Any discussion about the best to-do list app isn't complete without mentioning Wunderlist, a truly cross-platform and easy-to-use task manager. It has just got a big update with two new features which are essential to a good to-do app: organizing and quickly adding tasks.

Apart from the new tools, Android users will be happy to know that Wunderlist has been rebuilt from the ground up to work with the new Android 5.0 Lollipop, and includes Android Wear and Google Now support, among other additions. Truly, this sets it to be one of the best apps for managing to-do lists on Android.

Wunderlist Finally Gets Folders!

For all these years, Wunderlist has focussed solely on the "list" aspect of a to-do list, without realizing that it ends up limiting someone who wants more organization. In fact, not organizing your tasks is one of the main reasons your to-do app can make you less productive. Wunderlist hopes to fix that with Folders, one of its users' most-requested feature.

animated-folders

It's quite simple to use. If you have two lists, you can select and drag one on top of the other to group them together as a folder. There are not many things you can do with the folder: You can name the folder what you want, rearrange the lists in it how you want, and change the folder's position in your Home View. So why is it useful?

Folder Use #1: As Lifehacker notes, it's important to separate work, personal and other tasks into categories, and that's the basic step of managing a to-do list that you can do with folders.

Wunderlist-Folders-Quick-Add-Update-done-list

Folder Use #2: I'm a big fan of using a Done List to achieve targets, and folders makes that possible. Whenever you finish with a list, move it to the Done folder in Wunderlist. The best part? This way, all your previous lists are saved, so that if you need to retrieve one, it's easy — and it won't clutter up your dashboard.

Folder Use #3: There are several types of to-do lists to be more productive, and Folders makes it easy to switch between different methods. So you might want to sort tasks by mood one week, and sort to-dos by location the next week. As long as you set up those folders, you can simply drag-and-drop the same lists into the appropriate folders at the start of the week, depending on which system you want to use.

Quick Add to Dictate Tasks & Reminders

We've already noted how Wunderlist is a good alternative to iOS Reminders, but this new update will make you want to ditch iOS Reminders entirely. Mainly because it does one thing well: quickly add a new task or reminder.

Wunderlist-Folders-Quick-Add-Update-quick-add

One of the reasons to love Google Calendar and sync it everywhere is its natural language support. You can type "Monday at 5pm" and Calendar will know what you are saying, making a new event accordingly. Wunderlist does that too now, and in our test, it worked perfectly — just as good as Google Calendar, in fact.

So all you have to do is fire up Wunderlist on your iPhone, tap the blue circle, and speak into your phone, something as simple as, "Meet Mihir on Tuesday for Lunch at the Taj." You're buying, in case you were wondering.

Here's a quick demo of the feature in action, which is currently only on iPhones and will be coming to other app platforms soon:

Doing the Small Things Right

I've been trying out to-do apps for a long time now, and Wunderlist is among those that always stays relevant in the face of several newcomers. Why? Because it does the little things right. Ryan has written about the five commandments to choose the right productivity app, and Wunderlist can tick all of those.

Wunderlist-Folders-Quick-Add-Update-design

Even in the new update, apart from all of these features, it continues improving in the smallest of ways. Take, for example, the design tweaks. Wunderlist has introduced some new colours and twelve new hand-crafted pictograms. If an app is attractive and enticing, you're going to want to use it more—or at least not shy away from it. Like I said, it's the little things.

The new Wunderlist update is available right now on iPhone, iPad, Android, and Mac, and will be coming to Web, Windows and Chrome over the next few weeks, the company says.

Download: Wunderlist for iPhone & iPad [Broken URL Removed] (Free)

Download: Wunderlist for Android (Free)

Download: Wunderlist for Mac [Broken URL Removed] (Free)

Will Folders Make You Switch?

Several users of rival apps like Todoist and Any.Do have often cited Wunderlist's lack of Folders as a deal-breaker. I'm one of them, in fact. Now that Wunderlist has Folders, I'm actually considering giving it a try once again. What about you, will Folders change your mind?