Our personal algorithms for productivity

Good prioritization seems simple, but is fiendishly difficult.

Most people have a rough idea of the important things they need to do, but they’re almost never able to start at the top and work their way down, knocking each task out in order. That’s because some tasks take minutes while others take weeks; some have dependencies on other people; some need big chunks of focus time, and some are often too intimidating to start. What we’re building at Toodo is an assistant that is able to learn from you how you like to get work done and what you need in order to feel empowered to do it.

Every person has a way of deciding what gets done and when. Some begin with urgency: looming deadlines dictate their day. Others start with importance: tackling the most meaningful work before anything else. Many combine the two, layering time, energy, and context into a personal calculus. In other words, each of us runs a personal algorithm. It’s not written down, but it governs how we prioritize and schedule. We weigh trade-offs: finish the report due tomorrow or make progress on the long-term strategy? Take a call at 3 p.m. because it fits the calendar, or protect the time for deep work? This algorithm evolves with experience, preferences, and constraints, becoming as individual as a fingerprint.

Most productivity tools, however, force people into rigid models—either purely time-based or purely priority-based. They rarely adapt to the nuance of how a specific individual actually makes decisions.

Our goal isn’t building an algorithm to manage your day, it’s to learn your personal algorithm so Toodo can better help you get work done. By observing patterns - how someone chooses between tasks, when they prefer to do creative work, which deadlines they bend and which they never miss - an intelligent platform can begin to mirror and refine that decision-making process. Over time, it doesn’t just schedule or rank tasks; it aligns with the individual’s own logic, surfacing the right task at the right moment for them.

The future of productivity isn’t universal rules or prescriptive frameworks. It’s tools that learn, adapt, and ultimately become personalized expressions of the way each person already thinks and works.