Todoist recently introduced a new feature called Ramble, and at a high level, it does exactly what the name suggests: you talk, you ramble, and it turns what you say into structured to-do items. No perfect phrasing required. No stopping to decide where things go. Just speak naturally and let the system capture tasks, dates, priorities, and projects as you mention them.
What makes Ramble compelling is that it’s clearly designed for how people actually think. Thoughts don’t arrive neatly packaged. They come fast, half-formed, and often all at once. Ramble leans into that reality. You can correct yourself while speaking (“actually, remove that”), keep going, and end the session by saying something like “that’s it,” at which point Todoist files everything for you. It’s built specifically for messy brain dumps, not polished input.
This is especially appealing if talking is easier than typing, or if capturing ideas on the fly is your biggest friction point. The idea is simple but powerful: unstructured first pass, structure later. That alone will feel like a small revelation to a lot of people.
That said, the iPhone experience—especially on older models—has some real downsides. On an iPhone 14, for example, Ramble isn’t accessible from inside the Todoist app at all. The only way to start it is via a Home Screen or Lock Screen widget (or a Shortcut). Once you’re already in the app, there’s no obvious way to start another Ramble session without exiting and going back to the widget. That design choice makes the feature feel oddly hidden and breaks flow.
There’s also an undocumented limit on how long you can ramble. At some point, the session simply ends—without warning. No countdown, no “you’re almost done” message, just a sudden “you’re done” screen. In my case, the last couple of things I said didn’t get captured at all. For a voice-first feature, that lack of notice is jarring, especially when you’re mid-thought.
Overall, Ramble is a great idea with a noticeably rough iOS implementation. When it works, it’s fast, freeing, and genuinely helpful for brain dumps. But the hard stop, lack of warning, and requirement to leave the app to start again introduce friction that feels unnecessary. I’m hopeful Todoist smooths these edges out, because the underlying concept—treating rambling as a feature instead of a failure—is absolutely the right direction.