Things

Things

· #258 most-used

Your trusted to-do list for Mac and iPhone — captured and managed by your agent

ProductivityProjectsDeveloperSchedulingAutomation

Things is the award-winning personal task manager by Cultured Code, available on Mac, iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and Vision Pro. It organises your to-dos into Areas and Projects, surfaces what matters today in its Today view, and syncs across all your Apple devices via Things Cloud. Connect it to Actionist and your agents can create to-dos and full project structures in Things from any trigger — a CRM stage change, an incoming email, a Notion brief, or a GitHub issue — with the right tags, scheduled dates, deadlines, and notes already set, so your task list reflects reality without any manual entry.

Average time saved
6 hours
per person · per month
≈ 1 workdays back

Eliminates manual work. Agents eliminate the manual effort of creating, dating, and tagging Things to-dos by hand after every trigger event across CRM, helpdesk, email, and project tools.

Schedule

What your Things agent runs on autopilot

A week of scheduled jobs your Actionist agent will execute on your behalf.

28Scheduled jobs
7Agents at work
24/7Always on
Agents
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Multi-app workflows

Things × every other app you use

End-to-end automations that span multiple apps — each one a real business outcome.

6Workflows
7Apps spanned
~10 hrsSaved / week
6Personas served
For operations
Featured4 apps

New Notion brief instantly becomes a structured Things project

When a new project brief is created in Notion, the agent reads the title, owner, deadlines, and checklist sections, then creates a fully structured Things project with matching headings and pre-populated tasks — and posts a confirmation to the project Slack channel so the team knows the task structure is ready before the kickoff call.

~3 hrs

Time saved for your team — every week, on autopilot

The flow
Trigger·When a new project brief page is created in Notion
Result
Create Things project with headings and pre-populated tasks from briefPost project creation confirmation to project channelCreate kickoff meeting event linked to the Things project
The win
Saved per run
30 min
Runs / week
~5×
Every new project has a complete task structure before the first meeting
Driven byOperations Agent
ROI

Savings

What your team gets back — two angles: what you stop doing manually, and what that's worth.

Without Actionist

What you do manually today

With Actionist

What your agent runs for you

  • Sales
    20 min / week
    Manual proposal follow-up tracking

    Reps manually create a Things to-do after sending each proposal, or rely on memory — follow-ups are missed on busy weeks and proposals go cold.

    Sales Agent
    0 min
    Agent creates follow-up tasks the moment a proposal is sent

    When a deal moves to Proposal Sent in HubSpot, the agent creates a Things to-do scheduled two days out with the deal link in the notes — the rep has a follow-up task before they close the CRM tab.

  • Marketing
    25 min / week
    Manual campaign project setup in Things

    Marketers manually create a Things project, add headings, and type in template tasks for each new campaign — a 15-20 minute setup ritual repeated for every brief.

    Marketing Agent
    0 min
    Agent builds campaign project structures from briefs

    When a campaign brief is created in Notion, the agent creates a full Things project with headings and template tasks from the brief content — the campaign manager has a working task structure before the first briefing call.

  • Customer Support
    30 min / week
    Manual escalation task entry

    Support leads manually create a Things to-do for each escalated ticket, copying the ticket number and customer name from the helpdesk — a repetitive step done multiple times a day under pressure.

    Customer Support Agent
    0 min
    Agent captures escalations into Things within about a minute

    When a ticket is escalated, the agent creates a tagged Things to-do for the support lead with the ticket number and customer context in the notes — no copy-paste between helpdesk and task manager.

  • Human Resources
    20 min / week
    Manual onboarding project setup

    HR coordinators manually create a Things project and add onboarding tasks for each new hire — a 20-minute setup repeated every hiring cycle, with inconsistent task lists each time.

    Human Resources Agent
    0 min
    Agent scaffolds onboarding projects in Things for every new hire

    When a new hire is confirmed, the agent creates a complete Things onboarding project with headings, tasks, and 30/60/90-day check-in to-dos pre-scheduled to the right dates.

  • Finance
    15 min / week
    Manual invoice task entry

    Finance team manually creates a Things to-do for each incoming invoice — checking the due date, typing the vendor name, and setting the deadline by hand every time a new invoice arrives.

    Finance Agent
    0 min
    Agent creates invoice payment tasks with hard deadlines automatically

    When an invoice is logged in the tracking sheet, the agent creates a Things to-do with the payment due date as a hard deadline and vendor details in the notes — payment obligations are always visible in Things Upcoming.

  • Operations
    15 min / week
    Manual weekly task setup

    Ops leads manually re-enter the same recurring tasks in Things every Monday morning — a 15-minute ritual of copy-pasting last week's tasks and updating their scheduled dates.

    Operations Agent
    0 min
    Agent generates the week's recurring ops tasks automatically each Monday

    At 8 AM every Monday, the agent creates the full set of recurring operational to-dos in Things — vendor check-ins, SLA reviews, audit reminders — each scheduled to the correct day, with no manual entry.

  • Legal
    15 min / week
    Manual contract review task entry

    Legal team manually creates a Things to-do for each inbound contract — reading the email, noting the counterparty and deadline, creating the task, and setting the date — repeated for every NDA, SOW, and addendum.

    Legal Agent
    0 min
    Agent creates contract review tasks with deadlines from email

    When a contract arrives by email, the agent extracts the counterparty and response deadline, creates a Things to-do with a hard deadline, and tags it for filtering — the legal team has a tracked task within about a minute of receiving the contract.

+ 100s of other Things automations
Average time saved
14 hrs / person / month
Calculator

Calculate what your team saves

Team size
5 people
Hourly rate
$75 / hr
Hours saved / week
8
Hours saved / year
375
Annual ROI
$28,125

Based on Things's typical team usage — the visible tasks plus a few other automations the agent runs: ~1.5 hrs / person / week of admin work automated.

Connect

How to plug Things into Actionist

Pick the connection method that suits your environment.

Connects to Things via the jimfilippou/things-mcp MCP server, which uses Things' native URL scheme to send commands directly to the app on your Mac. Things must be running on macOS for operations to execute.

1
Open the Apps tab

Find Things in the Apps library and click Connect. MCP is selected by default. Things must be installed and running on your Mac.

2
Install the MCP server

Actionist installs the jimfilippou/things-mcp server and connects to Things via its URL scheme. No OAuth window or API key is needed for creating and reading tasks.

3
Add authorisation token (for updates)

For update and complete operations, generate a Things authorisation token in Things → Settings → General → Enable Things URLs → Manage, and paste it into the optional token field.

Actions

14 actions your agent can call

Read and write operations available to your Actionist agent.

Triggers

0 events your agent can react to

Events your agent watches for, and the actions it kicks off in response.

This app has no triggers yet.
Skills

Skills that pair with Things

Reusable agent skills that work well alongside this app.

ADHD Daily Planner

Time-blind friendly planning, executive function support, and daily structure for ADHD brains. Specializes in realistic time estimation, dopamine-aware task design, and building systems that actually work for neurodivergent minds.

MCP servers

MCP servers that work with Things

Connect Actionist to MCP servers built for or around this app.

jimfilippou/things-mcp

A Model Context Protocol server that provides seamless integration with the Things productivity app. Enables AI assistants to create, update, and manage todos and projects in Things using its comprehensive URL scheme.

FAQs

Questions about Things + Actionist

How does Actionist connect to Things?
Actionist connects to Things via the Things MCP server, which uses Things' native URL scheme to send commands directly to the app running on your Mac. In the Apps tab, find Things and click Connect — Actionist installs the MCP server in one step. Things itself must be running on your Mac for the integration to work. No API key or OAuth token is required for creating and showing items; update operations additionally require a Things authorisation token, which you generate in Things → Settings → General → Enable Things URLs → Manage.
Does Things have a cloud API, or does the Mac need to be running?
Things does not expose a cloud API — all operations happen through the Things URL scheme, which talks directly to the Things app on your Mac via the MCP server. This means the Mac running Things must be awake and have Things open for Actionist agent tasks to execute. Scheduled agent tasks run on your Actionist desktop app, so as long as Actionist is running on the same Mac as Things, all operations work reliably.
Can the agent add to-dos to specific projects, areas, and tags?
Yes. When creating a to-do, the agent can assign it to any Area or Project already in your Things library by name. It can also apply one or more Tags, set a deadline, add a when (scheduled start date), include notes, and nest checklist items inside the to-do. For project creation, the agent can include headings and pre-populated to-do lists in a single operation using the JSON batch command.
What are the most common things agents do with Things?
The most common patterns: (1) capturing tasks from other apps — when a Notion page is created, a GitHub issue is opened, or an email arrives, the agent creates a corresponding to-do in the right Things project; (2) project scaffolding — when a new client or initiative is confirmed, the agent creates a full Things project with headings and standard task templates; (3) daily review prep — the agent collects outstanding items from connected tools and creates a prioritised inbox review list in Things each morning.
Can the agent set due dates and scheduled start dates on to-dos?
Actionist can create to-dos using natural language date expressions like 'today', 'tomorrow', 'this evening', 'next Monday', or a specific date. The 'when' parameter sets the scheduled start date — the day Things will surface the task in your Today view. The 'deadline' parameter is separate and sets the hard due date shown in red when overdue. Both can be set independently on the same task.
Can Actionist push tasks into a team member's Things database?
Things is a personal task manager designed for individual use — it does not have built-in team sharing or multi-user collaboration. Each person on your team would run their own Things installation connected to their own Actionist agent. The agent can create tasks in an individual's Things from shared tools (Slack, Notion, GitHub), but it cannot push tasks to another person's Things database directly.
Can I trigger an Actionist workflow when I complete a to-do in Things?
Things does not currently expose a native trigger or webhook mechanism — there is no way for Things to push an event to Actionist when a to-do is completed or a project is finished. The Actionist integration is write-focused: agents create and organise tasks in Things. To act on completion events, the recommended pattern is to use a different tool (like Notion or Google Sheets) as the completion tracker and trigger, with Things serving as the task-creation destination.
Does the Actionist integration work with Things Cloud sync?
Things Cloud is Cultured Code's own sync service that keeps Things in sync across your Mac, iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and Vision Pro — it is not a public API. Actionist's integration works at the Mac app level via the URL scheme, so tasks created by Actionist on your Mac appear on your other Apple devices within seconds via Things Cloud automatically, with no additional setup required.