I bought this productivity app from Instagram, and it’s now an essential part of my toolset
I’ve long enjoyed trying fresh productivity apps, but I always tend to come back to my favorites. I use Things 3 on Mac and my iPhone as my task manager, and use Notion Mail/Mimestream for archiving my emails as I go to keep them as a to-do list.
Then, Notion is my planner, where I manage drafts, invoicing, deadlines and all that fun stuff. Recently, however, I’ve been using a surprising new contender: Blitzit.
Blitzit, as the name suggests, is all about helping you get tasks done quickly. And it really does work, even if it’s not without a few foibles in its early version.
On your marks, get set…
I love a task list, to the point where my wife jokes that if a task isn’t on some kind of list, it’s not getting done.
It’s why Things 3 has been a mainstay on my Mac, iPhone, and iPad for years now, offering a clean UI that easily lets me add deadlines, recurring tasks and more. It’s sleek, but it’s not without its issues, however.
The biggest is that it’s only on Apple platforms, unless I want to fandangle some “Rube Goldberg” system of emails and URLs to get tasks to copy from something on Windows. And, while I could use Notion as a task list, I don’t find it as easy to use for that purpose when it’s already packed with a whole host of other databases I’ve created.
Blitzit hits the sweet spot, thankfully. It’s feature-identical on Windows and Mac, and allows for multiple “Lists” of tasks. For example, my work for different sites can be kept separate, but when viewing my list of tasks on any given day, I can see them both and rearrange them as I see fit.
The app’s unique feature is the titular Blitzit mode, and it’s great. Load up your day’s tasks, either by adding them or dragging them from other lists like tasks for “This Week” or the “Backlog,” and then hit the button to enter a focus state.
Doing so moves your tasks to the side of the screen, complete with a timer. Every now and again, it’ll ping you to keep you on track, but for the most part, it just acts as a handy timer.
Once a task is done, you can tick it off and get a neat GIF that adds a bit of whimsy, then move to the next task, or take a break. Worried about your screen space? There’s an even smaller window that just shows a task and a timer.
But does it work?
Blitzit’s ads have suggested you’ll complete tasks magnitudes faster when using it, and while I don’t have an exact figure to hand, it’d be fair to say lining up tasks and offering minimal chances of getting distracted by, well, just about anything in between them is certainly a useful feature.
I’m tempted to throw household chores in, too, just because the app has its own series of reports.
It can tell you how many tasks you’ve completed each day, your most productive day, month or even hours (usually right after the coffee kicks in, which sounds about right), and how much time you spend on each list.
It also tracks which tasks you finish early, late or on time, which helps with time-blocking them later on.
Blitzit has added integrations for Google Calendar and Notion so far, so you can tie your meetings into the app, or your tasks into a workspace, but I’ve not found much use for either yet — still, ClickUp, Trello and Asana are slated as “Coming Soon.”
That’s also what appeals to me about Blitzit. The app is available at the moment with a one-time fee or a monthly subscription, but the former has been well worth the money, and the team has been transparent about the roadmap.
It’ll soon recommend things like hydration breaks and ways to make use of your time between tasks to relax, while the dev team has suggested it’ll soon have the option to use AI to generate a daily plan.
I’ve been lucky enough to test the mobile version, and it’s already off to a promising start, even just as somewhere to drop items for quickly picking up on my Mac or PC. An Apple Watch app is also planned.
Some teething issues
There’s a whole lot Blitzit already does that feels like afterthoughts for existing to-do list apps. Having the aforementioned integrations, the option to add Pomodoro timers, and the audio feedback when you tick off tasks are great.
Still, there’s one bug that’s driving me up the wall, although I wager it’ll be fixed relatively soon. Essentially, having a list of tasks for the day, and then reorganising them can sometimes duplicate one of the tasks on the list.
All of a sudden, Task 1, 2, 3 and 4 become Task 1, 2, 1, 3, 1 and 4, and deleting one of the duplicates also removes the original. It’s relatively minor in my usage as I’m rarely adding much detail to each task outside of a cursory title and a time, but if I’d spent more time loading in subtasks, formatted notes or a schedule, I might not be so nonplussed.
Still, given it’s available for under $80 with a lifetime license (or $4.99 per month) that works across devices, Blitzit is an easy product to recommend — thanks, Instagram ads!
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