Before I created Dreamtask, I searched far and wide for a productivity solution that would schedule my to-do list for me. One of the first things I found was Motion. Motion is a well capitalized company - they’ve had over $10M in funding as far as I’ve read. Their ads are everywhere (especially after you visit their site)! They have a mobile app and a desktop app.
Awesome.
Motion is essentially an AI task scheduler. You create tasks, assign a workload for each, a deadline for each, and even specify whether the deadline is soft (flexible) or hard (strict). Motion has many other features such as meeting scheduling, but the core feature is task scheduling.
In most ways, Motion is the perfect AI task scheduler app - and it is even worth the $19-34/month price tag. They do a great job of making it clear just how much time you can save by letting the AI plan your work.
If I’m honest, the ROI is obvious.
Another important feature of Motion, and the one I will focus on, is the fact that it is a standalone system. That means that you do all of your task management in Motion - creating tasks, updating tasks, scheduling tasks, and even adding notes to tasks.
Motion does not integrate easily with Notion - so if you have your task list in Notion, you may have to jump through hoops to get an integration working. I have seen one person pull this off using the automation tool Zapier, which works with both Motion and Notion. However, that would involve you paying for both Motion and Zapier. They don’t even have a Make integration (the more affordable Zapier).
Despite this downside, I did try to use Motion back in the day. I probably could’ve made it work and moved my tasks over to it - abandoning Notion entirely when it came to task management. I probably also could’ve set up an integration myself. However, I didn’t stick with it for two reasons:
- I am tired of every productivity app trying to be a standalone system
- I want to spend my time in Notion, not Motion
So I set out to create Dreamtask, which I originally called Truecal (true as in staying on the right path) - a name that sounded a little too Biblical to stick with. I tried to change the spelling to “Troo” and use a little kangaroo as my logo, but that also didn’t last. Chatbeaver will probably go down as my first and last animal-themed brand. Anyway, I digress.
The point of Dreamtask was to create something that fit the needs of a devoted Notion user. Someone who is tired of productivity tools that try to suck you into their world. Someone who is tired of half-assed “integrations” that really only want to move you away from Notion. No - Dreamtask would treat Notion as a first class partner.
If I had my way, I’d do away with my entire user interface and create Notion widgets so that you never even have to come to the Dreamtask app (I will have my way soon).
Dreamtask is designed to work in your Notion workspace. It reads from your Notion database properties when ingesting your tasks. It edits your Notion database properties when rescheduling your tasks. That’s it. It’s so simple, so effective, and so invisible. That’s what every app should be like - or at least most apps.
At the end of the day, if you are willing to try a standalone system and move away from Notion for task management, Motion would be my #1 pick in the world of productivity apps. It has a rich set of features and is going to stick around for a while. For the Notion diehards like me, give Dreamtask a shot - it’ll be worth your while.