Bear vs Notion vs Obsidian for Task Management: When Note Apps Become Todo Lists

Bear, Notion, and Obsidian are note-taking apps, not task managers. Here's what works and what breaks when you force them into that role.

Bear, Notion, and Obsidian are excellent note-taking apps. None of them were designed to manage tasks.

Yet people constantly try to use them for task management. They build elaborate systems with tags, databases, checkboxes, and custom workflows. They create todo list templates. They write plugins to add functionality that dedicated task managers handle natively.

It works, sort of. But it’s using a hammer to drive screws. The tool does the job if you modify it enough and don’t mind the friction, but you’re fighting against what the tool was built to do.

This comparison is honest about what these note apps can and can’t do for task management. If you’re currently trying to make one of them work as your todo list, this might explain why it feels harder than it should.

Why People Try This in the First Place

The appeal of using a note app for task management is obvious: you’re already taking notes there. Tasks emerge from notes. Meeting notes generate action items. Project notes contain next steps. Keeping tasks in the same place as the context around them makes intuitive sense.

The unified system dream is seductive. One place for everything—notes, tasks, projects, knowledge. No context switching between apps. Everything interconnected.

But notes and tasks are fundamentally different. Notes are information to reference. Tasks are work to complete. Notes benefit from rich formatting, linking, and archival. Tasks need scheduling, due dates, reminders, and completion tracking. Trying to make one tool do both usually means it does neither optimally.

Still, people persist because the alternative—maintaining separate systems for notes and tasks—feels like overhead. So they build elaborate systems within note apps, hoping to avoid that overhead. Usually they just trade one form of overhead (app switching) for another (maintaining complex manual systems).

Bear for Task Management

Bear is a beautiful, focused note-taking app for Apple platforms. It’s built around fast note creation, excellent formatting, and tag-based organization. The writing experience is lovely. Task management is not what it was designed for.

What works for task management:

• Checkboxes work for simple lists

• Tags can organize task notes by project or context

• Fast note creation means quick task capture

• Search is excellent for finding tasks later

• Native Apple design feels smooth

What breaks:

• No due dates or reminders without manual workarounds

• No scheduling or calendar integration

• Checkboxes are just formatting, not functional tasks

• No repeating tasks

• No prioritization beyond what you manually maintain

• Completed tasks just stay checked in notes forever

The Bear task management approach: People using Bear for tasks typically create a “Tasks” note with checkboxes, or use tags like #todo to mark task-containing notes. They manually review these daily. It’s extremely manual—you’re building and maintaining the task system yourself through consistent note-keeping discipline.

This works for people with minimal task management needs and strong note-keeping habits. If you have 5-10 tasks weekly and they’re simple reminders (”call dentist,” “review document”), Bear’s checkboxes suffice. You’re not really doing task management—you’re keeping task lists in pretty notes.

For anything more complex—recurring tasks, scheduled work, projects with multiple steps, capacity planning—Bear provides no native support. You’re either accepting extreme limitations or building complex workaround systems (using note templates, date tags, manual review processes) that require discipline to maintain.

Pricing: Free tier available. Bear Pro is $2.99/month or $29.99/year.

Verdict: Beautiful for notes. Painful for task management beyond the simplest lists. You’re fighting the tool’s design at every step.

Notion for Task Management

Notion is powerful, flexible, and popular for building custom task management systems. Unlike Bear, Notion actually supports this use case reasonably well. But “reasonably well” doesn’t mean “purpose-built.”

What works for task management:

• Databases support proper task properties (due dates, status, priorities, assignees even if just you)

• Views (calendar, kanban, table, timeline) show tasks different ways

• Templates speed up recurring task structures

• Relations and rollups handle complex project dependencies

• Integration with notes means task context lives alongside tasks

What breaks:

• No native scheduling or time blocking

• Calendar view shows due dates, not scheduled work time

• No reminders without workarounds

• No intelligent prioritization or capacity awareness

• Complex setup required for sophisticated task systems

• Performance lags with large task databases

• Mobile app is clunky for quick task entry

The Notion task management approach: People using Notion for tasks build database systems: a Tasks database with properties like Status, Due Date, Project, Priority. They create multiple views (My Tasks, By Project, Calendar, This Week). They link task databases to project databases. They build dashboards showing task status across projects.

This works surprisingly well for people who enjoy building systems and have time to maintain them. Notion’s flexibility means you can create almost any task management workflow you can imagine. The question is whether you want to spend time building and maintaining that workflow or just want to manage tasks.

The learning curve is real. Building a functional Notion task system takes hours of setup. Maintaining it requires ongoing attention—updating properties, keeping views configured correctly, ensuring templates work. It’s powerful but labor-intensive.

Pricing: Free tier available. Plus is $10/month, Business is $18/month per user.

Verdict: Most capable of the three for task management, but you’re building the system yourself. Great for people who want custom workflows and don’t mind maintenance overhead.

Obsidian for Task Management

Obsidian is a knowledge management tool built around plain text Markdown files and linking. Its strength is interconnected notes and knowledge graphs. Task management is possible through plugins, but you’re essentially adding functionality the core app wasn’t designed for.

What works for task management:

• Plain text means portability and future-proofing

• Plugins (Tasks, Checklist, etc.) add task functionality

• Linking connects tasks to relevant notes and projects

• Templates can create repeatable task structures

• Local storage means privacy and control

• Daily notes workflow fits task planning rituals

What breaks:

• Core app has no task features—everything requires plugins

• Plugin ecosystem is powerful but fragmented

• No native calendar integration or scheduling

• Configuration complexity is high

• Mobile app is weak for quick task capture

• Each plugin has its own syntax and workflow

• Breaking changes in plugins can disrupt your system

The Obsidian task management approach: People using Obsidian for tasks install the Tasks plugin (or Checklist, or Dataview), create daily note templates with task sections, use custom queries to surface tasks from across their vault. They build systems using Markdown task syntax with metadata: - [ ] Task name 📅 2026-02-25 ⏫ #project/work

This appeals to people who value plain text, local storage, and customization. You’re essentially building a bespoke task management system using Obsidian as the platform and plugins as the features. The power is real, but so is the complexity.

The workflow requires consistent maintenance. Daily notes need updating. Queries need refining. Plugins need managing. For people who enjoy this tinkering, it’s satisfying. For people who just want to manage tasks, it’s friction.

Pricing: Free for personal use. Commercial license is $50/year if using for work.

Verdict: Most powerful and customizable, but requires the most technical comfort and maintenance work. Only worthwhile if you’re already using Obsidian and value the integration with your knowledge system.

What All Three Miss

Using note apps for task management reveals what purpose-built task managers provide that note apps don’t.

• Time-based scheduling. Notes organize information spatially (in documents/databases/folders). Tasks need temporal organization—when will you actually do this? Bear, Notion, and Obsidian show task lists or due dates, but none help you schedule work into your actual available time.

• Calendar integration. Your meetings and your tasks should exist together so you can see your full day. Note apps keep tasks separate from calendar, requiring you to manually coordinate between systems.

• Intelligent prioritization. When you have 30 tasks, which should you tackle? Note apps leave this entirely to you. Purpose-built tools offer intelligence—AI suggestions, urgency algorithms, capacity awareness.

• Energy awareness. Not all hours are equal for productivity. Scheduling demanding creative work versus routine admin should happen at different times. Note apps treat all time identically because they don’t think temporally at all.

• Reduced cognitive overhead. Task managers automate scheduling, suggest priorities, handle recurring tasks, send reminders. Note apps make you build and maintain all this functionality manually through discipline and custom systems.

The core issue is that note apps organize information, while task managers organize time and execution. The mental models are different. Forcing notes apps into task management means manually bridging that gap continuously.

When Note Apps Actually Work for Tasks

Despite the limitations, some scenarios justify using note apps for task management.

• Minimal task volume. If you have 5-10 simple tasks weekly, checkboxes in notes work fine. You’re not really managing complexity, just keeping lists. The sophisticated features of task managers would be overkill.

• Tasks deeply connected to notes. If your tasks emerge from research notes, meeting notes, or project documentation, keeping them together reduces friction. A task to “follow up on discussion point 3” makes more sense next to the meeting notes than isolated in a task app.

• Existing strong note-taking practice. If you already live in Notion, Obsidian, or Bear daily for notes, adding task tracking there means one less tool. The question is whether you’re truly comfortable with the task management limitations.

• Custom workflow requirements. If your work requires unusual task workflows that standard task managers don’t support, building custom systems in Notion or Obsidian might be necessary. Most people overestimate how custom their needs are.

• Privacy/control requirements. Obsidian’s local-first approach appeals to people who want complete data control. If this matters more than functionality, accepting task management limitations might be worthwhile.

But these are niche scenarios. Most people using note apps for task management are doing so because they’re already using the note app, not because it’s actually better for managing tasks than purpose-built tools.

What Purpose-Built Task Management Provides

If you’re feeling friction using Bear, Notion, or Obsidian for tasks, it’s because you’re missing what actual task managers provide.

• Scheduling, not just listing. rivva, Motion, Sunsama—these schedule tasks into your day. You see when you’ll work on things, not just what needs doing. The gap between knowing what to do and having time to do it is what note apps don’t bridge.

• Calendar integration. Tools like rivva show meetings and tasks together. Your entire day is visible in one view. You’re not mentally coordinating between calendar (meetings) and notes (tasks).

• Intelligent prioritization. When you’re overwhelmed, AI can suggest what to tackle based on deadlines, importance, and your available time. Note apps leave you staring at a long list figuring this out yourself.

• Energy awareness. rivva schedules demanding work during your peak energy hours and routine tasks during low energy. This temporal intelligence doesn’t exist in note apps.

• Automation. Recurring tasks happen automatically. Schedule changes trigger rescheduling. Overdue tasks surface automatically. You’re not manually maintaining the system through discipline.

• Reduced overhead. Purpose-built task managers handle the mechanics of task management so you can focus on completing tasks. Note apps make the mechanics your responsibility.

The cognitive difference is substantial. With note apps, you’re constantly maintaining the task system. With task managers, the system maintains itself and helps you execute.

The Hybrid Approach

Many people use both: note apps for notes, task managers for tasks, with loose integration between them.

Common patterns:

• Use Notion/Obsidian/Bear for meeting notes and project documentation

• Use rivva/Todoist/TickTick for task scheduling and daily execution

• Link between them when tasks connect to specific notes

• Don’t try to force one tool to do both jobs

This seems like overhead (two systems) but it’s actually less overhead than trying to make note apps do task management. Each tool does what it’s designed for. The occasional switching between them is minor compared to the friction of forcing notes apps to manage tasks.

Some integrations exist: Notion can integrate with task managers, Obsidian has plugins for Todoist integration. These connections help if you need to link specific tasks to detailed notes.

Why rivva Works Better Than Note App Task Systems

rivva was built specifically to schedule and complete tasks, not to organize notes. This focus matters.

• Energy-based scheduling puts tasks in your calendar when you can actually do them well, not just when they’re due. Bear, Notion, and Obsidian have no concept of this—all time is treated equally.

• Automatic task capture from email (including meeting summaries & tool notifications) means tasks flow in without manual entry. Note apps require you to manually create tasks, which creates friction and lets things slip.

• Calendar native integration shows meetings and tasks together. You see your full day in one view, not tasks in notes and meetings in calendar requiring mental coordination.

• Built for execution, not documentation. Every feature exists to help you complete work. Note apps are built to capture and organize information—task management is a secondary use case they don’t optimize for.

For people currently using note apps for task management and feeling friction, the question is: are you trying to save the overhead of one additional app, but creating even more overhead by manually maintaining task systems in tools not designed for that purpose?

Pricing: $13.99/month (monthly) or $10.50/month (quarterly). 7-day free trial.

FAQ

Can I export tasks from Notion/Obsidian to a real task manager?

Notion’s API allows integration with tools like Zapier to sync databases to task managers. Obsidian plugins can export to various formats. But ongoing sync is fragile—you end up maintaining connections between systems rather than just using a task manager directly. Usually cleaner to separate concerns: notes stay in note apps, tasks go to task apps.

Which is best if I absolutely must keep tasks in my note app?

Notion is most capable for this use case due to database functionality. You can build sophisticated task systems if you’re willing to invest setup time. Obsidian with plugins is second, but requires technical comfort. Bear barely supports task management beyond simple checklists. But honestly, “must keep tasks in note app” is usually a preference, not a requirement—separate tools work better.

Do any task managers integrate well with these note apps?

rivva, Motion, and Todoist can integrate with Notion to some degree. Obsidian has community plugins for Todoist integration. But integration is always looser than native functionality. If you need deep integration between notes and tasks, Notion’s databases within the app work better than trying to sync external tools.

What if my tasks are too complex for the structure note apps provide?

This is a sign you need an actual task/project manager. If your tasks have dependencies, resource constraints, timelines, and complexity, you’re well beyond what note apps can handle. Use Asana, ClickUp, or similar for complex project management. Or use simpler task managers (rivva, Motion, Todoist) if the complexity is scheduling rather than project dependencies.

Why do so many people try to use note apps for task management if it’s not optimal?

The unified system dream is appealing. People want one tool for everything to reduce app switching. Also, they’re already in their note app daily, so adding tasks there seems efficient. And Notion in particular markets itself as “all-in-one workspace,” encouraging this use. But wanting one tool for everything and that tool actually handling everything well are different things.

Conclusion

Bear, Notion, and Obsidian are excellent at what they were built for: capturing and organizing information. They’re not built for task management, and forcing them into that role creates friction.

You can make it work. People do, successfully. But you’re trading purpose-built task management features (scheduling, calendar integration, reminders, automation, energy awareness) for the convenience of keeping tasks near notes. Whether that trade-off makes sense depends on your specific workflow and tolerance for manual system maintenance.

For most people, the friction of using note apps for task management exceeds the overhead of using separate tools. A note app for notes and a task manager for tasks means each tool does what it’s designed for. The occasional switching between them is minor compared to the constant friction of manually maintaining task systems in tools not built for that purpose.

If you’re currently using a note app for task management and feel like you’re fighting the tool, you probably are. The solution isn’t building more elaborate systems or finding better templates. It’s using a tool designed for task execution, not information organization.

rivva schedules tasks based on when you can actually do them, integrates natively with your calendar, and uses AI to handle the complexity that note apps make you manage manually. It’s built for execution, not documentation. Tasks get scheduled during your high-energy hours, work fits into your available time, and when disruptions happen, the system adapts automatically.

Try rivva free for 7 days to see how purpose-built task management works compared to note apps forced into that role.