A someday maybe list that does not nag.

Every productivity system has a drawer for ideas you are not ready to do. Getting Things Done calls it the someday maybe list. If you are looking for a someday maybe list app, you have probably found that the drawer is easy to build and hard to keep closed.

What the list is for

David Allen’s version is plain. Some commitments are not commitments yet: learn Portuguese, build the bookshelf, rewrite the old site. You do not want to lose them. You also do not want them on a Monday list, because a list full of things you are not doing makes the things you are doing harder to see.

So you write them down, put them in the drawer, and look at the drawer once a week. That is all it is.

How the apps I tried handle it

Things gives Someday its own list in the sidebar. A to-do you move there leaves Today and Upcoming, and it comes back only when you move it. It is the cleanest version of the idea I have used, and it is the reason a lot of people stay on Things.

Todoist has no Someday list of its own. The usual fix is a project called Someday, or a label with a filter that hides it. It works, and it is a convention you keep up yourself.

In Obsidian a someday list is a note called Someday. You add lines to it. Nothing stops those lines from drifting out of sight, because nothing reminds you the note exists, and the tasks plugin will only find them if you write them in its format.

Apple Reminders has lists, so you make one. It sits next to your real lists and looks the same.

Where my someday ideas come from

Never from the task app. They arrive mid-sentence, inside a note about something else. I am writing up a meeting and halfway through a line I think, I should look into that. It is not a task for this week. It is also not nothing.

Opening a task app to put it in the drawer costs me the sentence I was writing. So it went into the note, unmarked, and was gone by Thursday.

What Remlo does

Type a checkbox in front of the idea, in the note, and keep writing. That is a to-do, and it is collected on the To-dos page with the rest.

A to-do has a due date for when it has to be finished, a scheduled date for when you mean to do it, and a someday flag for neither. Set the flag and the to-do stays in the page and the note, with no date asking for attention. Anything with a date shows up in Today when the day comes.

The to-do links back to the note it came from, so the idea keeps its sentence. Rewrite the old site reads better next to the three paragraphs of context you wrote when it occurred to you.

Once a week I read the someday items as part of a ten minute review. Some get a date. Most get deleted, which is also the point of the drawer.

What you give up

The Things sidebar. Someday is a first-class list there, with years of polish behind it, and a flag on a to-do is a lighter thing.

Recurring tasks, shared lists, and contexts. Remlo does not do them.

Windows, Android, and the web. Remlo is Mac, iPhone, and iPad.

Who it suits

The person who has a notes app and a task app and keeps losing ideas between them. If your someday list is one hundred and forty items and you read it every Sunday, Things is built for that and will do it better.

If your someday ideas come from your own writing, keep them where the writing is. Remlo creates a page for every day, so there is somewhere to write before you know what the idea is.

Remlo is native on Mac, iPhone, and iPad, works offline, and syncs through your iCloud. It costs $19 a year with seven days free, or $149 once.

An idea you can see is one you will eventually either do or delete.