Speed · comparison
The fastest way to capture a task isn’t typing.
Disclosure: Brainspill is our app. The comparison below is about what each app’s capture flow actually requires of you — flows you can verify yourself in two minutes with any of these apps installed.
The math of capture
Take five real thoughts arriving at once: a dentist appointment Thursday 2pm, an invoice to email tomorrow morning, milk for the groceries list, a birthday gift to sort by the 20th, and a weekly review every Friday.
In any typing-first app, each of those is its own transaction: open the entry field, type the text, set the date (and time, and recurrence for the last one), put it in the right list, save, repeat. Good apps compress each step — nothing removes the multiplication. Five thoughts, five transactions.
Spoken capture changes the shape of the work: one tap, one ramble covering all five, and the splitting, dating, and filing happens on the other side. In Brainspill the organized list typically comes back one to three seconds after you stop talking (network conditions can stretch that when cloud processing is involved; on-device processing doesn’t care about your signal).
What each app makes you do
| App | To capture 5 thoughts | Dates & lists | Recurring task |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brainspill | 1 tap, say all five, review once | Assigned by the AI | Say “every Friday” |
| Apple Reminders | 5 typed entries | Per task, typed or tapped | Per-task repeat setting |
| Siri | 5 separate commands | Say list name each time or re-file later | Supported per command |
| Todoist Quick Add | 5 typed lines | Inline natural language | “every friday” inline |
| Google Tasks | 5 typed entries | Per task, tapped | Per-task repeat setting |
| Microsoft To Do | 5 typed entries | Per task, tapped | Per-task repeat setting |
Every flow in this table is the app’s standard documented capture path — install any of them and count for yourself.
The apps, honestly
Brainspill — fastest for more than one thought. One tap, speak everything, review, accept. The gain compounds with volume: it exists precisely for the moment when you have a head full of tasks and no patience for forms. Output syncs to Apple Reminders, so the speed doesn’t cost you your existing system. Free tier: a 2-minute spill daily. iPhone only.
Apple Reminders — the best free default. Fast native entry, shared lists, Siri for one-offs, and it’s already on your phone. Its natural-language date parsing while typing has gotten genuinely good. If your task volume is a few items a day, you may need nothing else.
Google Tasks — minimal, in Gmail’s pocket. If your life runs on Gmail and Google Calendar, the handiest minimal list there is. Feature-thin by design.
Microsoft To Do — the Outlook-native pick. Clean, free, and the My Day view is a quietly great daily reset ritual.
Todoist Quick Add — fastest typing in a full manager. “Invoice Jake tomorrow 9am p2 #work” parses date, priority, and project in one line. If you want minimal friction AND deep structure, this is the ceiling for typed capture — and Ramble now adds voice.
TeuxDeux — minimalism as a philosophy. A paper-like week of columns. No AI, no parsing, almost no features: that absence is the appeal. Paid, with a 7-day free trial.
Questions, answered
What’s the simplest to-do app?
Depends on what “simple” means to you. Simplest interface: TeuxDeux or Google Tasks. Simplest capture (least effort per thought): speaking to Brainspill. Simplest ecosystem fit: Apple Reminders on iPhone, Microsoft To Do if you live in Outlook.
Is voice really faster than typing a task?
For one short task, it’s close — Siri or fast thumbs are fine. The difference is structural: typing five tasks costs five times the work of typing one, while saying five things takes barely longer than saying two, and the dating and sorting is done for you.
What’s the fastest free option?
Apple Reminders (iPhone) and Google Tasks (Android/Gmail) for typed capture; Brainspill’s free daily spill for spoken multi-task capture.