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Dating Other Task Managers

evantravers.com

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Re: Dating Other Task Managers

#3

Post by userbinator »

davidhaymond wrote: post #2

I initially thought the title referenced OS task managers a.k.a. system monitors.

My first thought was related to interpersonal relationships among certain people in management, and then the Windows utility of the same name. Definitely an unusual and bit clickbaity title.

Re: Dating Other Task Managers

#5

Post by 63 »

I've been passively on the hunt for a task manager for a couple weeks now. It seems everything points to Todoist for me. I love the idea of org mode but it's too much for my use case and I think a mobile app would be pretty helpful for me, given how often I'm away from a computer. I don't use Apple products so Things 3 is out. Obsidian is an interesting knowledge management tool that I'm looking into separately but it would replace a different tool I currently use for a different purpose so it doesn't make sense to mix those right now. Bullet journalling kind of defeats the point because I want repeating tasks to be automated (e.g. remember to do laundry once a week,be ready to go grocery shopping every 2 weeks, etc).

The biggest issue is how I want to organize tasks. The way I see it, there are several categories of tasks that exist in my life sperated by frequency, due dates or lack thereof, and priority. It'd be nice to have them all in one place but still treated as somewhat separate. It's like the difference between "stop at the drug store some time this week", "look into this new web framework at some point when I get some down time", "take out the trash on Sundays", "journal every day", "file this report by the the of the month", "it'd be nice to pick up some new jeans at some point", etc. They should all be treated fundamentally differently but they all take up my time so I want them aggregated. Arguably it's even more important to aggregate the ones without deadlines because they're the most likely to be put off. I've been thinking about making my own solution but I haven't decided on the best way (or even a good way) to model it yet.

I'm not sure what I'm looking for by making this comment. I guess in part I'm curious if others have had similar experiences and what solution works well for them.

Re: Dating Other Task Managers

#6

Post by yodon »

Oh, the hours we could all save if we didn't spend so many hours reading about, trying, designing, and writing better todo apps. I'm sure somebody has an idea for a better kind of todo app that would help with this.

Re: Dating Other Task Managers

#7

Post by Dkastro92 »

63 wrote: post #5

I've been passively on the hunt for a task manager for a couple weeks now. It seems everything points to Todoist for me. I love the idea of org mode but it's too much for my use case and I think a mobile app would be pretty helpful for me, given how often I'm away from a computer. I don't use Apple products so Things 3 is out. Obsidian is an interesting knowledge management tool that I'm looking into separately but i…

You should try "remember the milk".

Re: Dating Other Task Managers

#8

Post by least »

I love reading Evan Travers' blog. He always puts a lot of thought into things that I also want to improve at. I know that a lot of people on Hacker News are very much against productivity hacking, but I none the less want to find ones that work and help making navigating life a little easier for me. I especially like the stuff he's done with Hammerspoon [1] and always look out for the things that can make using a Mac easier or at least less frustrating in some cases.

Unsurprisingly he's also given a lot of thought about task management. It's something that I've never had lasting success with but from each failure I learn a little bit or benefit a little bit, so I keep on trying. At the very least, it's nice to read up on the development of various applications and if they stand out to someone whose opinion I value a lot in this space.

I use Things like he does, but I've never been able to stick to a routine with a set of daily tasks in the same way he apparently has. I often forget that it exists, even though it's one of the four primary apps on my iPhone. A lot of tasks input into are years old at this point. I'm not sure that switching task managers would actually do much anything to help improve my workflow, but I would be curious if anyone else on HN has any tips to making them more useful beyond writing down groceries.

[1] https://evantravers.com/articles/tags/hammerspoon/

Re: Dating Other Task Managers

#10

Post by viraptor »

Not listed there, but I think Quire could be a good candidate. It's used here for both of those cases - planning tasks with assignment to people and recurring lists of tasks (start of the day, end of the day, monthly reviews, ...). It helps that things can be tagged / grouped and have an automatic repeat set.

It's not open/free, but... worked really well for us.

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