Motion vs Todoist: AI Auto-Scheduler vs Task List That Just Works

Motion launched around 2020 with this pitch: what if AI just scheduled everything for you? You tell it what needs done and by when, and the app slots it into your calendar automatically. It's calendar-first - you're looking at time blocks, not task lists. When a meeting pops up, Motion reshuffles your tasks to make room.

When something takes longer than expected, it adjusts the rest of your day. The target audience is busy professionals who have meetings packed into their calendar and need a robot to play tetris with their schedule. It's trying to be your calendar, task manager, and project manager all in one.

Todoist has been around since 2007 doing one thing: task management. No AI scheduling, no calendar features, just a really good task list. The natural language input is the best in the business - type tasks like you'd tell a friend and it parses dates, priorities, and recurring patterns flawlessly.

It's fast, works everywhere, and stays out of your way. Millions of people use it because it does exactly what it promises and nothing more. Recently added team workspaces, but it's still fundamentally a personal task manager that happens to support collaboration.

The whole point of Motion is AI automation. You create a task, estimate how long it'll take, set a deadline, and Motion finds time for it. You can tweak preferences - like 'no deep work before 10am' or 'meeting-free Fridays' - and the AI respects them. When your schedule changes, Motion automatically moves things around.

Some people love this - they want to be told what to work on next. Others hate giving up that control. The AI isn't perfect; sometimes it schedules something you're not mentally ready for, or it front-loads your week in weird ways.

Todoist doesn't touch your schedule. It's a list of tasks with due dates. You decide when to work on what.

Some people prefer this - they want to see everything and choose their own priorities throughout the day. You can use labels and filters to create custom views, but you're driving the ship. There's no AI suggesting 'work on this now.' If you're the type who needs to feel in control of your day, this approach makes way more sense.

Motion's task creation is fine but not particularly fast. You need to fill in the task name, estimate duration, set a deadline, pick a project, assign priority. The app needs this info for the AI scheduling to work, but it slows down brain dumps.

There's a quick add shortcut, but you still end up in a form. If you're trying to capture 20 tasks from a meeting, this gets tedious.

Todoist's quick add is stupidly fast. Global keyboard shortcut, type your task in natural language, hit enter, done. 'Call mom every Sunday at 2pm starting next week' - it parses all of that instantly.

You can add tasks from anywhere - Slack, Gmail, browser extensions - with barely any friction. For pure task capture speed, nothing beats Todoist.

Motion IS a calendar app. Everything lives on your calendar as time blocks. It syncs with Google Calendar, Outlook, and iCloud, so your meetings show up automatically.

When you create a task, Motion schedules it as a block on your calendar. The whole interface is calendar-first - you're always looking at time, not just a list of tasks. If you live in meetings, this makes a lot of sense.

Todoist stays separate from your calendar. There's a two-way sync with Google Calendar if you set it up - tasks with due times show up as calendar events - but it's not native.

Most people use Todoist as a list and their calendar app as a calendar, treating them as separate tools. That separation works fine if you're not trying to time-block your entire day.

Motion supports teams up to 25 people and the features are actually thought out. You can see everyone's workload in real-time, assign tasks that automatically schedule on their calendar, and track project progress.

The workload visibility is particularly useful - you can see who's swamped and who has capacity without asking. If you're managing a small team, Motion gives you that coordination without micromanaging.

Todoist's team features are decent but basic. You can share projects, assign tasks, leave comments, and see activity logs. It works fine for small teams who just need to share a task list.

There's no workload visualization or capacity planning - you're all just working from the same list. For distributed teams collaborating on projects, it's functional. For managing team schedules, it's not really built for that.

Motion is expensive. $34/month or $228/year with annual billing (which drops it to $19/month). There's a 7-day free trial but that barely scratches the surface of learning the app. Team pricing exists but you have to contact them.

At $228/year, you really need to be getting value from the AI scheduling to justify it. For context, that's almost 5x what Todoist Pro costs.

Todoist is $4/month or $48/year for Pro. The free tier is actually usable - 5 projects, basic features, good enough for personal use. Pro gets you unlimited projects, reminders, labels, and themes.

Business is $6/user/month with team features. At $48/year, it's a no-brainer if you need a solid task manager. Even the free version is better than most paid competitors.

This is where Motion embarrasses itself. There's basically no mobile app. They keep saying it's coming, but as of late 2024, you're stuck using the web version in a mobile browser and it's terrible.

For a scheduling app - something you'd want to check constantly throughout the day - this is frankly unacceptable. Miss a notification? Good luck navigating the desktop site on your phone.

Todoist's mobile apps are excellent. Fast, polished, and feature-complete. Quick add works from widgets, the share sheet, or voice input. Syncing is instant.

The karma system gamifies your productivity and actually works on mobile. You can use Todoist entirely from your phone if you wanted to, and you wouldn't feel limited. This is how mobile apps should be.