Stowe"Can I have more than one list?" is the most reasonable feature request a to-do app ever gets, because it is how life is actually shaped: there is the standing pile, and then there is the trip next month, the kitchen renovation, the list you only touch on Saturdays. One undifferentiated backlog makes you read the renovation every time you look for the groceries.
It is also — and this is the part apps are quieter about — how to-do systems die. Give people unlimited lists and two things happen on a schedule: lists multiply past the point of visiting, and each list grows its own private "today" until no single screen tells the truth about the day. The graveyard of abandoned setups is full of beautifully organised parallel worlds.
Stowe 1.9 adds lists, and because of that graveyard it adds them with three opinions. This post is about the opinions, since they apply to any system — an app, a notebook with sections, a wall of sticky notes.
Opinion one: lists must stay visible
The common pattern puts lists behind a drawer, a sidebar, or a long-press — a two-gesture round trip to see what exists. That geometry has a consequence: the lists you do not see are the lists you stop visiting, and a list you stop visiting quietly becomes an archive with anxiety attached.
Stowe's lists live on a rail directly above the backlog — every list, one tap, always on screen (on the Mac they sit in the sidebar, with ⌥⌘↑/↓ to step between them at the keyboard). The rail is also why the cap exists: six lists, counting the first. A rail of six is scannable; a drawer of twenty is a filing cabinet. The sets that survive — same finding as with tags — are few, stable and purposeful.
Opinion two: capture must not ask questions
The moment an app asks "which list?" at capture time, capture has a decision in front of it — and anything that adds a decision to capture makes capture less likely to happen. (This is the whole brain-dump argument in one sentence.)
So in Stowe, everything you say lands in the list you are standing in — switch to the trip list and talk, and it is trip stuff. No dialog, no guess: the list is the one field Stowe never infers from your words, because a wrongly-routed card is silently in the wrong room, and a wrong room costs more than a wrong label. Captures from your wrist or a widget land in your first list, the one place every device can agree on.
Opinion three: the day stays one day
This is the load-bearing one. In most multi-list apps, each list has its own today view, its own counts, its own overdue pile — and the actual day fragments across them. Apps that split the daily plan per-list lose the one thread that matters: what am I doing today, across my whole life?
In Stowe, lists split the backlog and never the plan. Today still holds 3–5 things, drawn from every list you keep; each planned card quietly says where it lives (a small dot and the list's name), and finishing the day is still one act. No list can become the place things go to die, because everything competes for the same morning.
The small print, on purpose
Tags work across every list — one catalogue, so "work" means the same thing everywhere — and each list remembers its own arrangement (the trip sorted soonest-first, the standing pile grouped by tag). Deleting a list moves its items back to your first list; nothing is lost. Making more lists is part of Stowe Pro, and the fence is exactly where it should be: your first list, and everything on it, stays free — and if Pro ever lapses, every list you made stays readable and tickable. Taking away a room somebody filled is a deletion, not a paywall.
If you have been running two apps to keep two lives apart, or one app where the trip drowned the groceries: this is the shape of the fix. Few rooms, always visible, capture that lands where you stand — and one day.
Frequently asked questions
Should I keep separate to-do lists for work and home?
Separation helps — boundary research on psychological detachment suggests that keeping work visible in off hours has a real cost, and a list you can stand in without seeing the other life is a cheap way to draw the line. The risk is fragmentation: many lists means many places to forget. The fix is structural — few lists, always visible, and one daily plan that draws from all of them.
Why do multiple to-do lists fail?
Two ways. Lists buried in a drawer or sidebar stop being visited — out of sight is out of rotation — and lists that each carry their own "today" fragment the day until no single list tells the truth. Both failures are design choices, not laws: a rail that keeps every list one tap away fixes the first, and a single day drawn from all lists fixes the second.
How many to-do lists should I have?
As with tags: fewer than feels right. A handful of purposes — the standing life, a project or two, the occasional trip — is a set you can hold in your head. Stowe caps lists at six, counting the first, precisely so the rail stays scannable and switching never becomes its own chore.
Do extra lists cost anything in Stowe?
Making more lists is part of Stowe Pro. Your first list — and everything on it, including tags — stays free, and if a subscription ever lapses every list you made stays readable and tickable. Taking away a list somebody filled would be a deletion, not a paywall.