Written by Jackson Pearce Student engineer and creator of TalonTodo
An assignment tracker is a list of the work a class actually assigns: the essay, the problem set, the reading, the exam. A general to-do list can hold those items. It does not know which class they belong to, or that a group project has more than one person on it.
I built TalonTodo for that list. The free plan includes 10 active classes, reminders, and no cutoff on the tasks you have already finished. You can create a free account and put this week's work in before you decide whether the rest of the app is useful.
What belongs on the list
Homework and problem sets. Essay deadlines, including draft dates if you split the paper into stages. Readings for a seminar. Exams, with the date and a reminder ahead of the day. Group-project milestones, which are easy to lose because they sit on someone else's slide deck until the week they are due.
Each item needs a class and a due date. Without the class, Friday is just a pile. Without the date, the pile never sorts itself.
Free plans, side by side
Limits below were checked on 10 October 2026 against official pages, or against TalonTodo's own free plan. A product that does not publish a limit is left out of that row.
| Limit | TalonTodo free | Todoist Beginner | Asana Personal |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price | $0 | $0 | $0 |
| Classes or projects | 10 active classes | 5 personal projects | Unlimited projects |
| People sharing the work | No member cap | 5 people per project | 2 users |
| Reminders | Included | Automatic reminders when a task has a date and time. Custom reminders are paid. | Included with the plan's activity log |
| Finished work | No cutoff | 7 days of activity history | Activity log included |
Sources: Todoist pricing, Todoist usage limits, Asana Personal. TalonTodo's class cap is the free-tier check in the app: the tenth active class is allowed, and another one is not.
Todoist is a strong task list. It is not organized as classes, and the free history window is a week. Asana Personal is built for a pair of people, which is tight for a class group. Notion's Free plan is $0, with a 1,000-block cap once a workspace has two or more members. That is a notes limit, not an assignment limit, so it is a poor fit when the job is "what is due."
How to set the list up in an afternoon
- Add each class you are taking, up to the 10 on the free plan.
- Enter the work you already know about, including exams that are weeks away.
- Turn on reminders. TalonTodo sends the 1-hour and 1-day windows from your reminder settings, on the free plan.
- For anything you share, use a group instead of forwarding a screenshot of your list.
If you also want a comparison of planner apps, read The Best Free Student Planner Apps in 2026. If the list you are leaving is Todoist, read A Todoist Alternative Built for Students.
About the author Jackson Pearce is a student engineer and the creator of TalonTodo, a productivity app designed to help students manage projects, deadlines, and daily tasks more effectively.