Thendoo vs Motion: AI auto-scheduling or planning by hand
Motion uses AI to schedule your tasks for you; Thendoo helps you place them yourself on a daily timeline. Compare scheduling, calendars, apps and price.
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The short answer
Motion's core idea is that AI should plan your calendar: it prioritizes tasks, time-blocks them and re-plans when things change, across Google, Outlook and iCloud calendars, with phone and desktop apps. Thendoo does not use AI to plan. You pick a Top 3 and drag tasks into free slots yourself, with a button that drops a task into the next free slot. Choose by how much control you want to hand over.
Side by side
How tasks get scheduled
- Motion
- AI prioritizes and time-blocks tasks on your calendar and re-plans when anything changessource
- Thendoo
- By you: drag from the To schedule tray, or press schedule to take the next free slot (task estimate, or 30 minutes)
AI
- Motion
- AI chat, projects and tasks, calendar and meetings, docs, task planner and writer, with monthly credits per seatsource
- Thendoo
- Only in Recordings: notes and suggested tasks from a recording, with an AI service connected. Planning is yours, with simple rules to help.
Calendars
- Motion
- Google, Outlook and iCloud, with events synced both wayssource
- Thendoo
- Google Calendar (read), plus time blocks written to a separate 'Thendoo' calendar
Apps
- Motion
- iOS, Android and desktop appssource
- Thendoo
- Web app; add it to a phone's home screen. Native apps planned
Habits, routines and focus timer
- Motion
- No habit tracker or focus timer listed; recurring tasks are scheduled like other worksource
- Thendoo
- Built in
Free option
- Motion
- Free trial; no free plan listed on the pricing pagesource
- Thendoo
- Free while Thendoo is in early access
Team features
- Motion
- Business AI adds team capacity planning, dashboards, Gantt charts and permissionssource
- Thendoo
- Single-user only
Plans and prices
Our take
Choose Motion if…
- You want software to decide the order and timing of your work and re-plan it for you.
- You use Outlook or iCloud calendars, or need phone apps.
- You plan capacity for a team as well as for yourself.
Choose Thendoo if…
- You want to decide when things happen yourself, with a short guided plan each morning.
- You would rather not send your tasks to an AI service.
- You want habits, routines and bills on the same timeline as your tasks.
Two answers to “when will I do this?”
Motion answers it with AI. You give it tasks, deadlines and priorities, and it builds your calendar, then rebuilds it when something changes. Its pitch is that you stop deciding what to work on next.
Thendoo answers it with you. Each morning Plan my day takes about ten minutes: look at today’s free time and meetings, pick up to three tasks, then give them a time. The rest stays in the To schedule tray. During the day you drag tasks onto free slots, which Thendoo labels “Free · 14:00–15:30 · drop a task here”, and resize blocks as reality shifts.
Where the difference shows up
Control. Some people find it a relief when software decides the order. Others find a calendar that rearranges itself hard to trust, or hard to follow. Thendoo moves nothing unless you do, and warns you when your picks add up to more than your free time.
Data and AI. Motion’s plans are AI products with a monthly credit allowance per seat. Thendoo doesn’t use AI to plan your day; you decide, with simple rules to help. Its only AI feature is notes and suggested tasks from a recording, and only when an AI service is connected; on thendoo.com you’ll use your own AI key.
Reach. Motion reads Google, Outlook and iCloud calendars and has phone and desktop apps. Thendoo reads Google Calendar only and runs in a browser.
Beyond tasks. Thendoo also covers habits, timed routines, a focus timer, money and life admin, all feeding Today. Motion adds docs, notes and team planning.
Choosing
If deciding what to do next is the part that drains you, and you are happy for AI to do it, Motion is built for that. If you want to keep the decision, with a little structure and no pressure, Thendoo is the closer fit. Try a week of each and notice which plan you actually follow.
One practical test: write down tomorrow’s three most important tasks tonight. In the morning, check whether you would rather see them placed for you or place them yourself. Your answer is usually the deciding factor.
Moving from Motion to Thendoo
- 1List your active Motion projects and tasks before you start. Thendoo has no Motion importer, so you move by hand.
- 2In Thendoo, create a Space per area and a List per project, then re-add active tasks with estimates using the Capture palette, for example 'draft report ~90m #Work'.
- 3Connect Google Calendar under Connections. If your calendars are in Outlook or iCloud, note that Thendoo can't read them yet.
- 4Turn on Show my time blocks in Google Calendar if you want your planned blocks visible to others who see your Google calendar.
- 5Use Plan my day each morning instead of auto-scheduling: pick a Top 3, then Save my plan.
Questions
Does Thendoo schedule my tasks automatically like Motion?
No. Plan my day places your Top 3 into the next free slots when you save, and the schedule button drops a single task into the next free slot. Nothing moves without you asking.
Does Thendoo re-plan my day when a meeting runs long?
No. You drag blocks to a new time yourself. An optional setting moves earlier-dated tasks to today, but it doesn't rearrange your timeline.
Can Thendoo read Outlook calendars?
Not today. Thendoo reads Google Calendar only.