If you have ever searched for "an app to organise my life", you will know the problem. There are hundreds of planner apps, and most of them are brilliant at one thing: tasks, or habits, or your calendar. Very few try to cover the whole picture.
We have built one of those apps, so we are not neutral. But we have tried most of the others too, and each has real strengths. Here is an honest guide to the best life planner apps available in the UK, and who each one suits.
What makes a good life planner app?
Before the list, it helps to know what you are looking for. A life planner app should:
- Show you one view of today, across work, home, health and personal life
- Handle repeating routines, not just one-off tasks
- Work with the calendar you already use
- Help you connect bigger goals to daily action
- Be quick enough that you actually open it every day
If an app only does one of these, it is a great tool, but it is not a life planner. You will probably end up using it alongside three others.
1. Lively: best for organising every area of your life in one place
Platform: iPhone
Price: Free, or Essentials at £7.99 a month (14-day free trial)
Lively is built around one screen called My Day. It pulls everything due today into a single list: tasks, morning and evening routines, medication and supplements, cleaning, meals, bills, birthdays and calendar events.
Each area of life has its own section. You can plan the week's meals and send the ingredients to your shopping list, set up a cleaning rota by room, track bills and subscriptions, and break annual goals into weekly steps. Streaks, points and an optional friends leaderboard make the boring stuff a bit more satisfying.
Good for: people juggling lots of areas of life who are tired of switching between apps, and people with busy or noisy brains, including ADHD.
Less good for: team project management, or anyone on Android (it is iPhone only for now).
2. Todoist: best pure to-do list
Platform: iPhone, Android, web, desktop
Todoist is one of the most popular task managers in the world, and for good reason. Adding tasks is fast, it understands natural language ("pay rent every 1st"), and projects and labels keep things tidy.
Good for: people who mainly need a reliable, flexible to-do list across every device.
Less good for: routines, meal planning, health tracking or anything beyond tasks. Most people pair it with a separate calendar and habit tracker.
3. TickTick: best for tasks plus habits
Platform: iPhone, Android, web, desktop
TickTick combines a to-do list with a habit tracker, a calendar view and a focus timer. It is a strong choice if you want tasks and habits in one place without much setup.
Good for: people who want a capable task app with habit tracking built in.
Less good for: home, meals, shopping and finances. Those still need other apps.
4. Notion: best for people who love building their own system
Platform: iPhone, Android, web, desktop
Notion is a blank canvas. With templates you can build a life dashboard, habit tracker, reading list, budget and more. Its flexibility is unmatched.
Good for: people who enjoy designing systems and want everything customised.
Less good for: anyone short on time. Setup can take hours, and it can feel slow on a phone for quick daily check-ins. Many people build a beautiful Notion dashboard and stop using it within a month.
5. Structured: best visual day planner
Platform: iPhone, Android
Structured shows your day as a visual timeline, mixing tasks and calendar events into blocks of time. It is clean, simple and satisfying to use.
Good for: time blockers and people who think in terms of "what am I doing at 2pm?".
Less good for: longer-term goals, meal planning or the admin side of life.
6. Tiimo: visual planning with neurodivergent people in mind
Platform: iPhone, Android
Tiimo is a visual planner designed with neurodivergent people in mind, with timers and visual routines to help with time blindness and transitions.
Good for: people who benefit from very visual routines and timers.
Less good for: people who want home, meals, finances and goals in the same place.
Quick comparison
- Lively: the whole of life in one place, with tasks, routines, calendar, meals and shopping, finances and goals
- Todoist: to-do lists, with repeating tasks and calendar integrations
- TickTick: tasks and habits, with a calendar view
- Notion: custom systems you build yourself
- Structured: a visual timeline of your day
- Tiimo: visual routines and timers
Features change often, so check each app's current version before you decide.
How to choose
Ask yourself one question: how many apps am I using right now to run my life?
If the answer is one or two and it works, you probably do not need to change. If it is four or five, and you still feel like you are holding everything in your head, an all-in-one life planner will make the biggest difference.
Whatever you pick, test it properly. Use it for two weeks with your real tasks and routines, then ask whether you feel calmer. If juggling calendars is your main headache, our guide to managing multiple calendars in one place is a good place to start.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best app to organise your whole life?
If you want everything in one place, choose an app that covers tasks, routines, calendar, meals, finances and goals, such as Lively. If you only need tasks, a dedicated to-do app like Todoist is excellent.
Is there a free life planner app?
Yes. Lively, Todoist, TickTick, Notion, Structured and Tiimo all have free versions, with paid plans for extra features.
What is the best planner app for iPhone?
It depends on what you need. Lively is built for iPhone and covers every area of life. Structured and Tiimo are good visual planners, and Todoist and TickTick are strong task managers.