#1 has been debunked[0], in 2016 of all times. I wonder how many more years we'll have to go before people stop saying willpower is a finite resource.
[0]: https://elemental.medium.com/dont-worry-you-can-t-deplete-yo...
Todo apps are meant for robots
31–40 of 205 posts
Re: Todo apps are meant for robots
#32>3. Sense of accomplishment is important but rare in the digital world. When you mark a task as done in your TODO app, it just hides it. That’s it, no reward, no sense of accomplishment (unless you make your own). I think that’s why some people like Trello or pen-and-paper TODO list: when you get something done, you can see a card moved or a text crossed out. An artifact that proves there was a task here, and now it’…
[from TFA, quoted above]
"When you mark a task as done in your TODO app, it just hides it."
Those are some big assumptions and sweeping generalizations apparently made by the author; for example, my system leverages Roam Research. In Roam, a key bit of UX is to type cmd+enter to prefix any block element (Roam's atomic unit, renderered as an HTML `` list item) with a TODO checkbox, or to toggle its presence and state (TODO|DONE|nil). "DONE" items persist in the UI wherever you created them. I take it further than leaving signs of my progress around -- I tag the more significant ones with `#FTW` ("for the win") to ensure I give myself credit and opportunity to celebrate. When I do my weekly review / planning sessions, the "DONE" items, and the wins, play a role.
Re: Todo apps are meant for robots
#33I've found that "Todo apps" are generally useless for me. The list gets too big, or it has limited support for priorities or dependencies or whatever, so I built my own.
Its philosophy is built around the fact that I'm only ever going to be working on one major, todo-worthy task during a given minute. There's no reason to inundate me with dozens of things I could be working on when I'll only ever be doing one. And most of the time, I'm ambivalent to what I'm doing — if I need to consult a Todo list to remember it, clearly it's not something I'm actively working on, since I don't (yet) need help remembering those.
It's been very effective when I can use it (it needs a few tweaks so it can accept tasks from multiple sources, rather than one singular list). The core workflow is to jot down a task name and a priority in a text-based, line-delimited list file. Then, when you have time to do something, the app parses the list of tasks and selects exactly one at random, weighted by the priority. At that point, you have four options: - Defer the task and roll for a new one (which increments a counter on the task, and does not guarantee that you'll actually get a different task!) - Log some time on it, and optionally roll for a new task (again, not guaranteed to be different) - Mark it done, and roll for a new task - Exit the app
It knows about repeating tasks, start and due dates, dependency trees, and "stints", which are just a log of the time you spent on a particular task. It can filter tasks based on how much time you have to work vs. how long you estimate it will take, whether there are unsatisfied dependencies, etc. There's even an option that tries to assign you tasks that try to keep your "mood" steady. You can optionally annotate tasks with a mood tag (which is just a float), with the idea being that tasks with positive values are pleasant, and ones negative values are unpleasant. If it assigns you a mood-tagged task and you work on it, it adds the value from the tag to a global mood variable, and the default priority scheme tries to keep it around 0. In other words, when you do something pleasant, it builds up a buffer so you can handle something unpleasant. Or, if you do something unpleasant, it tries to reward you by giving you something pleasant to do.
The crown jewel is the LISP-y functional priority language that implements these dynamic tweaks to the priorities. For example, I have some rather daunting tasks that entail a lot of repetitive, monotonous work. Since it knows when I've been working on it, I can script it to de-prioritize those based on how much time I've spent on them lately.
It's technically open source (it's a TUI app written in Go), but I'm hesitant to post a link here since it's not robustly tested, the code isn't pretty, and the README is written in a sarcastic, derisive tone. I'm hoping to rewrite it after I finish up a library I'm working on to make it a bit more generally useful.
Re: Todo apps are meant for robots
#34I use a Todo app every day, starting in the morning. Almost all of my tasks are recurring, well defined, and relatively short. E.g. "triage email inbox every day", "vacuum house every week on Saturday", "upper body workout every second day", "renew passport every 10 years". For me this works well, because: * I don't forget to get things done * I don't have to think about what I need to do, the app shows me a daily li…
What do you use as a daily task list app? I'm using TickTick on Android, but daily tasks is not its strong point.
MS to-do is my go-to. Multi platform and has all the features I need. Open source Linux option is “AO” on GitHub.
Re: Todo apps are meant for robots
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
Different activities and different personalities require different approaches I guess. I for example do not get most of the arguments from the writing. Perhaps because I usually need to deal with few big tasks not millions of small ones. The few important ones are easy to keep in mind, need to manage only the less important externally (and strive to get rid of the marginal ones). Others live differently. I guess the…
Tbh that is the way to go. Be in a position where you have to tackle a few very important tasks, and outsource the little ones to others.
Yes, this. See also the "Eisenhower Matrix".
Re: Todo apps are meant for robots
#36#1 has been debunked[0], in 2016 of all times. I wonder how many more years we'll have to go before people stop saying willpower is a finite resource. [0]: https://elemental.medium.com/dont-worry-you-can-t-deplete-yo...
Tolerance for pointless corporate busywork on the other hand most certainly is a finite resource for most sane persons.
Re: Todo apps are meant for robots
#37I’ve tried a number of apps but I just keep on going back to a pretty notebook and a pen. I might need something different if I had more deadlines, I dunno, I have gone to great effort to generally free my life from those. Habitica is a gamified todo that does well enough to be around for many years. Never worked for me.
I used Habitica for a while, but after my character became super-powerful I had no real motivation to do it all over again.
Re: Todo apps are meant for robots
#38I’ve found the trouble with Todo lists is that you fill them up and then start ignoring them as they are overwhelming. I’ve recently found Beeminder’s GTBee todo list app a good help as it forces you to enter a due date and fines you at least $5 if you don’t complete the task on the due date. That makes me highly motivated to keep checking the list and completing tasks.
wait, what - you'd actually be paying somebody to tell you you've failed...?
Re: Todo apps are meant for robots
#39>3. Sense of accomplishment is important but rare in the digital world. When you mark a task as done in your TODO app, it just hides it. That’s it, no reward, no sense of accomplishment (unless you make your own). I think that’s why some people like Trello or pen-and-paper TODO list: when you get something done, you can see a card moved or a text crossed out. An artifact that proves there was a task here, and now it’…
I find myself using Google docs for todo lists for this reason. I can strikethrough items as I complete them and behold the ever growing list of struck through items.
Re: Todo apps are meant for robots
#40habitrpg / habitica had me going for a while but got sort of complicated
I've recently been using Habitica again after a long hiatus (as this article predicts) and I have to agree. For those who don't know about Habitica, it tries to address the reward component of the problem by gameifying the TODOs; completing tasks rewards you with XP for your character and gold to spend on items, whilst failing to complete daily tasks or succumbing to bad habits damages your character. The problem is, the reward is meaningless unless you're invested in the game. If the RPG doesn't interest you or, like me, you lack the time to make sense of what exactly you're spending your virtual gold on and why, it doesn't feel like a reward at all.
That said, what does give me a real sense of reward is the streak tracker for daily tasks. Seeing how many days in a row I've managed to do a task _is_ rewarding to me, but as soon as that streak is broken, I lose a lot of the motivation to maintain it (which I believe is, again, a problem predicted by this article).