We Tried Motion: Here's Our Motion Review

Features, Pros, Cons, Pricing & User Reviews

What is Motion App?

Motion is an AI-powered to-do list app for busy professionals.

Motion allows you to manage your tasks and calendar and has project management abilities for small teams. It is available on iOS, Android, macOS, Windows, and the web. Many use Motion to auto-reschedule their tasks to reduce overwhelm.

Motion connects calendar management with Google Calendar (personal and work), Outlook Calendar, and iCloud Calendar, allowing you to see what's ahead for meetings alongside your tasks in real-time.

Video: Motion App Review (2024)

Here's how Motion works and how you can get started with it:

Best Features in Motion

Let's unpack the core features and ratings of each feature:

Breakdown

What does it do & how does it work?

Motion is a task management software that wants to simplify your life.

It allows you to add tasks, connect calendars, organize projects, and plan meetings with external parties using availability booking links. Think of Motion as a comprehensive personal daily planner app for your work and life.

Motion is best known for using AI to help you organize your tasks in order of priority using an algorithm. This allows people to prioritize tasks and better plan their week ahead—many people like Motion for this aspect of the application.

But Motion isn't just limited to task management for individuals. It also works as project management software that small teams of 5-25 can use to manage their own personal tasks and teamwork schedules.

Here are the most commonly used features by Motion users:

• AI Task management for prioritizing tasks
• Project management for use with small teams.
• Bringing calendar events alongside your tasks

What is a daily planner app?

Daily planner apps are task management apps with calendar abilities.

They are designed to help you better organize your tasks and calendar events in one location to coordinate a plan for your day and week ahead. They are typically more expensive than to-do list applications and focus more on managing your scheduling. Tools like Motion, Akiflow, Sunsama, and Routine are popular options.

Recommended read: best daily planner apps.

Feature Focus

Motion: Adding Tasks

How does task management work in Motion?

Without AI abilities, task management inside of Motion is helpful and has many features. You can add a variety of attributes to each task, starting with status, priority, duration, chunking (allowing you to break tasks into chunks), start date, deadline, hard deadlines, scheduling hours, labels, and even more recently added custom fields.

Many of these features help make auto-scheduling more powerful for users.

Each task can be added to a workspace and a project to help further break it down or manage it within your system. Each task allows for comments, notes, and details to be added to it, furthering the context if you were to share it with other people.

Each task can be started with a timer, and even a template can be created to save time. Reminders can also be set to go off when a task's deadline is approaching.

Would this be helpful for my task management?

If you struggle with breaking a task down into attributes, this will be helpful; some task management applications like Todoist limit you to adding just a due date, while these abilities can sometimes give you more freedom and naturally help enhance the AI knowledge around each task you add to Motion.

Feature Focus

AI Task Scheduling

How does Motion AI work for tasks?

Motion has an auto-scheduling AI feature for tasks designed to help automate your schedule. It works by adjusting tasks based on calendar entries and prioritizing items of higher importance.

When you add a task in Motion, it prompts you to input details like priority level, deadline, and due date to assess the task’s importance. The system then automatically builds your daily schedule using these details. If a significant event or a less critical task arises, Motion will adjust your calendar accordingly, making it more efficient.

This method can be very effective for some users, though there’s an option to disable auto-scheduling for tasks you prefer to keep fixed. In addition to rearranging meetings,

Motion can adjust flexible items like lunch breaks, adapting them based on the priority of other tasks. Tasks can also be broken down into smaller segments, allowing you to work on them in multiple sessions, provided you set the parameters within the task details.

Feature Focus

Calendar Powers

How does calendar work in Motion?

Within Motion, you can create and add calendars, enabling you to manage tasks more effectively. You can assign tasks to multiple teams, with each task associated with a specific calendar. Motion integrates with the calendar, enhancing its functionality.

Calendar events are synced to Outlook, Google, or iCloud Calendar.

Are Motion calendar abilities worth it?

One key benefit of using the Motion calendar is that it serves as the central hub for planning your tasks and events. You can rearrange tasks based on priorities and events so that the task is a priority. Tasks constitute the most significant portion of your calendar and influence their movement.

Within the calendar, you can create and add tasks directly into Motion, which is especially useful for managing past events and scheduling future ones, such as video conferences and other similar activities.

Feature Focus

Project Management

How does project management work in Motion?

One of the many benefits of the Motion project management features is that it allows you to manage tasks and organize projects into stages. This helps individuals break down tasks into manageable parts within their projects even further.

Each user can access handbooks, tables, and dashboards, enabling them to store all projects and tasks in the cloud, which aids in breaking down stages and managing them more effectively. Additionally, the home feature lets you repeat past processes monthly, saving you significant time.

For teams, a team account is required to share and collaborate with others.

Project management is beneficial when you need to oversee projects and allow your team to see what everyone is working on, similar to a managerial role. However, you can support your team without necessarily being a manager.

Recent updates, like improved workflow management, are well-documented in project management software designed for teams of over 25 people.

Despite some limitations, many project management tools offer robust documentation and collaboration capabilities, making them valuable platforms for new businesses to develop and manage their teams and tasks effectively.

Feature Focus

Meeting Booking Links

What can the meeting booking links do?

Meeting links can be shared externally with others to help you book meetings. These are customizable and work with the AI to better find time with an external party looking to book a meeting with you. This can eliminate the need for additional apps like Calendly.

Editing these available links allows you to add buffer time, questionnaires, and duration for best management. You can have multiple links per account, and this is what they look like when shared with someone externally.

Deal: Motion

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Motion

Motion is an AI-focused planner app designed for tasks, calendar events & meetings.

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Motion is popular with busy professionals to manage tasks & calendars in one using AI.

Comparison

How does Motion compare to Akiflow and Sunsama?

Comparing Akiflow, Sunsama, and Motion can be challenging because, while they are all daily planner applications, they cater to different needs.

Motion emphasizes artificial intelligence in organizing tasks based on user-defined parameters. This AI-driven approach allows Motion to automatically reschedule tasks based on their importance and deadlines, making it particularly effective for those seeking an automated task management system.

In contrast, Akiflow and Sunsama focus more on manual time-blocking, lacking the algorithmic capabilities found in Motion. While they also enable users to organize and schedule tasks, the process is more hands-on and doesn’t benefit from AI-driven automation.

Regarding project management, Motion offers features like Kanban and table views for task organization, which Akiflow and Sunsama lack. Akiflow does have some team scheduling capabilities, such as sharing team schedules and managing workload distribution, similar to Motion. Sunsama, on the other hand, places more emphasis on work-life balance, helping users integrate work and personal tasks smoothly—something that Motion doesn’t prioritize.

Overall, Motion excels in AI task and project management, while Akiflow and Sunsama offer simpler, more manual approaches that focus more on time-blocking and, in the case of Sunsama, work-life balance.

How much does Motion app cost per month?

Motion is not free and has a few pricing models; they are the following:

Is Motion app free?

Motion is not free but offers a 14-day free trial you can get here.

Breakdown

Motion's Cost Analysis

Many people react with some surprise to Motion's pricing. It is relatively expensive, costing between $15 to $20 per month, similar to tools like Akiflow and Sunsama.

However, this might appeal to many users because it consolidates several applications into one platform. Motion offers task management, calendar management, project management, and additional features like meeting bookings in one place.

For example, if you were to pay for separate services:

• Tasks - Todoist ($5 per month)
• Fantastical (around $5 per month)
• Calendly ($10 per month)
• ClickUp($7 per month)

Your total could easily reach $15 to $20 per month.

While Motion may not offer fully developed features compared to some of these individual tools, it provides a convenient, all-in-one solution.

However, budget-conscious users might look elsewhere. For those needing basic task management, applications like Todoist and TickTick are about a third of the cost and still offer robust features for managing your calendar and tasks. It’s important to consider what’s most valuable for you. One notable advantage of Motion is its Artificial Intelligence feature, which many other applications currently lack.

Motion App Pros

• It comes with powerful AI abilities
• Clean and minimal design that is constantly updated
• Perfect for adding notes and sub-tasks to each task
• Kanban, Gantt, and table views for plotting projects
• AI is optional for auto-scheduling

Motion App Cons

• Those who don't like AI might not like this
• It might be too complex for basic task management
• The cost is one of the biggest barrier to entry with Motion

Personal Experience

7 Days with Motion

As part of this review, I spent a few days using Motion for task management, and I found the application to be quite impressive overall. Here's my thoughts:

The experience is centered around managing tasks within your calendar, which might be a bit surprising for those who have been using traditional task management systems, like myself. One of the critical aspects I noticed was that adding tasks directly to the calendar felt similar to time-blocking, which might be a beneficial shift for some users.

However, unlike apps like Sunsama, which allow you to easily switch between a Kanban week view and a week calendar view, Motion primarily immerses you in the calendar view. If you're a visual planner who works well with this type of system, you'll likely appreciate how Motion is set up. But if you're not, it may not be the right fit for you.

Personally, adjusting to this approach was a bit strange because I've been accustomed to using tools like Todoist, which focus more on task lists or a Kanban view that prioritizes tasks over calendar events.

Despite this, Motion includes a side panel where you can see all your upcoming tasks and events, which is handy for quickly accessing tasks, dragging them into relevant events, and updating them as needed. Moving from Todoist to Motion required some adjustment, as the task management features in Motion are more detailed.

For example, Motion includes features like duration tracking and minimum chunking, which Todoist has only recently introduced. However, I found this focus on detail a bit cumbersome, especially when trying to manage tasks that couldn’t be completed in one go, leading to frequent task adjustments, which felt a bit administrative and disjointed.

One feature I particularly liked in Motion was the ability to set working hours, deadlines, and hard deadlines. Unlike Todoist, which doesn’t account for your schedule in the same way, Motion allows for a flexible and varied schedule.

This was especially useful for me since my daily schedule changes significantly—some days I have more time for work, while others are busier with personal commitments. The AI auto-scheduling feature in Motion effectively adjusted tasks to fit my varying schedule, making the whole experience more seamless.

Additionally, I appreciated features like night routines, which allowed me to allocate tasks to evening hours, a necessity since I often work late due to running my own business.

Motion’s project management features were solid, though they didn’t resonate with me as much because I typically use Notion for project planning. However, if you prefer to plan projects alongside tasks, Motion could be a great fit.

Since I don’t rely heavily on my calendar, the AI algorithm in Motion didn’t have as much to work with when moving tasks around, but I imagine it would be more impactful for those with a more calendar-centric workflow. The scheduling link feature was also helpful, though not particularly groundbreaking. It was convenient to send booking links directly through the app.

One of Motion's standout features is consolidating multiple tools into one platform.

Before using Motion, I would manage my tasks and calendar separately with Todoist and other tools like Cal.com for booking links. Motion streamlines these processes, which could be a significant advantage for users looking to simplify their workflow.

While the auto-scheduling feature was beneficial, it’s not the primary reason I would switch to an application like Motion. It’s crucial to assess your needs when considering such tools; for me, the chunking feature was the most valuable aspect, though I found Motion helpful overall during my time using it.

What makes Motion a good ADHD to-do app?

Motion is touted as one of the better apps for ADHD thanks to the AI-powered features that allow users to save time by scheduling tasks for them. This saves many people time scheduling tasks and optimizing the time based on past performances.

Millions of people deal with task administration daily, and AI-powered features like this in Motion are making that a thing of the past. Real-time adjustments to meetings also help, making it easier for those with ADHD to combat meetings that just get booked automatically.

Many people say prioritization becomes much more complicated with ADHD. Motion helps with that by using AI features and project management abilities to give you various ways to visualize your tasks with calendar and project management views. This can help reduce overwhelm and the need to constantly reframe tasks, which often happens with ADHD as people get overwhelmed throughout the workday.

Pros for ADHD

• Prioritizing of tasks
• AI-scheduling abilities to save time
• Time-blocking with your calendars (Outlook, Google)

Is Motion worth it?

Motion is a compelling application for those looking to remove the productivity administration aspect from their daily routine.

It’s beneficial for individuals who find planning their day stressful and want a tool that can automatically organize tasks based on set priorities using AI.

However, its pricing and the degree of flexibility it offers make it more suitable for freelancers, busy professionals in high-paying roles, or those with a high workload who want to delegate the task of daily planning to an AI.

While Motion offers robust features, its cost is relatively high, and some of its functionalities may not suit those seeking essential task management, so apps like Todoist and TickTick might be better suited.

Should you use it for projects too?

Motion does provide some small business and team management capabilities, but it’s not designed to replace full-scale project management systems like monday.com or ClickUp. It works well for teams of 5 to 25 members who want to organize their work and personal schedules within one application.

The pricing for team use is currently lower than the individual price, making it an attractive option for small teams looking for both personal and collaborative task management.

However, for teams larger than 25, it might be better to explore more comprehensive project management solutions.

Final verdict

Motion excels in its niche, offering a good balance of personal and small-team project management features. Still, for those wanting a more extensive tool that also manages bookings, calendars, and tasks in one place, Notion is a strong alternative.

However, Notion lacks certain features like task consolidation, available in apps like Akiflow and Sunsama.

Is Motion suitable for teams?

Motion offers project management features enabling you to organize tasks using a Kanban view, table, and Gantt view for collaborating and assigning tasks.

It also includes team scheduling capabilities, allowing you to view team members’ schedules and allocate workload based on each person’s capacity. This capacity planning shows how much time each team member has available per day.

The team scheduling function is gaining popularity among teams that want to use Motion for personal task management, the AI calendar, and team task management.

This dual functionality allows for seamless application and use of individual- and team-oriented features.

Who is Motion best suited for?

Busy professionals, freelancers, and small teams.

Motion will be most helpful to people who want to remove the administration from task management and leave it more open to a system or AI algorithm to make decisions about the effectiveness of their time based on task attributes.