My productivity app for the past 12 years has been a single .txt file (2020)

The author makes some points about the benefits of doing this, but I really think he's making things more difficult for himself. Even a basic note-taking app would provide a much larger number of features and be equally easy to use. It's quirky idea but it's really not that practical.

I used a plain text file for about 5-6 years before finding org-mode in 2009. Of course, I technically still use a plain text file since that's what Org uses, just with some extra features that make organizing things specific to productivity easier.

That said, I'm not sure I'd exclusively use a plain text file or even Org if I had to break my day down into as low as 15 minute chunks like this guy. I find the text-based approach to work best for longer-term planning/strategizing and just keeping yourself from forgetting stuff over the course of days. It also works better if you're already on your computer and using your text editor all day and/or SSH-ing into a box with the file. If I need to remember to make it to 4 meetings today at very specific times, something that pushes notifications and upcoming meeting warnings might accommodate that better.

I've had meeting-heavy jobs, and split off the meeting management into Outlook (or similar) with good results. Useful info that flows out of meetings can still go into your notes to be organized later though. Then I make my GTD list "task-centric", meaning that it focuses on getting discrete activities started and completed, with less focus on times/dates. That requires some level of freedom to manage your own time though, so it's not for everyone.

This was one of the few text-based philosophies that helped me settle with a "mostly" plain-text lifestyle.

It is not about the tools that gives you all the features but the freedom to be free of tools and just pick up the raw things right away anywhere, anytime, even if it requires more learning in the beginning.

After a while, the habits, the processes just become muscle memory. One may indeed use a tool on the top when one is comfortable with how the plain text is organized.

Mine is a notebook and a pen. Whatever isn't in the last 3 pages deserves to be forgotten and not done unless it reappears through another context in which case it gets re-added.

Writing with a pen also has the advantage that working remotely, people do not wonder if you're sending slack messages or emails instead of paying attention because you're typing. My notebook also doesn't need any privacy features.

A file isn't an application. Ultraedit is the productivity app.