I used TeuxDeux for almost five years. It’s a minimal to-do app that thinks in days — a rolling calendar of tasks that you drag forward when you don’t get to them. It worked.

Then I started cancelling subscriptions. Not all of them, but the web-only ones that would break on me in offline scenarios — a flight, a dead zone, wherever the internet isn’t. Your to-do list shouldn’t become a loading screen. TeuxDeux runs entirely in a browser, so that’s exactly what it becomes.

I moved to Apple Reminders. The app I’d ignored on every Apple device I’ve ever owned.

It took getting used to. TeuxDeux’s day-view layout is addictive — you see your week, drag things around, there’s a rhythm to it. Reminders is just lists. That’s it.

This isn’t a “Bear is better than Apple Notes” argument. Reminders isn’t a superior product. It’s simple. Almost stubbornly so. But it forces you to think in lists and deadlines instead of dragging tasks to tomorrow with a satisfying animation. No visual sugar to make procrastination feel like planning.

The useful bit: I use Notion Calendar for my schedule, and there’s no native integration between the two. But on iPhone, the Calendar widget pulls from both Reminders and Notion Calendar. So I get my schedule and my tasks in one widget on the home screen. One less app to check. One less thing to context-switch into.

And the offline thing. Reminders syncs via iCloud but works perfectly without a connection. Add tasks on a plane, check things off in a dead zone. It’s there because it’s baked into the OS, not served from a server.

One less subscription. One less tab. One less widget.