Help simplify Mindwtr: less clutter, better defaults, better UX

[dongdongbh]

Hi everyone,

I’ve heard the feedback that Mindwtr can feel complex or visually cluttered. We’ve added many useful features, often based on community suggestions, but I’d like to take a step back and ask: what should we simplify, hide by default, or stop doing?

Our goal is:

Simple by default, powerful when you need it, and forgiving when life gets messy.

Having a feature does not mean it needs to be visible all the time. And using a task manager should not become another task to manage.

What we want to preserve

Mindwtr is built around GTD, and that is not changing. But not everyone uses every supporting feature or follows exactly the same workflow. The interface should support you without constantly presenting tools and options you don’t need. When life gets messy, it should help you get back on track—not make catching up feel like more work.

We want Mindwtr to be a good task manager, not an all-in-one app. Making the existing experience clearer and easier to use matters more than continually adding features.

Another principle we want to keep is “Automatic beats manual — infer, don’t ask.” Where the app can make a sensible, predictable choice from context, it should do so rather than asking you to configure another option. Those choices should still be understandable and easy to correct.

Adding a setting for every piece of clutter is not really simplification. Too many settings can be overwhelming themselves. Sometimes the answer is a better default, a control that appears only when relevant, or a less prominent place for rarely used settings—not another switch.

Where could we simplify?

I’d love concrete feedback on:

• Features that don’t need permanent visibility. For example, should Mind Sweep be something you open when needed, perhaps during a review, rather than something persistently shown in the main interface?

• Clutter in task lists and editors. Which badges, icons, fields, and actions help you make decisions? Which mostly add noise? What should appear only when you open a task or need a particular action?

• Too many settings or manual steps. What could Mindwtr handle automatically? Which settings deserve prominence, and which could be tucked away without becoming difficult to find?

• Rarely used features and awkward workflows. What do you never use, find confusing, or need too many taps or clicks to accomplish? Would hiding, combining, redesigning, or removing something make the experience better?

• Help with deciding what to do next. When you open Mindwtr and don’t know what to do next, where does the app help—and where does it leave you to figure everything out yourself? Examples might include choosing among many projects, turning a vague capture into one useful next action, or returning after a week away. Simplifying should reduce the work of organizing and interpreting tasks as well as visual clutter.

These are discussion starters, not announced removals. A feature being rarely used by one person does not mean it is unimportant to someone else. Please also mention anything you depend on that simplification should preserve.

Desktop, Android, and iOS don’t have to work identically

Please say which platform your feedback applies to: Android, iOS, Windows, macOS, Linux, or web.

We’re also working on the native mobile migration. As that progresses, Android and iOS may have different interfaces and interactions to provide a better experience on each platform.

Likewise, mobile does not necessarily need to reproduce every desktop interaction. For example, a capability could use drag-and-drop on desktop and a simpler touch-friendly action on mobile. Are there advanced interactions that belong on desktop, or would their absence make your mobile workflow incomplete?

The aim is an experience that fits each platform, not identical screens everywhere.

How to give useful feedback

One or two specific examples are more helpful than a long wishlist. You can use this format:

Platform:

Screen or workflow:

What feels cluttered, confusing, or unnecessary:

What you would change:

What needs to remain accessible for your workflow:

Screenshots, recordings, and rough sketches are welcome. Use Settings → Data → Open sandbox to demonstrate a workflow without showing your personal tasks. The sandbox guide explains how to reset the sample data and return to your own workspace. Please also check for notifications or other personal information elsewhere on screen before sharing.

I’m not a UI designer, so feedback from people with UI/UX or accessibility experience would be especially helpful—but you don’t need design expertise to tell us where the app gets in your way.

Please keep this thread focused on simplifying and improving what already exists, rather than adding unrelated new features.

What is the one change that would make Mindwtr feel simpler in your daily use?

[dongdongbh]

I tried these workflows on desktop and Android with 25 active projects and synthetic tasks. Focus narrows the work, but still leaves a long list of possible next actions. On Android, the collapse control makes the screen quieter while also hiding the Today list, including overdue items; that is something to consider when deciding what should stay visible.

The existing Inbox flow already lets you turn a vague capture into a project and its first action without filling in optional metadata. Daily and Weekly Review also resumed their current step in the checks I ran. On desktop, however, reloading during an unfinished Inbox clarification lost the unsaved first-action answer, though the original capture remained.

These are small scenario checks, not a user study. I'd especially welcome examples of where you get stuck choosing what to do, or lose your place after an interruption. Please include your platform.

[AsimGhafoor]

Hi, I completely agree with this discussion point and keen to support. I've been using Mindwtr for quite some time so will take some time to consolidate thoughts and post here.

My high-level observation is that Mindwtr has a great feature-set, however, it is let down by its UI which often makes things quite overwhelming and more complex than needed.

It has a similar feature-set to the app EverDo, however, EverDo has a much more simplified UI and overall flow. If im honest, the only reason I switched away was because it did not support cross-device syncing the way I wanted, but Mindwtr fits that void.

Now, I am by no-means saying you need to copy another app, not at all, but its more how do we support you to enable a UI that enables all features and users.

Let me continue pondering.

[Sewdohe]

I just feel like now that I've been using mindwtr for about a week and I've added a bunch of tasks I feel its easy to not know where a task went - which I found the board view today but I think the board view should be on the bottom navigation row - for example I didn't know where my someday tasks were going.

[sebsoud]

Hi,
Thanks to the developer(s), and this project of improvement 👍🏻
I migrated from dgt gtd to mindwtr, and here is for me the most evident difference about the UI, which has an impact on readability:
(note: it's the same on both windows and android Mindwtr versions, that I use)

Here is an example of tasks informations:

Here is an example from playstore presentation, in dgt gtd:

In Mindwtr, for the same informations display, it takes much more vertical space.
In dgt dgt, we can see here that the dates, priority and so on are displayed differently:
The description/name of the field is first displayed (example: "Priority") and then, on the same line, the choosen value is displayed (with a vertical alignment for all the different informations, it's a kind of tabulation).

For me, it's both more compact, and also readable (easier for the brain), since these informations are verticaly aligned, on top of each other. In Mindwtr, our brain has to "jump" verticaly between the fields names and their values.
Globaly the current choice of Mindwtr UI (field name, and then under it the field value(s) ) takes twice the space (even on a smartphone there's enough screen width for putting most of fields values at right of the field name). For special fields like "description" it's of course a different case.

More over, for my preference, the usage of very unified colors doesn't help. It looks too neat, clean for me.
For example, for the "priority field", The selected value button is displayed in blue (in the appearance choice that I made for both windows and android versions).
I would prefer that when I choose a priority value, the button color is itself displaying the priority color OR that the priority color is much more put in evidence (like in dgt gtd), rather than this button background, which takes almost all the attention (it means that here in the UI, the priority in the evidence is the selection itself, instead of the color of the selected value -which in the end IS the relevant information, to be visualy put in evidence).

For me, the visual aspect, reability is very important for such a tool as a GTD one. It means that I would like to quickly be able to "scan" and see the relevant informations, without a big mental effort for seeing these important informations (the values), which are for me now too much "lost" in middle of the fields descriptions/names.
For me, the choice of a kind of "modern" actual Mindwtr UI, with very homogeneous display, is not the best regarding workflow efficiency, for a GTD tool/software.
I feel that now, in Mindwtr, what is displayed is too much at the same level of evidence. It would be better if the most relevant informations would be displayed in a different way (color, location/alignment...).
In particular, I find that the dgt gtd choice is a good choice for readability (alignment left/right for the fields which are not multi-lines ones, see example above).
For the tasks details sections, I don't have yet an idea of where the section name would be better displayed.

These are the first ideas that come to my mind regarding possible UI improvements (it corresponds to what was a bit hard at the beginning, and still kind of now, for using Mindwtr).

Right now I don't have unfortunately the time&energy for going more in details, but I hope that at least it can help to move on a bit 🤗

[gursuj]

Agreed that the task edit layout is cluttered currently, and hard to read. For now, I've customized the editor sections and made sections other than Details to always be collapsed.

I also migrated from Everdo and it had a clean UI, with miscellaneous info on the side rather than on top. Also, here, the Inbox capture dialog is the same as the task edit UI

We also use Clickup at work, and I like how it conveys the misc. data compactly, especially the <Start datetime - Due datetime>)

Based on this, I guess the edit UI could use more dropdowns rather than always displaying options (e.g: for Status, recommended tags / contexts, energy, priority etc.) This and Linear might be good points of reference

[Sewdohe]

Does Mindwtr use a component framework or is everything custom? I think maybe applying a framework/design guidelines would be a huge step for the app

[Sewdohe]

Currently i love how hard mindwtr adheres to GTD, but the interface is confusing sometimes. I like that everything has a purpose/place but some things feel cumbersome. For example; making a task in a project should allow you to set the section on creation, not make it under no section and then have to re-order it into the correct one

[ZangXincz]

Context: I’ve been using the task phase for the past two weeks and am still getting familiar with it, so I cannot provide comprehensive feedback yet. I have long used note-taking software. For the reference section, I believe simplification is necessary. A few days ago I considered moving the reference module out to Memos. The current reference module feels both crude and complicated. It seems it was converted from a task module to a note module while retaining most of the original task UI and properties. My detailed thoughts are listed below.

Current Pain Points

1. Cumbersome and restrictive adding workflow. Users need to open the detail panel, then input content inside a relatively small text box. Although focus zoom is supported, the experience is inconvenient. Tag fields are also displayed by default. It always feels like I’m creating a task instead of writing reference notes.

2. Poor usability for copy and link navigation. Multiple clicks are often required to copy content successfully. The UI changes drastically when switching between preview and edit modes.

3. Hard to search long content inside references. The note panel only occupies a small portion of the whole page, limiting readability and search experience.

## Suggestions

The existing reference note functionality works adequately; the main issues lie in interaction and presentation. I would like the reference module to follow the simple memo-style approach of Memos:

• Entries are listed plainly. The input view stays clean by default. Extra attributes such as domain binding, project association, tags and other metadata can be added by clicking a plus button, instead of showing all these fields for selection whether users need them or not.

- Preview: Show 3–5 lines by default. Longer content gets collapsed.

- Double-click to enter edit mode. Editing switches inline from preview without heavy UI reshuffling.

This approach will greatly reduce the disjointed feeling during operation.

Priority: PC (Windows & macOS). Mobile simplification is a nice-to-have if feasible.

[mmoole]

UX is a great topic to keep more or less at the front all the time, this made me remember of an old blog post of the Things app developers: https://culturedcode.com/things/blog/2008/02/habemus-dialogum-we-have-a-dialog/
Every detail matters - on one side, on the other side, careful evolution seems a working thing to do...
So I would also think like sebsoud mentioned that the screen real estate could be used more effective looking at the editing dialogue on desktop. Maybe two columns might make sense here if the screen is large enough to prevent scrolling? On the other hand two columns may also feel like adding complexity. Hmm...

[davibicudo]

I love Mindwtr as a database and view-window, but for adding new things it is not as easy. The quick add button on desktop is great, also the quick-syntax, but going deeper than that, i.e. editing a task, feels like filling a long painful form. It has too much information, redundant labels, and requires a lot of clicking around and digging.

After iterating with ChatGPT on some ideas the following Mockup came out:

Beyond what's immediately visible, my suggestions:

1. Keyboard navigation: Switch tabs with Cmd+1–4; status shortcuts: Ctrl+N (Next), Ctrl+S (Someday), Ctrl+W (Waiting), Ctrl+I (Inbox), Ctrl+A (Archive), Ctrl+R (Reference); priority Ctrl+1, Ctrl+2, Ctrl+3. Keystrokes are a suggestion for macOS client.
2. Status: Clicking the status dropdown allows selecting any status, including Done (no need for current check bubble in edit view).
3. Priority: Tasks get low priority by default. Clicking the priority icon cycles through blue, yellow and red, represented by 1, 2, or 3 stacked chevrons. Priority becomes a first class property.
4. Project suggestions: Show the three most recently used projects. The +project... chip supports searching existing projects or creating new ones.
5. Area inheritance: Selecting an existing project automatically assigns and locks its Area. Changing projects updates the Area accordingly.
6. Area without project: If no project is selected, Area becomes editable, showing the three most frequently used Areas plus a searchable !area... chip.
7. New project: When creating a project, its Area can be selected; that assignment applies to both the new project and the task.
8. Contexts: 3 most common contexts shown as suggestions (subject to space availability). Allow multiple selections. Selected contexts remain visible regardless of suggestion rankings. The @context... chip supports searching and creating contexts.
9. Dates and notes: Quick-date chips assign relative dates; the calendar opens a date/time picker. /due:... and /note:... support direct entry.
10. Persistent summary and saving: On secondary tabs, clicking summary properties opens respectively proper editors/pickers/searchbars. Add Cmd+Shift+Enter to save and opens a new form.
11. Less labels: I stripped most labels and overloaded the custom-input chips also as label and quick-syntax hint.
12. Description: single line, but can expand to a larger input field automatically if user starts with bullet points or numbered lists, or adds a period+space combination.

[davibicudo]

You asked not to ask for new features here, but...
My greatest UX support lately has been my CLI AI agent. I'm using it to talk to the sqlite Mindwtr database directly, and even making edits. My morning review consists of opening the terminal in parallel to Mindwtr and start refining, planning, etc. A Mindwtr copilot with a chat interface would be, in my opinion, the strongest UX addition.
This is a larger task, but could start in simpler steps, by e.g. publishing a Mindwtr-Skill and expanding the MCP, creating a plugin for Claude Cowork... I could provide my current mindwtr-gtd-coach skill as a starting point :)

[gursuj]

I've found that external harnesses like hermes, claude code work well with the existing MCP & REST API. Should be possible now to have the MCP running from the desktop app itself. If you don't want to have the app running, you can run just the MCP server though I had to clone the repo in the past for that

[olispc]

I second the keyboard shortcuts for changing task status mentioned above (in general more keyboard shortcut customisability would be nice).

Quick add on Mac OS and iOS
Mac OS: the box is too big.

iOS: it would be great if quick adding a task with the shortcut which opens a dialogue at the top of the screen didn't have to open up mindwtr and then press save again after you add it. Would be nice to just click done and then the task be sent to mindwtr (not sure if it needs to open the app to sync properly or something but if there's a way to achieve this would be great).

Also when quick adding a task, it would be nice if there was a way to send it straight to next or waiting etc. Especially as if you use the quick add syntax to add it to a project / area there's often not much more to do if if it's a simple task.

Also would be nice if the assignments were excluded from the title. E.g. task +project was just saved as task with the project just stored as metadata and removed from the title.

Checklists
I use checklists a lot but find getting to edit them a bit cumbersome digging through the menus, it would be nice if anywhere you can view a checklist you have the option to add / delete items. Oftentimes I will make a simple to do list for one day with very simple tasks that I might want to add to throughout the day, would be much easier to do if I could edit them on the fly rather than click through a few times and scroll down to edit the checklist.

Colours / appearance
Would be nice to have more control over accent colours. Also dark mode icons for Mac OS 27 would be great - maybe also support to upload custom icon files too without a 3rd party app. The icon itself I think could be nicer - maybe something that plays with the images of a mind or water could give us something nicer. Have messed around with generating some ideas

I quite like the m reflected with a w for mindwtr also capturing the idea of water in there. A minor thing but a more premium feeling icon would be nice.

[Sewdohe]

I think it'd be great to be able to expand a task with checklists out in the focus view so items can easily be checked off

[olispc]

You can do this already btw - you just need to click on the task - it's clearer to see if you have 'details' enabled.

Some more controls about these being expanded by default and maybe control over what details are shown by default too could also be useful.

[dongdongbh]

On custom themes: I’m open to supporting custom color palettes—backgrounds, text, accents, and borders—while keeping layout, controls, and task behavior consistent.

I’d start with a small, versioned theme file that users can import and export through Appearance settings, with a preview, contrast warnings, and an easy reset to a built-in theme. The same palette format should work across desktop and mobile, though native system controls may retain platform styling.

This would let people share palettes without every variation becoming a built-in theme. Arbitrary CSS, layout overrides, a theme builder, automatic downloads, and theme sync would stay outside the initial scope.

This is a proposed direction, with no release commitment yet.

[leonardo834]

What if we replaced the buttons text with small, icon-only for each task status—Inbox, Next, Waiting, Someday, Done, and Reference—using distinct icons and the colors shown in the status menu? That could make the task names easier to visualize and give the screen a cleaner look.

[Stephane-30]

Hi there, I have only found out about, and started using Mindwtr a few days ago but have already decided to move all my tasks over. I think Mindwtr is a great project. The feature set is amazing. I use it on my Android mobile and Linux desktop syncing with the Mindwtr docker sync server. I'm familiar with GTD and this is my preferred way of staying on top of my daily/monthly/yearly/personal/business/family tasks. I couldn't be without task manager and calendar.

I had a good look at the Mindwtr Discussions and there are quite a number of comments relating to the UI. I agree that it is not that straight forward navigating Mindwtr when starting out.

Asking the community to help with improving Mindwtr's design is a brave step by @dongdongbh. Everyone has different requirements and own ways of doing things. So certainly not an easy task.

To start with my own experiences, here are the main things I struggled with when exploring the app:

1. I feel Areas are neglected in the interface. There is a tucked away dropdown in the bottom left corner to filter by Area. Areas are the containers every single Project and Task is part of (the 'no area' is an Area as well). I want to quickly see what Tasks are outstanding based on where I am or what is of concern at the moment (ie Home area, Business area). When focusing on my business I don't want to see my personal commitments.
2. Inside an Area are Projects and Tasks. When selecting the Area I just want to clearly see the contained Projects and the Tasks (Tasks without Projects). When selecting the Project I want to only see all the Tasks for that Project (no matter what state they are in).
3. It's also important to have an option to see All Tasks listed at once to get a quick overview (and see that there are way too many ;-).
4. At the moment it is difficult to get a quick overview of what tasks are in existence (per Area and/or Project), because most existing views are build around GTD which is sorting and filtering the views.

So again, the top three points are only to get a quick overview of stored Tasks in general and as such not part of the GTD views. I'm aware that the filters already exist to select the views. I just think they are too confusing to use.

I very much like the look and feel of the UI but it need sorting, clearer layout and easier navigation. @sebsoud has some excellent points and I fully agree with his comments about readability and vertical movement (jumping brain).

It's probably a good idea to review and visualise the GTD workflow and how this can be converted into an application workflow (using Mindwtr UI). The GTD workflow is mostly independent of organising tasks into Areas, Projects, context, tags and so on.

The organisational part of the app should be concerned with assigning, grouping, finding, viewing, sorting, relating Tasks. I'm not suggesting to completely separate GTD and organisation - that would not be practical. But some separation maybe a way of simplifying the UI.

In the left hand bar, for example, we have GTD specific options (ie Focus, Inbox, Review, Some day, Waiting) spread between other view options (ie Calendar, Board view, History aso). In my opinion this is too confusing.

I only started using Mindwtr and need to get my head around it more, but it's worth every minute spent on it as it is a great project. It has already all the important features implemented and it is fully working. It just needs a bit UI modding. I will closely follow the discussions and hopefully contribute with constructive feedback in the future.

Note:
This is written using my keyboard and without any AI, so please forgive me if I didn't manage to get everything across in a clear way (English is not my native tongue).