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Ask HN: How do you manage – and remember to manage – your to-do list in 2022?

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Re: Ask HN: How do you manage – and remember to manage – your to-do list in 2022?

#11

Post by timwis »

nstart wrote: post #8

GTD. Been using the gtd system with obsidian for almost 2 years now. I sometimes fall out of sync with it, particularly during high stress times where I lose the motivation to work in a disciplined way, but it’s never too hard to get things back under control. Most days I go through my next action lists when I’m thinking of stuff to do and review it each week to do any re org.

GTD (Getting Things Done) is definitely my answer. I use it for everything from planning my mom's birthday, to building features on an app, to managing a large team.

The key is that it's a methodology and not a tool. It works just as well on paper or a basic list manager (e.g. trello, iOS Reminders) as it does in more complex tools like OmniFocus or Nirvana (and I'd argue you should start simple). No tool can give you what a methodology will.

While I highly recommend the book itself, I have found this podcast episode to be a great overview: https://gettingthingsdone.com/2017/05/episode-29-david-allen...

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage – and remember to manage – your to-do list in 2022?

#12

Post by rgrmrts »

I tried every todo app and personal organization and management system I could think of over a few years. I eventually gave up and moved to a nice notebook and a decent pen (Leuchtturm and Muji ballpoint pens) and haven’t looked back. I write the date every morning and start a new “section”, copy over anything from the previous day that doesn’t have a “check” mark, and write any new things I think I might need to get done. This has made a huge impact on me getting things done, both at work and in my personal life. It’s a stupid simple method and the only one I’ve stuck with.

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage – and remember to manage – your to-do list in 2022?

#14

Post by dom96 »

I have been (ab)using GitHub issues for todos, notes, links and other notes for around 5 years now. I keep it in a private repo called "me" and it works quite well. I can easily label different issues by "Health" (one example of a label I use to track ideas for how I can be more healthy) or "ToDo"/"High Priority" and searching through them works quite well too.

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage – and remember to manage – your to-do list in 2022?

#16

Post by CharlesW »

I've been using the excellent Things¹ across devices, but now that Apple's Reminders app has list sharing² I'm wondering if I even need that.

For stuff that absolutely, positively needs to get done, I'll sometimes report to the aggressively-persistent Due³.

¹https://culturedcode.com/things/ ²https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212758 https://www.dueapp.com/

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage – and remember to manage – your to-do list in 2022?

#17

Post by tyrfing »

I keep it very simple. A big text file (with markdown syntax highlighting these days) in something that is almost an append-only format, mimicking a paper journal but taking advantage of editing/insertion capabilities. Each Sunday I add the upcoming days of the week at the bottom, fleshing out a basic plan of what's happening. Each day I note down what got done and move things around, planning for upcoming days. The 'anchor' reminder is keeping track of my sleep, which has been a terrific help for sleeping properly. Around monthly I'll build a "todo list", an awful lot of which will never get done, and between weekly chunks I have bigger blocks of writing on just about anything.

I've never had success with the systems and apps that require maintenance, there's just too much cognitive burden in reviewing and cleaning them. It's much easier for me to just rewrite from scratch, maybe copying a few items, and then accept I can ctrl+f a previous month if necessary.

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage – and remember to manage – your to-do list in 2022?

#18

Post by CharlesW »

rgrmrts wrote: post #12

I tried every todo app and personal organization and management system I could think of over a few years. I eventually gave up and moved to a nice notebook and a decent pen (Leuchtturm and Muji ballpoint pens) and haven’t looked back. I write the date every morning and start a new “section”, copy over anything from the previous day that doesn’t have a “check” mark, and write any new things I think I might need to get…

I might try this again — there's definitely value in having to re-write the tasks every day. For me, a key contributor to success is keeping the "today" list short (like, 5 tasks or less), so how do you track your "backlog"?
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