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My productivity app is a never-ending .txt file (2020)

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Re: My productivity app is a never-ending .txt file (2020)

#131

Post by doctor_eval »

cyanydeez wrote: post #121
twodave wrote: post #82

I tend to format my plaintext notes as markdown to add a small amount of organization. I also have some light folder/file organization to break things into categories/topics/days, depending on what it is. That gives me a nice clean slate to work from each day, but lets me pick up where I left off on more long-term stuff. Finally, I push it all to a private Github repo so I can get to my notes easily from wherever I a…

I'm guessing you're younger than 40. At some point, either your jobs novelty will wear off or your memory will just degrade. what happened to me is the lack of novelty in day to day and long term plans created a lot of unreliable data. having done a task multiple times, recalling the latest event details became a mixed bag of questionable facts. I still have the same capacity but now because I had such a great capaci…

Agree with your take.

I am currently enduring a home builder who seems to think he doesn’t need to take notes. He has made so many errors and has had to do so much rework that he’s run out of time to fix legitimate problems.

His belief in his ability to retain information way exceeds his ability.

Understanding and accepting my own constraints and limitations helped me to become far better at what I do. People who don’t take notes make me very anxious. (This includes waiters).

Re: My productivity app is a never-ending .txt file (2020)

#132

Post by crtified »

My todo.txt is more of a digital whiteboard, a temporary summary. Once the day or task is done, the text is wiped. (That's not to say I don't document things - only that I don't use my todo.txt as long-term record-keeping)

The concept (along with sentiments such as https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39434558, where the mundane inefficiency of having to access the todo.txt window every time is the annoyance) makes me think that a wall-mounted screen dedicated to displaying the list may be an improvement for some people. Alternatively a multi-monitor setup where one (perhaps smaller) screen is permanently dedicated to the list.

After all, back in the old days when people did literally do all this with physical black/whiteboards and similar, you didn't have to "pull up the whiteboard" every time you wanted to look at it - you just turned your head a little, or shifted your gaze. In that particular sense, having to open or pull up a file every time is a regression, an added inefficiency.

Re: My productivity app is a never-ending .txt file (2020)

#133

Post by psychlops »

doctor_eval wrote: post #131
cyanydeez wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm guessing you're younger than 40. At some point, either your jobs novelty will wear off or your memory will just degrade. what happened to me is the lack of novelty in day to day and long term plans created a lot of unreliable data. having done a task multiple times, recalling the latest event details became a mixed bag of questionable facts. I still have the same capacity but now because I had such a great capaci…

Agree with your take. I am currently enduring a home builder who seems to think he doesn’t need to take notes. He has made so many errors and has had to do so much rework that he’s run out of time to fix legitimate problems. His belief in his ability to retain information way exceeds his ability. Understanding and accepting my own constraints and limitations helped me to become far better at what I do. People who don…

Even if your builder took notes, he would still have errors and omissions. In my experience with builders (and many other areas), it is my job to make sure they do their job. Notes or no notes. Same with waiters.

Re: My productivity app is a never-ending .txt file (2020)

#134

Post by [deleted] »

blackhaj7 wrote: post #65
BasilPH wrote: post #5

I'm doing something similar with Obsidian daily notes[^1]. I also have a weekly note that I use to plan the next week. Similar to how the author talks about scheduling their next day the evening before, I've started planning the big tasks for next on Friday afternoon, as this gives me momentum on Monday morning. Related: I've found the 3/3/3 technique from Oliver Burkeman[^2] and the concept of open and closed lists…

I use Obsidian but it is unbearably slow upon when opening the app for me, to the point where I want to move away. It’s also dare-I-say-it too customizable for me. I just want it to look nice and do standard notes stuff without having to spend hours tinkering. The only thing keeping me is that it is just markdown. I don’t like the idea of being locked in with the proprietary formats of other apps

[deleted]

Re: My productivity app is a never-ending .txt file (2020)

#135

Post by realfeel78 »

blackhaj7 wrote: post #65
BasilPH wrote: post #5

I'm doing something similar with Obsidian daily notes[^1]. I also have a weekly note that I use to plan the next week. Similar to how the author talks about scheduling their next day the evening before, I've started planning the big tasks for next on Friday afternoon, as this gives me momentum on Monday morning. Related: I've found the 3/3/3 technique from Oliver Burkeman[^2] and the concept of open and closed lists…

I use Obsidian but it is unbearably slow upon when opening the app for me, to the point where I want to move away. It’s also dare-I-say-it too customizable for me. I just want it to look nice and do standard notes stuff without having to spend hours tinkering. The only thing keeping me is that it is just markdown. I don’t like the idea of being locked in with the proprietary formats of other apps

Slow on what hardware/OS? It's instantaneous for me on Mac, but can be painfully clunky on iPhone.

Re: My productivity app is a never-ending .txt file (2020)

#136

Post by realfeel78 »

machomaster wrote: post #107
Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious, I have starting using Obsidian recently and one of the things that I love about it is that it's lightning fast on my systems, including startup time. Much snappier than other note-taking programs I've used, and than 95% of the programs altogether (only the likes of Notepad are faster). Maybe it's because I don't have many notes yet and it becomes a behemoth if the vault gets too big?

Usually the slowness of Obsidian is caused by plugins. Try to have 50+ plugins and you will feel the slowness even in a small vault.

What hardware/OS are you using? I have a shitload of plugins but it's lightning fast for me on Mac.

Re: My productivity app is a never-ending .txt file (2020)

#138

Post by xanathar »

AlecSchueler wrote: post #111
ravishi wrote: post #41

I use a similar system, but I duplicate and rename the file at the start of each day. Then I remove stuff that got done the previous day. Or stuff that is old and not relevant anymore. The system has evolved over the years. The greatest thing about it is how flexible it is. When faced with new requirements (new projects, job change, etc) I can just start taking notes in a different way and see if it sticks. I also co…

What are the benefits of keeping it in git? Are the commit messages useful? Not trying to knock the idea, I just can't imagine branching or reverting or being curious about the history of a to-do list. Maybe it could be cool for statistics over time. But I'm really curious to hear how you're using it!

I have a similar setup as far as git is concerned - I use it to push a backup of my Joplin notes (note that I don't sync multiple Joplins, just backup the current one).

Pros: pushes only the differences, keeps history, can be rolled back, works offline (push fails but commit works), offers a time log of changes.

Commit messages are not needed really - the timestamp is enough and rolling back is only for exceptional events (e.g. accidentally deleting important stuff, etc.).

Re: My productivity app is a never-ending .txt file (2020)

#139

Post by al_borland »

Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #86
d--b wrote: post #77

I don't know how to articulate it, but I could never do anything like this. The ability to organize one's life like this is so foreign to me, it's almost like he's describing what it's like to be an octopus. I think it may be my emotional state that I can't manage. There is absolutely no way, I could decide what I'd be doing the next day every night. The thing is my state of mind would prevent me from doing half the…

If it's a consolation, I feel the same as you. I clicked because what I have is a gigantic TODO .txt file that grows and grows and grows. I typically only look at the bottom (newest) part, typically at what fits on screen. The rest is full of things I should have done at some point and never actually did.

I’ve been in this place more times than I care to count. I find taking some time to go through it to ask if these things still need to be done can help a lot.

In many cases, what was once thought to be important is no longer important or even needed/wanted; delete these things. In other cases it’s more of a nice-to-have, not something that is really needed. For these, if it’s for you or someone you like, a someday/maybe list (as another comment suggested) is good, otherwise drop it.

Once the list is shorter and current, I find it easier to get things done. When the list gets too long that I can’t bring myself to read it anymore, this is generally what I do.

I’ve also found it helpful to have a kind of “backlog” list, and then something just for what I’m going to do today. That today list needs to be short. 3 things is the max for me; some days it’s just one. If I happen to finish it all, I can look at the backlog to add something. Being realistic about what can be done in a day is really important. Getting all that other stuff out of my view helps me to stop thinking about all the stuff I’m not doing, as it’s not helpful to dwell on it.

Re: My productivity app is a never-ending .txt file (2020)

#140

Post by al_borland »

s_m_t wrote: post #97
d--b wrote: post #77

I don't know how to articulate it, but I could never do anything like this. The ability to organize one's life like this is so foreign to me, it's almost like he's describing what it's like to be an octopus. I think it may be my emotional state that I can't manage. There is absolutely no way, I could decide what I'd be doing the next day every night. The thing is my state of mind would prevent me from doing half the…

The trick is that you don't actually have to do all the tasks you write down. It is still nice to have a record of what you've planned so if you ever decide to jump back on any task you have a history of what you have done and any context associated with it on hand. A lot of my todos are something like "I found this article interesting but I don't have the current skills to really understand everything in it" or "I w…

This is what my read-later list is like. I always keep adding to it, but I don’t really have any part of my life carved out to read any of it. It’s full of good intentions to learn about things or start new hobbies. I migrated it a while ago and was really disappointed to find a lot of dead links. It makes me wonder what I missed out on.
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