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

i like text files for day to day lists that are easily discarded. what am i trying to do for work today, who do i need to call, other reminders

for longer term planning i’ve found todoist to be indispensable. UI and features haven’t changed much in years, great cross platform, pretty enable to different styles of planning, etc

I believe todo apps run into the challenge that "to do" is way too broad a concept. Personally I track in-progress tasks (on a giant roll of paper), recurring and schedule tasks (especially where I coordinate with my spouse; on a dedicated Skylight smart-calendar), long term ideas and goals (as issues in a dedicated GitHub repo), meeting follow-ups (as .txt), groceries (on scrap paper), etc. The UX I want for each of these is quite different so I've never been able to make a generic todo app work. Worse, I'd hate to accidentally see my work list when I'm trying to do housework as I'm liable to start a side quest. So I need dedicated tools for each type of list.

Try as I might, the best to-do/task list I can come up with is a legal pad. Mixed with notes of the day for meetings or ad-hoc remembering-of-things.

Closest to that is a .txt file in my specific format, but even that is not quite as good.

The days/weeks I can maintain discipline with a legal pad are much more productive. It works well if you work out of an office or a single location, but breaks down quickly if you are moving around.

A notebook is a close second, just not quite as easy to go page through quickly to figure out wtf you were doing 3 weeks ago or find that one note you're pretty sure you have but not quite sure where or when.

I've tried pretty much every electronic form out there, but have never been able to maintain it. The Remarkable 2 comes the closest, but I've found it tends to be very much "write only" compared to a legal pad. Hard to go through it and reference past notes quickly.

It sounds like your life requires a manager's schedule. Lots and lots of things to fit into a busy day. Likely without a lot of big blocks of focus time.

Most programmers are far better off with a maker's schedule. Far fewer things in a day. Each with a significant block of time associated with it.

An absolutely minimal productivity system is perfect for anyone on a maker's schedule. You're right that it wouldn't work for your life.

See https://paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html if you're not familiar with the terms "manager's schedule" and "maker's schedule". It also provides context for why those different kinds of schedules are appropriate for different people. (One of the big mistakes that people on manager's schedules often make is to not recognize and respect the impact that a "quick 15 minute meeting" has on employees who need to be on a maker's schedule.)

Good man. Everyone eventually reaches the same year zero: a text file.

Then adds structure back, as it suits their persona. Not too much, not too little, just right - goldilocks. It's very personal, even more than a smartphone.

For me - $ githome add logBook to git $HOME solves versioning and replication:

giho() { (cd "$HOME" && git --git-dir="$HOME"/.githome/ --work-tree="$HOME" "$@";) } # prior must $ git init --bare $HOME/.githome

And in the logBook structure currently at:

1. Sections FIXME, TODO, DONE, DONTDO. Keep them vi searchable /^SECTION$.

2. Entry start searchable /^-(space).

3. Entry end separator from next is empty line searchable /^$.

4. New items add at the top, push old items down.

5. Items move wholesale, no change on between sections move.

6. Items spending too long in TODO moved into DONTDO.

7. No new items added in TODO if FIXME is not empty.

8. If really really need to add to TODO - then move blocking FIXME entries to TODO.

9. Above are rules of thumb - break them with a reason, don't break them without reasons.