Everyone on your team will get there. They just won't all get there at the same time, or in the same way.
Every person moves through five stages before a new tool becomes part of how they actually work. Which part of those stages each person is in determines what they need from you next. The support that helps someone who doesn't yet understand why you're making this change is different from the support that helps someone who's on board but isn't sure where to start.
By the end of this lesson, you'll have a way to see exactly where each person is – and know how to support them best, in practical terms.
The five stages
Every person on your team needs to move through five stages, in this order:
- Why – understanding why the change is happening
- Want – deciding they want to be part of it
- Know – learning the minimum they need for their real work
- Do – doing their actual work in Todoist, not just knowing how
- Stick – building a habit that holds past the first two weeks
The stages are sequential. A team member who doesn't understand why can't be trained into wanting to. A team member who wants to use it but doesn't know how can't be motivated into doing it. As tempting as it is to jump ahead at times, it’s best to let your teammates progress through their own stages and be there when they need your help.
The diagnostic
None of your teammates will come to you and say "I'm at the Want stage." They'll just move through it in their own way. But every stage that needs help has its tells – and once you know what to look for, each one points you straight to what they need next. Use this to identify where someone is stuck.
| What you're seeing | Stage they're stuck at |
|---|---|
| "They haven't logged in" | Why |
| "They're resistant or skeptical" | Want |
| "They just don't seem to get it" | Know |
| "They understand it but revert to email" | Do |
| "They used it once and then stopped" | Stick |
Think of your team. Which row can you anticipate showing up and for who? That anticipation can help you prepare a proactive plan.
What to do at each stage
Why - "They haven't logged in"
Before you re-send the invite, have a conversation with them first. Ask them how the current way of working is going – what's slipping through the cracks, where they feel like they spend more time chasing updates than doing actual work.
Once you know their frustration, you can let them know how Todoist solves that issue for them. The invite makes sense when it's connected to something that will actually improve their work day.
Lesson 3 will walk you through exactly how to have that conversation.
Want - "They're resistant or skeptical"
Skepticism at this stage is rarely about Todoist specifically – it's about the idea of change itself. Another tool, another learning curve.
The most effective thing you can do is give them a chosen entry point rather than a full system to adopt. Ask them: if they could fix one frustration about how the team works right now, what would it be? Then suggest they use Todoist just for that one problem, nothing else. A small start they've picked for themselves is far more likely to grow into genuine adoption than a complete onboarding they were walked through.
Know - "They just don't seem to get it"
At this stage, Todoist is still abstract to them. It hasn't connected to anything real in their working week yet.
Pick something from their current workload, add it to Todoist together, give it a due date, and ask them to mark it complete when they're done. One completed task in their real work answers their main question: what do I actually do with this?
Encourage them to add a few more impending tasks and check in to see when they’re done.
Do - "They understand it but revert to email"
Knowing how to use a tool and actually doing your work in it are two different things. The old way is automatic. Years of muscle memory don't disappear just because something better is available.
What helps is moving an entire team workflow into Todoist. Not just one person's tasks, but a process the whole team does together. Pick something that currently lives across email and chat: task assignments, weekly status updates, a new project kickoff. Move it to Todoist as a team. When everyone is working in the same place, there's no parallel system to fall back into.
Stick - "They used it once and then stopped"
Habits form when something feels necessary. If Todoist is one of several places work lives, as the new addition, it’s more likely to get dropped before it’s been given a chance.
Two things make it stick. First, lead from the top: assign recurring team tasks through Todoist so the team can see this is the real system, not an experiment they can step back from unnoticed. Second, introduce Reporting. Show the team how you'll use it to review workload and make sure no one is carrying more than their share. When Todoist is where work gets assigned and where progress gets reviewed, it becomes load-bearing – and load-bearing things stick.
Before you move on: pick one person on your team – the one you're most unsure about. Find their row in the diagnostic. That's where you start with them.
In the next lesson, you'll learn why the reason you love Todoist is almost never the reason your team will – and how to find the thing that actually means something to each person.