When the news had sunk in that Wunderlist would be ‘retired’ (like the much-loved Sunrise) by Microsoft, I initially started to ‘play the field’ again, and experimented with alternative Apps.

I guess I’m not a Microsoft person – a dozen years ago I switched to Macs.

And a couple of years back I discovered the joy of Chromebooks. I admire the company for its success, and resurgence, but I simply didn’t think a Microsoft To Do App would tick enough boxes.

Alas the experimentation didn’t lead me to any clear-cut alternative. Sure, some of the options were good in some ways, but I couldn’t commit my task planning to a curate’s egg. However, using other Apps did make me aware that Wunderlist had somewhat stagnated and that there were many feature gaps. Some of them, of course, I’d become aware of as a user, and decided to ignore, just as we all accept/ignore our partners’ foibles.

I don’t recall precisely when, but at some point in the summer of 2018 the lack of a viable replacement led to the conception of an alternative, I decided that we would develop one. I spent many long days and evenings in my Isle of Wight office (pictured above) sketching ideas on A2 jotter pads and post-its. To my mind the ‘Wunderlist replacement’ had to deliver on the following:

• 90% of Wunderlist features (hey, the ones I depended on!)
• All of the things I wished Wunderlist had developed, and which I worked around
• My personal innovation, the ‘Today’ view – more about that in a later blog
• Connectivity. I wanted it to connect to Basecamp, Slack, and other modern business tools. But also to home-hunting websites and recipe websites – in short it had to become the organising hub for my life

And so the journey began. Around 9 months later, my baby was delivered, screaming and kicking, to the App Store.

Audacity was conceived on the Isle of Wight, but is destined to be a citizen of the world.