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I tried every todo app and ended up with a .txt file

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Re: I tried every todo app and ended up with a .txt file

#251

Post by atothayu »

skydhash wrote: post #172
ralferoo wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I prefer A4, but yeah. I adopted something roughly based on Bullet Journal about 6 or 7 years ago and now on my 4th book. There's something about manually writing and copying over TODOs to the next month that makes you really question if you still need to do it, and if you do, gives you a reminder that you still haven't done it. I use a few basic markers copied from standard bullet journal, which work well as a dot c…

The only issue with paper is links. Hyperlinks are nice and makes notes (and task list) a true knowledge base.

A4 maxi. surprised to find this here - and yea, you can 1) take photo 2) easily index later via vision llm types cheap now etc even local (99% time never do, essence of todo lists ie ack wont ever need to index most items)

Re: I tried every todo app and ended up with a .txt file

#252

Post by treetalker »

dctoedt wrote: post #182
scotty79 wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I prefer scraps of paper that eventually get spontaneously disposed of, regardless of whether I crossed all of the items from them.

> scraps of paper that eventually get spontaneously disposed of Where "spontaneously disposed of" is sometimes abbreviated L-O-S-T, right?

Even so, I feel that much of the point of writing things down in the first place is to put the information into the mind (where the subconscious mind can work with it and do its jobs) and, ultimately, so you won't need to be reminded about it later.

Re: I tried every todo app and ended up with a .txt file

#253

Post by Aurornis »

pancakemouse wrote: post #198
Igrom wrote: post #92

Reading through the comments under this thread, there are many users who swear by a plain text file, but who then build quite a lot of snowflake software to regain functionality offered by more structured TODO applications. That includes: - having your computer alert you to things that come up - being able to tag notes - being able to add events to a calendar - being able to set priority of tasks - expecting prioriti…

What this shows to me, as someone who has committed some of the unholy crimes above, is that people want their system, however esoteric, to come naturally to them. I think reading docs, understanding a new system which someone else has designed, and fitting one's brain into _their_ organisational structure is the hard part. Harder than designing one's own system. It's the reason many don't stick with an off-the-shelf…

> What this shows to me, as someone who has committed some of the unholy crimes above, is that people want their system, however esoteric, to come naturally to them

I think this is a vocal minority. Outside of internet comment sections, most everyone I know doesn’t care that much about their todo list software.

The most productive people I ever worked with all had really minimal productivity software. For one person it was a Google doc with nested lists. I know several people who preferred physical sticky notes or 3x5 note cards.

A lot of the people I’ve worked with who built elaborate productivity systems and custom software weren’t all that productive. They seemingly spent as much time doing productivity rituals and rearranging their productivity software stack as they did doing actual work. I count the really heavy Notion users in this category because I’ve recently been pulling my hair out dealing with a couple PMs who think “reorganizing Notion” and adding more rules for Notion is a good use of their time each week.

The most extreme example I remember was the eccentric coworker who was building an AI-powered productivity tool that was supposed to optimize his todo lists and schedule them according to his daily rhythms. He spent so much time working on it that our manager had to remind him daily to stay on track with his real work. He was obsessed with “productivity tooling” but the productivity was secondary.

Not everyone is like this, but it happens a lot.

Re: I tried every todo app and ended up with a .txt file

#254

Post by amelius »

Igrom wrote: post #92

Reading through the comments under this thread, there are many users who swear by a plain text file, but who then build quite a lot of snowflake software to regain functionality offered by more structured TODO applications. That includes: - having your computer alert you to things that come up - being able to tag notes - being able to add events to a calendar - being able to set priority of tasks - expecting prioriti…

That's more because Emacs is an OS-within-an-editor, which imho is not a good thing.

Re: I tried every todo app and ended up with a .txt file

#255

Post by jrowen »

I'm also a fan of the minimalist approach, having settled on a combination of Notes app and temporary paper lists. When I'm feeling overwhelmed and really need to knock out some tasks, nothing beats pencil and paper for me.

I recently came across the Analog product from Ugmonk and I love it. It's basically just a dedicated little wood holder for you desk, and different types of cards. I use the blank lined cards.

https://ugmonk.com/collections/analog

Re: I tried every todo app and ended up with a .txt file

#256

Post by not_kurt_godel »

radley wrote: post #179
not_kurt_godel wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple's Reminders app does all of those things and many more without having to learn emacs

I found Reminders to be unreliable and foolishly designed. It only works for must-do tasks. It uses repeating-period instead of time-since, so it can't handle repeating tasks that are optional. If you fail to mark off a repeating task, the next instances stack up and crash the notification cycle.

I'm familiar with the pain point you're describing. In general, I would say a recurring calendar event is a better solution for your particular preferences. Personally my mental model is that the act of deciding to not do an optional task constitutes completion of the reminder for that occurrence. And if I forget or deprioritize that decision, the reminder still hangs out in my Today list until I do as a mitigation.

Re: I tried every todo app and ended up with a .txt file

#257

Post by TurkishPoptart »

jrowen wrote: post #255

I'm also a fan of the minimalist approach, having settled on a combination of Notes app and temporary paper lists. When I'm feeling overwhelmed and really need to knock out some tasks, nothing beats pencil and paper for me. I recently came across the Analog product from Ugmonk and I love it. It's basically just a dedicated little wood holder for you desk, and different types of cards. I use the blank lined cards. htt…

$70 for a cute wooden card holder. Holy moly!

Re: I tried every todo app and ended up with a .txt file

#259

Post by general1726 »

For short term tasks (task-cache) I have ended up with essentially the same thing, just using *.md file + Notepad++ because of markdown syntax highlighting + snappiness of Notepad++ and I can then see it as a webpage using Markdown Viewer extension on Firefox.

For structured documentation of my projects + searching + writing notes down on the go via phone I am using Joplin.

For tasks to be done on a specific date I have calendar

For project management I have Redmine behind VPN so I can get on it from anywhere.

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