Category Archives: Research and Academia

An Insider Look at One’s Own Publications: Research Trajectories, Long-Term Impact and Mentorship

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The great tragedy of science – the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact.

Thomas Huxley

Reaching 300 peer-reviewed manuscripts (not counting peer-reviewed conference proceeding manuscripts) is a symbolic milestone in any academic career. With the recent publication of “Retrospective evaluation of high-dose-rate brachytherapy multicriteria planning using physical dose versus radiobiological criteria for prostate cancer” in Nature Scientific Reports, and after 30+ years of publishing, I decided to take a data-driven, deep-dive look at my own research portfolio.

My very first peer-reviewed manuscript was published in 1992, for which I was a co-author. My first first-authored peer-reviewed manuscript was published in Nuclear Physics A in 1994, two years later. The very first Medical Physics paper was published in 1999 while in a postdoctoral fellowship position in Berkeley for a study linked to cross-section measurements of neutron production in the context boron-neutron capture therapy. The 100th publication was in 2008 by Bazalova et al. (and is one the most cited manuscripts I collaborated on, with close to 300 citations at this time). The 200th peer-reviewed published manuscript was in 2017 by Miksys et al. has part of a collaboration with Carleton University.

Before turning to those analyses, it is worth situating this body of work within a broader, field-normalized publication and citation context. Since 2018, I have been listed among the top 2% most-cited researchers worldwide in my scientific field, based on the standardized bibliometric database developed by Ioannidis et al. (PLoS Biology, 2019). This classification, which is field-specific and based on composite citation indicators, has remained valid through successive updates up to 2025. In the 2025 release, my profile additionally entered the career-long (lifetime) top-2% category, alongside continued inclusion in the single-year top-2% cohort. Finally, according to OpenAlex data, my field (sub-field) weighted citation index (FWCI) is well above the world average.

The above external benchmarks provide an independent validation that the citation patterns discussed below are not merely internally consistent, but also competitive at the international level within my discipline.

The purpose of the present analysis is therefore not to establish rank, but to understand the mechanisms underlying sustained impact: how citations accumulate over time, how impact is distributed across publications, and how recent contributions compare to earlier work.

Raw publication and citations data

Data where extracted using Publish or Perish (see reference at the end of this post) software with Google Scholar as its source. All figures and analyses presented here were generated using Python. 

The intent is not boosting (many researchers have much better publication, citation and overall impact records than me), but understanding how long-term research programs evolve, accumulate influence, and remain relevant (at least I think so) over time.

Figures 1 and 2 above display the number of peer-reviewed manuscripts published per year (left), starting in 1992, and the number of citations every year (right) for the same time span. Note that I have excluded conference proceedings, published conference abstracts, book chapters, and patents from Figure 1 (even though these tend to have low citation counts if any). 

These figures illustrate three key periods in a scientific career. 

1992–2000 — First step in research: PhD and postdoctoral phase

• low but increasing productivity,

• typical early-career trajectory.

~2000–2013 — Expansion phase

• establishing and growing one research program,

• steady rise culminating around 2012,

• reflects peak trainee throughput and collaborative projects.

~2014–present — Mature mentoring regime

• high mentorship intensity with relatively stable productivity, 

• sustained funding environment,

• coherent long-term research themes,

 • strong citation accumulation continues despite stable output.

Total citations over time: why quadratic growth is expected

Figure 3 below shows the total cumulative number of citations per year from 1992 to 2025, together with a quadratic fit and its 95% prediction interval.

The most salient feature is the smooth quadratic increase in cumulative citations. Importantly, this behaviour does not imply accelerating impact per paper. Instead, it reflects a simple and well-understood cumulative mechanism:

• the cumulative number of publications grows approximately linearly with time,

• each paper continues to accrue citations year after year,

• older papers remain active contributors to the citation pool.

Mathematically, when a linearly growing publication base is integrated over time under roughly constant per-paper citation rates, the result is a quadratic growth law. The quadratic fit therefore has a mechanistic interpretation in which citation behaviour per paper has remained stable (on average), but the accumulation of work drives the curve.

Citation distributions: heterogeneity with structure

Aggregate trends can obscure important structure. To examine this, the citation distribution of individual manuscripts (≥1992) was analyzed using unbinned data and modeled in log–log space as shown in Figure 4 (below).

The obtained distribution is best described by a smooth double-Pareto model, characterized by:

• a low-citation (low-visibility, early-career, or new entries) regime, where scaling is weak or absent,

• a high-citation regime following a genuine power law with a slope above 2 (tail of the distribution),

• a smooth crossover at approximately 45 citations.

Importantly, the heavy-tailed component is not dominated by a single early contribution; it is populated repeatedly across the career span, indicating selective but sustained high impact. Double-Pareto distributions are observed across economics, urban systems, network science, and natural phenomena — preferential growth, entry of new contributors, selection, and saturation interact. Thus, the observed citation patterns can be explained within a broader class of adaptive systems. 

Moreover, the presence of a smooth crossover (rather than a sharp break) can be interpreted (I think) as evidence of healthy system evolution, where growth is neither unconstrained nor artificially capped. The observed citation distribution is somewhat related to Lotka’s Law, one of the earliest empirical laws of bibliometrics. While Lotka described the power-law distribution of scientific productivity across authors, the present analysis examines the problem of impact across papers with time for a single authors.

h-index, m-index, and temporal consistency

At present, looking at data from Google Scholar, the following can be extracted:

• h-index = 62

• career m-index ≈ 1.8 (first peer-reviewed publication: 34 years ago)

• 5-year m-index ≈ 3, computed using only papers published in the last five years

An m-index close to 2 over more than three decades is well above the conventional benchmark (m ≈ 1) associated with sustained impact. More strikingly, the recent 5-year m-index exceeds the career average, demonstrating that newer publications are entering the h-core at least as fast as the earlier work: they are quite relevant to the field!

This pattern directly contradicts the late-career scenario in which citation metrics are driven primarily by legacy papers. Instead, it points to continued intellectual leadership and contemporary relevance. Layman (i.e. my) interpretation: I am not ready to retire yet; a few good ideas remain in this brain of mine 😉

Projection: what happens if nothing changes?

Using the quadratic and double Pareto models fitted to the 1992–2025 data, and assuming:

• stable publication rates,

• stable citation behaviour per paper,

• no change in the double-Pareto behaviour.

The expected total citation counts 10 years from now (2035) would be approximately 26,000 citations from about 420 manuscripts and an h-index close to or slightly above 80.

This projection does not rely on acceleration, step changes, or exceptional future events. It is the direct consequence of maintaining the same structural dynamics observed over the past decades. Alternatively, departure from this behaviour might signal major changes, either decrease or increase, in productivity. Will see …

What can—and cannot—be concluded

Taken together, the analyses support several, I would say robust conclusions:

• Citation growth is structurally cumulative, not speculative.

• Impact is heterogeneous but reproducible, with a persistent high-impact tail, i.e. continued entry of new work into the high-impact regime.

• Recent publications are at least as influential as earlier ones.

• Independent bibliometric indicators — time series, distributional models, and index-based metrics — are mutually consistent.

Equally important are the conclusions that cannot be drawn:

• There is no evidence of exponential runaway growth.

• No reliance on a small number of outlier papers – in fact, a large fraction of the published manuscripts have 10 or more citations (Google Scholar !10 index),

• No indication of declining relevance.

Not the finish line…yet!

From a bibliometrics standpoint, this combination — long-term stability coupled with ongoing contemporary strong performance — is both refreshing to the researcher I am and more informative than any single metric. What is perhaps less visible in bibliometric data, but no less important (I would even contend even more important), is how this body of work was produced.

During the first decade of my academic career, I was most often the first author or co-author on peer-reviewed manuscripts, reflecting a learning phase (under supervision!), establishing research directions, methods, and collaborations. Over the last two decades, this authorship pattern shifted completely. Today, approximately 78% of the manuscripts list trainees as first authors, spanning more than 200 individuals, from undergraduate researchers to postdoctoral fellows.

This transition is not incidental. It reflects a transition to independent researcher status and becoming an active supervisor and mentor. It also reflects on the strength and capacity of those themes to generate new questions, ideas, and solutions in the hands of emerging, bright young scientists. The sustained citation impact observed across the portfolio is therefore not driven by a single individual, but by the creativity, independence, and intellectual ownership of successive generations of trainees.

Seen from this perspective, this 300th peer-reviewed manuscript does not sit at the top of a personal achievement pyramid. It rests on a collective effort, built over time, in which mentoring, training, and scientific curiosity are inseparable from research output itself.  I have also always been incredibly blessed to have had supervisors and mentors that were wonderful human beings. They created environments that were conducive to open discussion. I learned early on that having and sharing a good idea is not dependent on your level as a trainee, and that level should not prevent you from expressing yourself. They further granted me autonomy in my research activities, allowing me to explore new techniques, approaches, and ideas. However, they also provided me with the necessary supervision to steer the project back on track when things veered off course; I was encouraged to make mistakes, and it was perfectly acceptable. 

Since then, I’ve been trying to replicate this approach.  I always tell trainees that coming to the lab and conducting research should be enjoyable.  It’s not always easy, and setbacks happen, but overall, the experience should be positive.

Thus, I will be eternally grateful to all the supervisors, mentors, colleagues, collaborators, but most of all the trainees that have joined (or will join) me in the roller-coaster adventure that is scientific research. It was, it is, and I hope, it will remain fun.

Reference

Ioannidis JPA, Baas J, Klavans R, Boyack KW. A standardized citation metrics author database annotated for scientific field. PLoS Biology. 2019;17(8):e3000384. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3000384

2025 update of the above manuscript accessible via DOI: 10.17632/btchxktzyw.8  (all data accessible, including the previous versions up to the first publication)

Harzing, A.W. (2007) Publish or Perish, available from https://harzing.com/resources/publish-or-perish

My Google Scholar page: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=X4J8eVUAAAAJ&hl=fr

Opportunités MSc-PhD CAMPEP en Physique Médicale

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Multiples ouvertures pour des projets de 2e (maitrise) et 3e cycle (PhD) portant sur des applications de concepts de physique, de génie et des méthodes numériques à la médecine dans le cadre de notre programme CAMPEP en physique médicale. Venez vous joindre à une équipe inclusive et diverse de plus de 25 personnes étudiantes et stagiaires postdoctoraux, et 24 physicien.ne.s médicaux. Vous aurez accès à de multiples plateformes de hautes technologies modernes (incluant un IRM-Linac), un milieu dynamique et interdisciplinaire avec de nombreuses occasions de présentations, collaborations et réseautage au niveau local, national et international. Une grande latitude vous sera accordée pour développer diverses compétences professionnelles selon vos objectifs.

Nous recherchons des personnes qui ont complété un diplôme de 1er cycle universitaire en physique ou génie physique, ayant une moyenne minimum de B ou l’équivalent. De plus, les qualités suivantes seront considérées comme des atouts :

  • Un intérêt démontré pour la science expérimentale ou la science numérique.
  • Une maîtrise des outils d’analyse numérique (Python, C/C++, etc.).
  • Un bon niveau d’autonomie.
  • Le désir de travailler dans un environnement multidisciplinaire.

Pour postuler, remplir ce formulaire en ligne https://forms.office.com/r/GHek4JTt8G : vous y déposerez un seul fichier PDF incluant dans l’ordre : 1) une lettre de motivation expliquant votre parcours avec les défis que vous avez relevés et vos intérêts de recherche (type de projet, sujets, etc.), 2) un CV et 3) tous vos relevés de notes de niveau universitaire. Pour questions : luc[dot]beaulieu@phy[dot]ulaval[dot]ca. Nous accepterons les candidatures jusqu’au 18 octobre 2024.

*Pour les personnes éligibles désirant postuler aux concours de bourses du CRSNG et FRQ de l’automne, il nous fera plaisir de vous parrainer. Dans ce cas, s.v.p. contactez-nous directement le plus rapidement possible et avant le 24 septembre (pour respecter les limites des organismes).

** Note that our CAMPEP graduate program is a French speaking program. While the research section can be conducted in English, teaching and interaction with the clinical staff are conducted in French and the willingness to acquire a basic proficiency in French is mandatory.

Annonce MSc-PhD Fr 2025Download

Freakonomics Podcast and Mr. Feynman

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“I would rather have questions that can’t be answered than answers that can’t be questioned.”

― Richard Feynman

I recently discovered a new podcast called Freakonomics, which had an interesting question as title: Why Is There So Much Fraud in Academia?

But soon after moved on to three extremely interesting episodes called the Curious (part 1), the Brillant (part 2) and the Vanishing (part 3) Mr. Feynman. Even if you read the books, or just because you saw this guy playing bongo in the movie Oppenheimer, these provide an interesting look into Feynman’s life as seen by friends and his daughter.

Time tracking over an 18 months period: what was learned

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“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.” 

– Steve Jobs

The COVID pandemic made many of us realize that we were spending a lot of time on things that brought very little in terms of quality of life or productivity. Transit time was a clear example, with many of us spending hours daily in traffic. This time suddenly became available, and we loved it. We discovered that tasks we had been putting off became “easy,” or at least easier to tackle. For me, the second item I was trying to get a handle on was the time spent on emails.

After listening to the Time and Attention podcast by Chris Bailey, I decided to try Timeular, which combines a physical device with software. The device is an eight-sided tracker that detects which face it is resting on. In the software, each face is associated with an activity. Tracking stops when the tracker is placed on its holder, though you can also manually enter time in the software.

After using it for more than 18 months, I wish it had 10 or 12 faces, as there are things I would like to track in finer detail (and I do not want to buy a second tracker). However, it is sufficient for a broad overview in an automated fashion.

I set up the tracker with the following categories:

  • Review/Write: This includes all reviews of trainees’ manuscripts, master’s and PhD theses, as well as my own writing. I would prefer to have writing as separate categories.
  • Research, Planning and Mentoring: I combine these since much of the mentoring is linked to planning research projects, experiments, data taking, and analysis with trainees.
  • Teaching: This encompasses formal undergraduate and graduate teaching activities, including preparation, in-class time, and grading.
  • Email!
  • Maintenance: This primarily involves my weekly review and a few related tasks, such as annual reviews, all ensuring that my system works and is always up to date.
  • Administrative Duties: This includes institution committees, CAMPEP program-related activities, etc.
  • Scientific Meetings and Conferences, self-explanatory.
  • Break, lunch time and other distraction that arise during the working hours.

Note that I do not track my vacation time, transit time (though perhaps I should!), jogging/training time, screen time outside of work, social media time, etc. Timeular now has (in beta) an automatic tracking feature for the applications you use, in addition to the tracker itself. In the Apple ecosystem, Screen Time tracking across all your devices is also available.

In 2023, the first full calendar year I recorded, I logged over 1900 hours despite being on strike for several weeks and taking my full vacation allotment (23 days vacation + 12 days spread out through the years). It was an excellent year, with significant achievements including graduating 15 trainees, contributing to committees for 6 more, and publishing 14 manuscripts, one of them being an international report and another a first-in men clinical trial for a novel technology project I have been involved with since 2011.

For those who wonder about break/lunch, only 11% of these hours were in that category. This is on the low side for a creative field such as scientific research. Note that if you take a 5-minute break every hour, 1 hour for lunch and work 8 hours, this results in a 580-minute day, with 100 minutes (17%) being break/lunch time. According to one extensive time-tracking study, the top 10% most productive people take even more break with a 17-minute break for every 52 minutes of work.

Interestingly, teaching was only my fourth most time-consuming activity. This includes time spent in class as well as preparation and grading. This is because during the summer semester, when there is no formal teaching, I dedicate 100% of my time to other activities, primarily research. In the Fall and Winter semesters, the time dedicated to teaching increases significantly.

In 2023, I spent 6% of my time on emails, totalling 115 hours. Think about it, this is close to 3 weeks per year!  When I started time tracking, my average was nearly twice that. I very quickly changed my email habits by:

  • Avoiding emails in the evening (I really try to stick to this as much as possible).
  • Using a VIP list for urgent emails.
  • Reducing the frequency of checking my email during the day.
  • Avoiding emails on weekends.

Within a few weeks, my average email time reduced to an average of 34 minutes during workdays. This includes an end-of-day inbox cleanup, when quickly reply to things that take less then 2 min and transform into a task anything that needs more serious attention or work. I do a deeper cleanup of all of my inboxes, including e-mail, during my weekly Maintenance session. I further notice that my average tracking entry length when up from 38 min to 61 min, leading to better use of larger chunk of time during the day.

I schedule a Maintenance event in my agenda every Friday afternoon for 90 min. This is were I review all of my inboxes, get everything sorted in my task manager and document manager, review ongoing projects, Waiting For tasks, backburner projects, …,  review the previous week and plan the upcoming week. Some weeks, I need less than 90 min and others I will take a full 2h. I am also planning 1.5 days before the Holidays break for a full review and cleanup of all of my completed projects (archiving documents and e-mails associated with those projects as needed) and set the stage (high altitude planning) for the upcoming year. Overall, this account of 5% of my time (110h last year) but this is an investment and the return on that investment pays for itself.

In 2023, mentoring, research planning, and reviewing documents took up the largest share of my time at 37%. Including time spent at scientific conferences, this accounts for nearly 50% of my time in direct service to research activities.  I suspect that this will and should be true every year. This is also quite interesting as for a long time, I held a position where I was 50% clinical medical physicist and 50% research physicist. Moving to a university position, did not change the amount of time dedicated to research (and related activities) in the end…

Administrative tasks represented about 16% (or 307h) of my time in 2023. Some of these are built-in my job e.g. the direction of our CAMPEP program, our department faculty meetings and so on. 

Comparing the Fall semesters of 2022 and 2023, I noticed a pattern. September (start of the school year for us in Canada) and November are particularly busy, with a higher workload due to grant proposals, recommendation letters, and administrative tasks. December is also intense due to year-end activities.

The number of hours/month logged in these 4-month periods is:

1- Higher on average than the rest of the year. Furthermore, September and November have the highest time logged in both years. The monthly average for the other months is around 153h/month (for 2023, the only full year I have). 

2- September (entrance, grants, letters, …) and November (everyone want their things done before the holidays and usually little happen past December 20th or 21st on the admin side, just the professors grading their finals) require a higher output, usually well above our work contract (on average this is always true, but still much higher)

3- October 2022 was low but there was also mortality on the family. In December, considering that I am out for a full weeks, it seems a lot had to be done in a short amount of time and this is true for both 2022 and 2023.

4- Notice how more hours logged in 2023 relative to 2022: record number of thesis to review and PhD thesis defence in addition to the normal workload!

In conclusion, time logging offers valuable perspective. It has helped me manage my email time more efficiently and recognize the actual hours spent “truly” working. As a creative professional, tracking time reveals that one might work fewer hours than perceived, given the brain’s limitations in sustaining concentration on creative tasks for extended periods. Since the pandemic, I have been trying to reduce my work week by concentrating on what I consider key tasks/projects, folding in the need for breaks. I have clearly failed in that regards for the Fall of 2023, but it was also an extremely satisfying four months 

Looking back at our 2023 Medical Physics Program

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“In looking back, I see nothing to regret and little to correct.” 
John C. Calhoun

2023 was a spectacular year for our CAMPEP medical physics graduate program. We have graduated a record number of 13 students, 4 PhD and 9 masters (a few photos of PhD thesis defenses and master colloquium are given below). The majority in both categories were women, by the way. 

From 2011, the first year of accreditation, to 2018, only two out of 16 PhD graduates were women while master graduates were about 50-50. In the last 5 years, 8 out of 11 PhD graduates were women.  This year, the radiation physics graduate course was the most diverse ever with students from 6 countries and, for two of the last three years, a majority of women (cf. top right photo)!

This is interesting on many fronts. First, as a program sitting in the Faculty of Sciences and Engineering (we are part of the physics and physics engineering department), Medical Physics standout for being a diverse, inclusive and welcoming environment for graduate students. At the same time, it is recognized to be a tougher program than a regular physics master program due to its enhanced course curriculum combined to the same research requirement. Second, Quebec City is still not a major destination for immigration (while it is for tourisms) and immigration makes for only 7-8% of its population (will see the progression when we have access to the most recent statistics): harsh winter but mainly language (French) is a major barrier for many. So our natural catch basin, at least at the undergraduate level, from the Eastern Quebec is rather quite homogeneous to start with. 

I have been extremely happy by our out-of-country students’ ability to learn French quickly and being able to follow graduate courses and interact with our RadOnc department staff in French within their first year. Some have presented their master colloquium in French and even wrote their thesis in French!

Kudos to all of the Faculty (most appear on the photo in the bottom left) who contributed to this success.

Figure: Thesis defense and master colloquium (upper left quadrant), Fall 2023 radiation physics course (upper right quadrant), our university hospital medical physics teams and Faculty as of Summer 2023 (incomplete – lower left quadrant) and our trainees contingent from undergraduate students to postdoctoral fellows, Spring 2023 (lower right quadrant).

A Comparative Analysis of Cultured Code Things and Apple Reminders

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Let’s start with a small disclosure: I have been a user of Things since version 0.7b, except for a short period of frustration with version 2 that sent me toward OmniFocus. However, hope was up with version 3 but did not move back until a truly usable version 3 became available. In the last 15+ years, I have also tried a few others, in particular Wunderlist (now MS To Do) that I recommended for years to students (as it was full-featured, free and cross platform) and ToDoist. 

Now, the latest version Reminders (7.0) has introduced a number of interesting features that makes Reminders an attractive task manager, at least enough to look at seriously. 

A reminder (no pun intended), Things 3 follows closely the GTD framework and have an organization structure that goes from higher altitudes containers to day-to-day doing starting with Areas, followed by Projects, … down to Tasks and Lists (sub-tasks). This can be done in Reminders but you have to decide if you can live with Lists as project holders OR use tasks as a project holders and sub-tasks for actual to do items. Here is a breakdown of the hierarchy for the two apps.

Things (succinctly): Areas (folder of Projects) -> Projects -> Headers (category dividers within a project)-> Tasks -> lists (sub-tasks). 

  • In Things only projects and tasks can have notes and URL. 
  • Projects, tasks and subtasks can be marked as completed. 
  • Projects and tasks can be made to repeat.
  • A task can very easily be converted to a project (while conserving its notes, URL and tags). Headers can also be converted to projects.
  • You can assign due date and reminder dates to projects and tasks. I do assigned due date to projects that have a well-defined ending but a tend to refrain to assign them to tasks. I do use reminders for key tasks, though.
  • You can search through all tasks by words but also sort by tag or a combination of tags.
  • Integration of calendar events in your Today list as well as the Upcoming list. This is extremely useful when planning ahead!
Things 3 default lists
Reminders 7.0 mix of default and smart (those with small gears) lists

Reminders (in a bit more details): Group (folder of Lists) -> Lists -> Sections -> Tasks -> Sub tasks. 

  • Only tasks and sub-tasks can have notes and URL.  In Reminders, you can also directly attach a photo, a file or scan a document. This is something still impossible to Things.
  • Only tasks and subtasks can be marked as completed. 
  • If a List is used to house a project, then you will need a “list info” task that can include notes and URL at the top if you want some context to your project. But such a task cannot sit at the very top of a List if Sections are used.  
  • Tasks and sub-tasks can be made to repeat.
  • A Completed Group could be created to house completed lists if lists are used as project containers. 
  • A task or a section cannot be converted to a list (or section to a task) from any menu options. 
  • You can assign a date (and a time), and also an early reminder date/time, a location reminder and even a reminder with using Message to tasks and subtasks.
  • Even better, you can enter a task in natural language and Reminders will recognize things like dates (either as specific dates or concepts like tomorrow, next week…) and so on automatically.
  • You can search through all tasks. 
  • You can create customizable Smart Lists based on **multiple conditions**, including tags, flag, dates, location …! This allows you to create key Lists like Anytime (to mimic Things) or the GTD list Waiting For, which still does not exist in Things (but you can filter with a “Waiting” tag). It also means that you can have tasks (and sub tasks) displayed in multiple lists! You can also pin any list at the top to customize you app (it will follow across all of your Apple devices).
  • Did I say location-based reminders (!) as well as reminders when writing (via Apple Messages app) to someone. In Things, the only way to do this is to set-up a personal automation in Shortcut and go over this process for each location. Kudos to Apple for their implementation in Reminders.
  • Allows for Kanban style (!) handling of tasks with the new column view. This is extremely useful for many things including what I call lists of never-ending tasks/projects (e.g. reading list, reviewing list, …) using Section as topics, tasks as projects and sub-tasks as tasks. Years ago, I developed something similar to extract information from Things SQLite database and this was pushed even further into KanbanView available in the Apple Store. Again, kudos to Apple for having this option in Reminders.
Column (Kanban) view of a List with Sections in Reminders
Things 3 Project with Headers

To learn a bit more have a look at this wonderful YouTube video by Peter Akkies that I discovered as I was ready to post: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nywKyvoLNPY

Clearly, this latest version of Reminders has a very interesting set of features, many beyond Things current options. But it also has a few interface quirks. 

  • The fact that it is not possible to easily transform a task to a project (List in Apple nomenclature) is one of them. 
  • Not being able to have URL and descriptive text for a List if used as Project holder is also a major drawback. 
  • When looking at tasks that can be done at anytime (i.e. Anytime List), in Things you see only the first task under a given project (with an option to see the rest). This really helps focusing when it is time to select what you will be working on today. In Reminders, you either have to collapse everything, and only see the project title, and expand and see everything. So if you have a large number of tasks and projects, this becomes extremely crowded and, let say, unproductive. 
  • Finally, not being able to check as completed a List makes the whole hierarchy less logical to use than Things or OmniFocus.

I must say that GUI-wise and ease of use, Things remains the best task manager out there. It has an extremely clean and sleek interface, making it very easy and fun to use (and look at). As a bonus, it is still available as pay once use “eternally” i.e. not a subscription model…at least for now (and new major versions happen only once every 5-6 years!).

In conclusion, if you have an Apple device, I think that you do not have any reason to pay for a task manager anymore. You already have everything you need available on your device out of the box. It offers enough features, even for the most demanding GTD followers, so it should easily satisfy the vast majority of users.