after I reinstall Godspeed?

The only way to restore tasks right now is to sync them through the server.

I totally understand if these things are a dealbreaker for you! Hopefully you can check us out again if we support something more amenable to your work requirements.

boromi 2 years ago |

Looks really nice. Any plans for a Windows release?

syvl 2 years ago | |

Thanks! Windows, Android, and a web version are on the roadmap. If you'd like, you can drop your email address at the bottom of the page and we'll let you know when they're available. (We won't spam you with small product updates / marketing, just major updates like support for a new platform.)

srid 2 years ago |

What I most want is an user-friendly macOS task manager app that uses plain-text files for storage, and allows syncing via iCloud Drive.

DanielDe 2 years ago | |

I'm the OP, but I was an org-mode user for years. It's exactly what you're describing, and it's available in more than just Emacs these days!

MontagFTB 2 years ago | |

Have you looked at https://www.taskpaper.com/?

sirtimbly 2 years ago |

This app makes me happy. As happy as when I first used "The Hit List" back in 2007. Custom themes would be nice.

DanielDe 2 years ago | |

This comment makes _me_ happy! I've noted the request - I like it!

strongly-typed 2 years ago |

Can the keyboard shortcuts be modified? One of my personal pain points with other task managers such as Asana is that I can't remap the keyboard shortcuts. This is very important to me since I use alternative keyboard layouts such as Dvorak, Colemak, MTGAP, Graphite, and have continued to experiment with many others.

syvl 2 years ago | |

Yes! Super important feature that I'm realizing we never mention on the website, I'll have to add it. Thanks for bringing that to our attention :)

raybb 2 years ago |

Does it support CALDAV?

pflenker 2 years ago |

The date picker alone makes me consider switching. This is what has always brought me back to Things.

pflenker 2 years ago | |

What gives, I am not allowed to create a todo for Today or This Evening when it is already late in the day? That does not make a lot of sense to me.

DanielDe 2 years ago | | |

This is a good suggestion, you should probably be able to do both of these things any time before 11:59pm. Thanks for the feedback!

klinch 2 years ago |

Love the idea of focusing on speed. I used to have Todoist but the slugginess killed it for me.

byteknight 2 years ago |

I wish with the ubiquity of cross-platform frameworks more people would utilize them :'(

jiehong 2 years ago | |

You might be underestimating cross OS keyboard handling difficulties across keyboard layouts….

byteknight 2 years ago | | |

Fair point @jiehong, but I think modern cross-platform frameworks and libraries have made significant strides in abstracting away those complexities.

Most of them provide abstraction layers that handle low-level input events, including keyboard input, with a consistent API across platforms. They also adhere to established standards like ISO/IEC 9995 for keyboard layouts and XKB for X Window Systems.

Additionally, platforms often provide dedicated input method libraries (e.g., IBus on Linux, TSF on Windows) that these frameworks can leverage to handle different keyboard layouts and input methods seamlessly.

Not to mention the focus on localization and internationalization (L10n and I18n) in modern software development practices, which includes support for different locales, character encodings, and input methods out of the box.

While there may be some edge cases or platform-specific quirks to consider, the challenges of handling different keyboard layouts are generally well-understood and addressed by the frameworks and their active communities.

syngrog66 2 years ago |

"speed & 100% keyboard-oriented TODO app" == vim

plus you can use the same vim skills and mindspace for lots of other use cases

plus its free, offline friendly, VCS friendly, backup friendly

DanielDe 2 years ago | |

I actually used to be an org-mode user, so I strongly agree with this sentiment!

But I really wanted more native features like shared lists, attachments, and a mobile app, which is why I built Godspeed. But Godspeed is heavily influenced by Emacs in a bunch of ways.

tunesmith 2 years ago |

Just curious if it supports blockers and dependencies? Where one task can block multiple others, and where a task can be blocked by multiple others?

DanielDe 2 years ago | |

No, there's no explicit task dependency right now.

However, there are a couple options you could use: 1. Use nested tasks for this purpose. If task B is nested beneath task A, then B is a dependency of A. Godspeed supports infinite nesting (okay, okay - MAX_INT levels of nesting) 2. You could use labels and smart lists. Give blocked tasks a "Blocked" label and create a smart list that filters out any tasks that are blocked.

HandsFreeFap 2 years ago |

Is it opensource? Looking at the main page, i really like what I see. It is very sleek and the integration between Mac and IOS looks great.

mkielo 2 years ago |

Cool app. It would be really nice to have a pdf somewhere of all shortcuts that I could have open next to the app/print out.

DanielDe 2 years ago | |

The hotkeys are editable, so it wouldn't make sense to have a static PDF somewhere, but I could certainly add an export of all hotkeys for you to reference! I've written that idea down.

brainzap 2 years ago |

makes me a bit nostalgic of remember the milk, managing todos was fun, I specially liked the keyboard shortcut 1-3 for priorities

johntash 2 years ago | |

I still use RTM fwiw. I try new todo/task managers quite often, but always end up back at remember the milk. My only complaint about it is that it's not opensource so I can't self-host it.

I'm currently trying out SilverBullet.md as a markdown note tool and task management. The UX isn't close to rtm, but it's pretty customizable so I'm hoping I can make it close.

syvl 2 years ago | |

I never used Remember the Milk but FWIW you can assign numbered keyboard shortcuts for labels and make smart lists with those labels, so I think you could recreate that flow with Godspeed!

throw10920 2 years ago | |

Remember the Milk is still around and one of the best pieces of software I've ever used! Plus - it's not Mac-exclusive.

koromak 2 years ago |

Does this have shared workspaces? Absolutely hate clickup, this seems like a good replacement if I can share workspaces

DanielDe 2 years ago | |

You can share lists, and you'll see each other's live cursors like in Google Docs. Is that what you meant? I could be misunderstanding what "shared workspaces" means here.

koromak 2 years ago | | |

Yup thats exactly it. Thanks!

jdthedisciple 2 years ago |

No end-to-end-encryption? Should be considered an absolute must for any cloud-based personal note taking app.

sgt 2 years ago |

It seems quite fast and very intuitive, especially for keyboard jockeys. Is it all native Swift?

jamil7 2 years ago | |

Not OP but it's an Electron app.

compumike 2 years ago |

The demo video looks great. Any chance of this coming to non-macOS platforms?

DanielDe 2 years ago | |

Thanks so much! Yes, we're hoping to bring it to Windows, Linux, and web soon, and Android a bit later after that.

evanmoran 2 years ago |

It looks great. I’m curious did you have any trouble with iOS app approval?

syvl 2 years ago | |

We had some back and forth around getting the in-app purchase screen to meet Apple's requirements, but I'd say nothing out of the ordinary.

swah 2 years ago |

This feels great to use!

Only request: hide/show done tasks (crossed ofc)

DanielDe 2 years ago | |

This is a common feature request and we'll be adding it as an option soon!

Glad you're liking the feel! What we're going for is essentially an app that "feels" great.

delduca 2 years ago |

I use bear for that, it has an iOS app.

graypegg 2 years ago |

Ahhhh shit... this might break me away from Omnifocus. From first blush, you've hit everything I need to move over, plus good keyboard support which OF has always lacked.

If there's a taskpaper or other simple text-based import format, I'd switch in a second.

Edit: looking closer, you're totally going for OF specifically! Same price point, and I think nearly-feature matched. Good job!

mulderc 2 years ago | |

I feel like Omnifocus has good keyboard support, particularly enjoy quick entry support. Looks like Godspeed lack iOS and watch support which makes it a complete non-starter for me.

syvl 2 years ago | | |

FWIW there is a Godspeed iOS app. No watch support yet but it's on our list!

DanielDe 2 years ago | |

There is a simple text-based import! If you copy a list of tasks with some kind of leading bullet character, like a `-`, and then hit ⌘+Shift+V in Godspeed, Godspeed will create tasks from the text on your clipboard. It'll even respect indentation and strip off the bullet characters.

I'm also happy to do a custom, one-off import if you can get me any kind of machine readable file.

swah 2 years ago |

Any promo codeS?

sneak 2 years ago |

Isn’t e2ee table stakes for these sorts of PIM sync tools at this point?

LVB 2 years ago | |

Given that Things, Todoist, TickTick, and probably most(?) others don't support e2ee, I'd not consider it table stakes. If anything it could be a positive differentiator if they did add it, since folks in the forums for other apps often bemoan the lack of e2ee.

jerrygoyal 2 years ago |

can I save text snippets?

blackhaj7 2 years ago |

Holy crap this looks great

Congrats

apetrovic 2 years ago |

I understand that making a good app is hard, and don't want to undermine your effort, but $150 for a todo app... ouch.

drcongo 2 years ago | |

$150 for an electron app. I was considering holding my nose about the Electron part as I've been desperately trying to find a todo app that meets my needs, but damned if I'm going to subscribe or pay $150 for one.

bonestamp2 2 years ago | | |

Which cross platform solution would they have had to use to get your $150?

kareemm 2 years ago | |

Pay no mind to this guy/gal. S/he's not your ideal customer.

$150 once for an app to organize your work and personal life is a screaming bargain.

lukefreiler 2 years ago | | |

Just because they don't feel the price is right/competitive doesn't automatically write them off as not your target market/ICP - it could still be very valid feedback, especially when competitive options may be cheaper.

Personally I pay less than 1/2 the sub rate they're charging for TickTick Premium, and love it. That's not to say I wouldn't pay double for what it gains me (I definitely would), but given that TickTick is a viable option - I don't need to.

iamsanteri 2 years ago |

But is it faster than getting a pen and jotting down your to-do's on paper? Mac opens up fast these days for sure, but... Anyhow, I really like the idea and wish you all the best with this! Looks real good.

madrox 2 years ago | |

As someone who has used every TODO method under the sun over the last 20 years and talked to other people on their own work tracking journeys, I think task management to be a deeply personal thing that has to map to how you think and do things for it to stick.

Pen and paper worked great for me when I did everything at a desk (or carried a notebook with me) and I was always doing deep focus work. I went digital when I started being more mobile in my work and I had a lot of contexts where I needed to jot quick TODOs as I thought of them. Also, it's difficult to collaborate with my wife using paper.

The inbox mechanic for tasks works great, because I don't need to add all my task metadata right away. I can also annotate projects and contexts so I can say "what are my TODOs when I'm at home" or "what are my TODOs related to a person on my team". Now that I'm tracking over 20 things, it's necessary to stay organized

bibliotekka 2 years ago | | |

The Cortex Sidekick Notepad is pretty great for analog task management. Expensive, but pretty great.

nottorp 2 years ago | |

I wonder if one human lifetime is enough to count all the TODO apps.

Strongly in the pen and paper camp, myself.

thfuran 2 years ago | |

Yes, it'd take me several minutes to track down a pen and paper.

bosie 2 years ago | |

"Hi siri, remind mind to do AB CD EF"

reaperducer 2 years ago | | |

"Hi siri, remind mind to do AB CD EF"

"I found some results on the web. I can show them to you again if you ask from your iPhone."

orf 2 years ago | |

I mean… Yeah? Most likely?