To-do app Astrid lets you pay other people to do the tasks you want to avoid

When news of an update to a to-do list app hits our tips email address, it had better offer something different – after all, how much innovation can a checklist of tasks really offer? Thankfully, the latest Android version of Astrid offers a fresh idea – outsourcing the jobs you don’t want to do.

The app has harnessed the recently-launched TaskRabbit API to provide an easy way of finding someone else who wants to pick up your slack. TaskRabbit, which we’ve previously looked at in depth, is a service that allows users to publish jobs (‘do my supermarket shopping’, ‘mow my lawn’, and the like) and find people willing to do them. Astrid lets you push tasks from your to-do lists straight to TaskRabbit. Neat!

The feature comes as part of a wider update that brings in a redesign and support for Android tablets.

While the iOS and Web-based versions of the app haven’t been updated with the outsourcing feature as yet, it’s an interesting potential stream of revenue for Astrid. Users can also now search Amazon for products related to their tasks, as another way of bringing affiliate money into the San Francisco startup’s coffers.

While Astrid is one just one player in a market that includes the likes of Remember The Milk and Wunderlist, the ability to push that annoying bathroom cleaning session onto someone else in return for money certainly makes is worth a try for busy and lazy people alike.

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➤ Astrid for Android