While I personally prefer to run Swift To-Do List in full-blown fullscreen mode, so I can fully focus on either managing my tasks and notes or the actual work, some people prefer using something very simple, or something that can be run as a small always-on-top window on their screens.

And even if you also prefer to run Swift To-Do List in fullscreen, this post might still inspire you to hide some parts of Swift To-Do List that you don’t use. For example, I do not use the main toolbar, because most of the operations it offers can be easily accomplished in more efficient ways.

Because Swift To-Do List is so flexible and customizable, you can turn it into a truly minimalistic, yet fully functional task and notes organizer.

This is possible for two reasons:

1. You can hide just about anything that you don’t need (e.g. toolbars and panels)
2. Even if you hide everything, you can still use most of the features, via right-click menus or keyboard shortcuts. For example, if you hide the tree panel, you can still switch lists using Ctrl+Tab and Ctrl+Shift+Tab. This way, you can have a tiny window with a powerhouse of all the Swift To-Do List features.

In practice, the minimal possible setup looks like this (and the window can be still made a bit smaller):

How to make Swift To-Do List minimalistic

To do this, just follow these 3 simple steps:

First, use the View menu to hide all the panels you don’t need:

Second, hide the columns you don’t need:

And finally, resize the window as you see fit.

Optionally, if you desire so, you can make Swift To-Do List window always on top using the View menu.

You can also change the task-view and tree fonts to something smaller. Segoe UI, size 8 works great. This can be accomplished using File – Options.

Examples of other minimalistic setups

There are many variants you can try. For example, this variant includes the notes panel:

And this is a variant with to-do list tree shown:

Or, do you fancy a calendar panel instead of tree?

Finally, just for the heck of it, this is how the regular non-minimalistic Swift To-Do List setup looks like. The one shown below has hidden calendar panel as well as the info panel:

How to use the minimalistic setup

The short answer is – the same was as you normally would! But if you used the main toolbar heavily before, its time to learn some shortcuts and other neat tricks -

When it comes to adding tasks, there are multiple ways other than the Add Task button:

1. Press Ctrl+T or Ctrl+Enter
2. Hold the Alt key and click anywhere in the task-view
3. Doubleclick into an empty space in the task-view
4. Use the global hotkey for adding tasks, configurable in File – Options, Hotkeys. By default, it is Ctrl+Alt+A.
5. Paste text into the task-view
6. Drag and Drop emails into the task-view. You can also drag & drop email .eml and .msg files.

To edit a task, simply double click it, or select it and press F2 or Enter.

To switch the currently viewed to-do list, use Ctrl+Tab and Ctrl+Shift+Tab. You can also use Alt+Shift+Up/Down to navigate between tasks in all lists.

To switch view mode, press Ctrl+F1 to view only the current list, Ctrl+F2 to view current list + its sub-lists, and press Ctrl+F3 to view all tasks at once.

To find tasks, press Ctrl+F.

To delete (archive) a task, select it and press Delete.

To move tasks up or down, use mouse and just drag and drop them where you want to place them. Or, use Alt + Up/Down.

You can also right-click any task or empty space for list of available options.

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It looks pretty cool, huh? If you still haven’t downloaded Swift To-Do List, download it and play with it. Chances are, you can make it exactly the way you want it to be.

And if you are already using Swift To-Do List, perhaps you now have some inspiration for customization. (As I said, I do not personally use the minimalistic setup. But it’s good to know that I can hide things if I don’t need them.)

Related Posts:

• Swift To-Do List 10 with scheduling calendar released!
• What we are up to in 2016: Swift To-Do List 10 is coming
• Introducing Swift To-Do List subscription plans
• Swift To-Do List app for iPhone and Android released!
• Beta testers wanted for attachments sync
• Swift To-Do List 9 released!

Minimalistic Swift To-Do List Setup is a post from: Swift To-Do List Blog