Personal Assistant · Nym and Goblin Tools Magic ToDo

Is Nym or Goblin Tools better when you have 15 minutes and two loose ends?

You have a dentist appointment to book, a parcel to return, and 15 minutes. Wren, the Nym on the Personal Assistant page, tells you which to do first and writes the phone call for you. In Goblin Tools’ Magic ToDo, you can break each task into smaller steps. That comparison comes from its documentation, which we reviewed on 19 September 2026. We haven’t tested the tool ourselves.

We’d pick Nym here, and the reason is small: the hard part was the phone call, not the list, and Wren wrote it. Goblin Tools is what we’d open when a single task feels too big, because it chops it into steps in seconds and can send them to Todoist, free. Nym is for when you have two things to do and no idea which comes first, plus a tracker it can build to hold what’s left until it’s done.

The same request to both

“I have a dentist appointment to book, a parcel to return, and 15 minutes. What do I do first?”

What Wren did with it

On the Personal Assistant page, you can read Wren’s answer to this request. It starts by telling you which task to do first and why. Dentist first, because “the slot depends on their availability”. Then package and label the parcel. Return it only “if it’s already ready and the drop-off is convenient; otherwise make that the next outing”. Obvious once you read it. We still wouldn’t have done it in that order.

Then it wrote the call, the bit we’d have put off. It’s a template with brackets, not a recording; you still have to say it. You give your name and say if you’re a new patient, then ask for a routine check-up or name the problem. The line that matters: “Do you have anything available on [preferred days or times]?” Before hanging up you get them to confirm the date, time, location and anything to bring or complete, and you leave your number. And if you’re calling about pain, swelling or anything urgent, say so in the first sentence. We hadn’t thought of that last one.

What Goblin Tools does with it

Steps, not decisions. Magic ToDo takes one task at a time. Type “book a dentist appointment”, choose a spiciness from one to five peppers, and press the wand: the tool breaks it into steps, and the spicier the setting, the more steps it attempts. Add “return the parcel” as a second item and break that down too. Each step can get a time estimate from the Estimator, which the site itself calls a rough guess; We like a tool that says that about itself. The list exports to Todoist, iCal, Markdown, Asana, Notion and TickTick, with iCal events sized to the estimate at a 15-minute minimum.

It won’t tell you which of the two to do first, and it doesn’t write the call, which for this particular request is most of the work, but what it does it does instantly, free, with no account, and we can see why people like it. The pepper slider is a good idea.

Where Nym and Goblin Tools differ

The two side by side

Nym and Goblin Tools Magic ToDo from their own pages
Detail	Nym	Goblin Tools Magic ToDo
Input	The situation, in a sentence: two tasks and 15 minutes	One task per line, plus a one-to-five pepper for how hard it feels
Output	An order, a reason, a plan that fits the time, a phone script	Steps under each task; more steps at higher spiciness
Time	Fitted to the minutes you named	Per-step estimates on request, described as guesswork; iCal events at a 15-minute minimum
Keeps the list	A private tracker app built around your loose ends, kept between visits; your Nym can tick items off	Free on the site; sync, history, templates and sharing on Pro
Exports to	Email or text from your Nym	Todoist, iCal, Markdown, Asana, Notion, Amazing Marvin, TickTick, share link
Cost	Free: $5 in credits a month. Plus: $20 a month	Website free; Pro $3 a month (€3, £3); iOS app $1.99 once

When to pick Goblin Tools Magic ToDo instead

Goblin Tools is the better choice when a task feels too big and you want it cut into small steps right now, free, with no account and no conversation. Not needing an account is an advantage, full stop, and the export matters if you already live in Todoist or Notion. Nym exports nothing to Todoist; it emails or texts you instead, which is worse if Todoist is where you live.

By hand

By hand: two tasks on a card, nothing else. Put the one that depends on someone else first, and next to it write the reply that lets you cross it off. That’s Wren’s rule too; you just don’t get the script.

Next step

Read Wren’s full answer on the Personal Assistant page, then try the task breakdown tool on this site with a task of your own.

Try the task breakdown tool · Explore Personal Assistant

Sources

Reviewed 2026-09-19. Read Wren’s full answer on the Personal Assistant page and check Nym pricing.