Diurnal and TickTick
TickTick is a task manager on every platform, with habits, a focus timer and two-way Google Calendar sync. Diurnal is a Mac overlay you summon with ⇧⌘A over whatever you are doing, write a line into, and dismiss.
TickTick does more with your calendar: it edits events both ways. Diurnal reads yours and can book a new one, and gives you one gesture instead of a suite to set up.
Side by side
| Diurnal | TickTick | |
|---|---|---|
| Opens as an overlay over the app you are in | ||
| Tracks habits | ||
| Plans the week as a drag-and-drop board | ||
| Books a calendar event as you type | ||
| Runs on anything but a Mac | ||
| Turns Google Calendar events into tasks | ||
| Organises work into nested lists and folders | ||
| Writes finished focus rounds into a log |
One key, one day
Press ⇧⌘A in a browser, an editor or a call, type “pay rent tomorrow 4pm #home”, and the same keystroke that opened it files the task. ⇧⌘L does it by voice, and the overlay closes behind you.
A day, a week board and a Log is the whole shape. Your Google meetings draw beside your tasks, /cal books an event, and rounds of 25 and 5 count down in the menu bar.
What TickTick does that we do not
Its calendar goes one step further than ours: a Google event can arrive as a task you work on, where Diurnal keeps events and tasks as separate things on one timeline.
It is also on every device, tracks habits, keeps nested lists and filters, and its Premium tier is listed at $49.99 a year on their upgrade page. If you want one app that does most things everywhere, that is TickTick and not us.
Which one fits your week
Pick TickTick if you work across phones and PCs, want habits and lists and calendar edits in one place, or want your calendar and your tasks to stay in step both ways.
Pick Diurnal if your day happens on a Mac and you would rather press one key than open an app, with your meetings drawn beside the day you are planning.
Questions
- What does ⇧⌘A actually open?
- The day itself, over the app you are in: tasks, your Google meetings and a timeline. Most capture shortcuts open a box that takes a line and disappears.
- Does Diurnal have a pomodoro timer?
- Yes. 25 minutes of work, a 5 minute break, and a longer one every fourth round, counting down in the menu bar.
- Which platforms does Diurnal run on?
- Macs, today, on macOS 15 or later. TickTick is the better answer if you want the same app on a phone and on Windows.
Other comparisons
Facts about TickTick were checked in . Software changes; if something here has gone out of date, it is a mistake rather than a position.