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

jeffhuang.com

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

#151

Post by emadda »

nickjj wrote: post #44
ramses0 wrote: post #23

I've had pretty decent luck with `todo.txt` style tracking, but also tend to run into issues with tasks or notes "going stale" so came up with this system. `today` basically opens `~/Desktop/$YYYY_MM_DD-todo.txt`, but it'll start you off with a copy of the most recent (previous) file. This lets me have "durable" files (I can grep for pretty much anything and get a date-specific hit for it, similar to doing a `git log…

I've been doing something similar for 20+ years at: https://github.com/nickjj/notes - Running `notes` will open this month's notes for YYYY_MM.txt in your default $EDITOR - Running `notes hello world` will append `hello world` to YYYY_MM.txt - Running `$stdout | notes` will append another program's output to YYYY_MM.txt (useful for piping your clipboard) I find this offers the least amount of resistance for quickly a…

You might want to try iso week numbers. Every week starts on Monday and is always 7 days.

Gives you quite a granular time reference but not too fine like days.

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

#152

Post by Glench »

About a month ago I made a chrome extension that adds a "sometime this week" todo list at the bottom of google calendar (a feature I copied from Hey calendar). Any items that don't get done roll over to the next week and I can go back to previous weeks to see what I got done. Super helpful to help plan out my week that way and integrated directly into my calendar.

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

#153

Post by emadda »

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…

I think it may be the kind of work that you do too. It seems his work is well suited to his system. He can manage his own tasks, and the actual complexity of the work is stored in other systems and documents (like research papers).

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

#154

Post by fuzztester »

realfeel78 wrote: post #104
331c8c71 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I plan exclusively on paper despite using Obsidian quite extensively for taking notes. I also do weekly and daily planning. Initially I tried to plan on Obsidian as well but it didn't work for me. Writing on paper is slow and not only it calms me down but also directly incentivizes me to state my tasks and goals concisely. Similarly, the limited space on a planning page helps me to be realistic in terms of things I s…

Paper often wins for a lot of things.

Taking hard-copy printouts of code to study it for bugs, design or code review is one area some people I know use it for.

Edit: I guess even for non-code text files, though I haven't used it for that purpose myself, yet. Bet many authors do.

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

#157

Post by joemi »

tarr11 wrote: post #6

OP uses their calendar as a supplement for their the todo file. There is a lot of functionality implied in that decision: - calendars have mobile apps which enable quick and precise entry - calendars understand time spans - calendars have many options to display events - calendars have cloud syncing - calendars are backed by a queryable data store Not saying using a text file is good or bad, but I think a more accura…

Indeed. The calendar app really is doing the heavy lifting in their case, not the txt file.

I can kind of understand the author not really registering just how much the calendar app does for their organization, since calendar apps are so ubiquitous.

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

#158

Post by medstrom »

xanathar wrote: post #138
AlecSchueler wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 e…

It can also save you when you try a different sync solution, and you see in git status that it messed up the sync.

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

#159

Post by joemi »

athorax wrote: post #89
dbacar wrote: post #76

Overkill. Just use Obsidian and never look back.

How is a single text file overkill vs. using a whole application to structure your notes and format with markdown?

It's not a single text file, though. They're using a single text file AND a calendar app. (That said, I still think it's simpler than using Obsidian.)

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

#160

Post by fuzztester »

royjacobs wrote: post #47
web3-is-a-scam wrote: post #42

My productivity app is just todo.txt in one drive using specificaly notepad.exe. You put .LOG at the top of the new file with a return. Save and close the file. Every time you reopen the file, the timestamp is append to the file. Add your notes, save, exit notepad. Open it again when you need to update, rinse and repeat. Nothing I’ve ever tried has been more effective than just keeping this endless file.

Oh wow, I didn't realize notepad had that feature. Awesome!

Metapad is a nice replacement for Notepad, with a few extra useful features, but don't know if it has the feature you refer to. Likely not, because work in it stopped a while ago. But it is still available. I had used it for some years. Still may in future.

https://liquidninja.com/metapad/

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