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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

#311

Post by hanklazard »

charles_f wrote: post #270

I've been back and forth on that topic, going to paper and back to a todo manager of some sort. For the past few years I've been using obsidian for all my note taking, and none of the extensions I tried did what I wanted, so I built myself one[^1]. The initial goal was to take todos right within my notes, so I could keep the context of what the todo was about. Then I started adding stuff like planification and taggin…

I’ve been using obsidian also, I just use the daily note with some tweaks. Works great with todo’s autopopulated in new notes until they are checked off, deadlines, etc. Only downside is that I do pay for their sync functionality since iOS makes it very annoying otherwise. I’ll check out your plugin though, sounds useful.

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

#312

Post by kilroy123 »

Aurornis wrote: post #253
pancakemouse wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I strongly agree. I think it's a form of procrastinating.

I read about all these complex systems for notes and second brains and whatnot.

All procrastinating imho.

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

#314

Post by spacemule »

The author's complaints about the various solutions hit home. My wife and I tried a bunch of solutions for shared tasks and lists. Finally I found vikunja, put it on my home cluster, and it's been a game changer. We never run out of milk due to a lack of communication, and I have no excuse to forget the chore she asked me to get around to last week.

There really is a sweet spot between helping productivity and overcomplicating life, and most of these applications go for the latter. Glad we finally found something that works for us. I'm just sharing here hoping it'll help someone else.

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

#315

Post by jrowen »

don_neufeld wrote: post #150

sigh I've done the text file thing, and it’s fine. Up to a (very small) point. What the author describes as their “workload” barely registers. For context, for me, Things on any given day has over 100 individual actions, most of which are recurring. By doing this, I can stay on top of an extremely broad surface area. There is no way a text file can handle the number of parallel work streams my (or really many) people…

Managing the line between daily and long-term tracking is one of the toughest parts. I have a flat list of files in Notes analogous to yours, but I'm not working in every one every day, some will sit dormant for months. Do I maintain a "to buy" or "Home Depot" list in each one, or at the top level?

I like using paper for today's tasks and instant thoughts. I like to avoid cluttering with recurring unless I'm really having trouble (or keep it in calendar). I find that the "oh shit" part of my brain is largely a good enough reminder system as long as I capture the thought before it flies away.

side note: I do like the "Relationship" call-out. I had a past relationship suffer in part because I kept it a bit too much in the back pocket and not up on the proverbial board with the other projects. Workaholics take note - make your relationship part of your workflow.

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

#316

Post by ralferoo »

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.

If there's really a hyperlink I need, I might e-mail it to myself, add it to a text file in an appropriate place in the appropriate project, leave the tab open in my browser, or just do the task now.

But IMHO none of that is related to the todo list, which is stuff like "7 · Fred's birthday". It's about remembering things that I need/want to do, and in a way that's tactile and I can reflect on it whether I'm using the computer or not, not trying to maintain a knowledge base of everything.

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

#317

Post by gomako »

nvAlt must surely have been mentioned somewhere. It’s the best by far. Very simple markdown, searchable notes etc. there’s a new version in the works (and has been for some time) but the original is still great. The best thing is that the notes are just a folder of .txt files.

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

#319

Post by GloriousKoji »

ggregoire wrote: post #303

I've been using the Gmail webpage for tracking my TODOs for like 20 years. The idea being, since I always have the webpage open in the first tab of my browser, and since I'm checking the webpage at least once a day, I never forget it. Every time I check my emails I also see my TODOs. And I can check/edit it from my phone when I'm not at home. If it's a list of TODOs for the current day or week (e.g. work tasks, water…

Something I miss with modern UI design is the location persistence of items. Like the old windows desktop widgets or the OSX dashboard. You should show the desktop or bring up the dashboard and the todo list would always be in the same location and show up or hide with a quick key strokes.
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