I abandoned Google Calendar's half-baked task system for an Android app that actually keeps me organized

19 Sep 2026, 13:30 by Oluwaniyi Raji · Android Police

I kept my tasks alongside my events in Google Calendar for two years. It reminded me of birthdays and meetings, and of small jobs like grocery runs and chores.

That worked until I missed an important work deadline. It fell on a busy day with two birthdays and an event, but nothing on the screen made it look more urgent than the rest.

My earlier attempts to replace Google Calendar with a minimalist app have not been successful, so I wanted to keep my events where they were. I only needed a better home for my tasks, and Tasks.org became that home.

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By Dhruv Bhutani

Why Google Calendar's tasks were not enough

A deadline looks the same as a birthday

Tasks in Google Calendar are Google Tasks entries shown on the calendar. Each one gets a line on its day and a checkbox, and it appears in the same view as every meeting and birthday.

Google added a deadline field to tasks. A deadline shows up in the all-day row at the top of the day, which is the same row my friends' birthdays use.

The deadline also sends one notification at 9 a.m. on the day it is due. On a busy day, one alert at 9 a.m. is easy to miss among the birthday reminders.

Subtasks exist, but they're only one level deep, and the task form inside the Calendar app has no field for them.

Repeating tasks worked well for my chores, since Google lets me set custom schedules. The problem is that a repeating task can't have subtasks.

Google Tasks lets me star a task, but that's only one flag with no levels. I also get lists, but each task can only be on one list, with no tags or filters that work across them.

What I wanted was to pull every "morning" task or every "errand" into one view, from whatever list it came from. But Google's setup had no way to do that.

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What changed when I installed Tasks.org

Subtasks, tags, and priorities in one free app

Tasks.org is built on the original source code of Astrid, a to-do app Yahoo bought in May 2013 and shut down in August of the same year.

The Google Play version locks some features behind a subscription, which starts at $0.99 per year and lets you pick your own price. The F-Droid version is free, with all the features unlocked, so I installed it instead.

Moving my tasks took little effort. Tasks.org signs in to Google Tasks, and my existing lists appeared in the app. It can also sync with Microsoft To Do, CalDAV servers, DAVx5, and EteSync.

Since I was looking for subtasks, I was happy to find out that Tasks.org nests them as deep as I need. I can also collapse a parent task, so the main list remains readable.

The other feature I needed was tags and custom filters. I tagged tasks as "morning" and "errands," then built filters that collect each group into its own list.

Finally, the priority setting fixed the problem that started it all. Each task gets a priority level shown as a color, and my high-priority deadlines now show up in red.

Tasks.org takes more typing than Gemini

And the Google Tasks sync leaves some details behind

Gemini can create a Google task from one spoken sentence, and it handles everyday reminders well. The task it creates has a title and a date, and that is where it stops.

Tasks.org has voice input, but it only turns what I say into the task title. Everything else, from the tags to the priority, I need to type in manually.

I like this extra work because it lets me add a short description to most of my tasks.

Also, Tasks.org doesn't offer automatic sync across devices, and its sync service, Tasks.org Cloud, costs $2.99 per month or $29.99 per year.

Paying that much for sync alone didn't make sense to me, so I connected Tasks.org to my Google Tasks account, which is free.

Since Tasks.org adds extra features on top of Google Tasks, priority, tags, due times, reminders, and recurrence don't carry over. Subtasks also flatten to one level on Google's side.

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Tasks.org fixed the problem I had

Apps like TickTick connect more tightly to Google Calendar, so they make more sense for anyone who plans their entire day there.

I wanted subtasks, tags, and priorities for my tasks, and Tasks.org gives me all three with free Google sync that carries only titles and dates.

Tasks.org also appears among our top to-do apps for Android, and my tasks are staying in it rather than going back to Google Calendar.