For simple TODOs honestly using the Reminders app for Mac is the easiest.
For more complex TODOs and lists, I have my own bespoke note taking web app that syncs with S3.
Either way I'm not paying for a TODO app!
I tried every todo app and ended up with a .txt file
491–500 of 831 posts
Re: I tried every todo app and ended up with a .txt file
#492Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I still use my calendar for routine time-window reminders. But when I tried timeboxing tasks for after work, those don't stick because my daily work hours can shift by as much as 2 hours, depending on how many pre-work-hours meetings I have that day. I'm a big fan of automation, so half of the fun with that project is setting it all up.
If you work at an office, you can set your reminders to be location-based with daily recurrence so that you get reminded when you leave the office or arrive home. I imagine you can also integrate Reminders with IFTT if you want a "Done with Work" button on your phone if you WFH.
Re: I tried every todo app and ended up with a .txt file
#493Since we're sharing our setups, I self-host https://github.com/nanawel/our-shopping-list, which is a nice clean, simple list keeper that can install as a PWA, and https://github.com/binwiederhier/ntfy for recurring notifications; every morning a shell script runs over a text file full of reminders (mostly birthdays) and sends me a notification about them.
Re: I tried every todo app and ended up with a .txt file
#494Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ironically the Reminders app sucks at reminding. I use the Clock app for my todo list; it makes a pretty loud noise pretty reliably, which makes it pretty good for reminders.
Reminders is not the job of a todo app, it is the job of a calendar app. For a todo there is no now, it is pick the best thing todo next. I need to be interupted for my dentist appointment. However I don't need to be interupted to buy milk, I need a remineer when I'm at the store anyway to also get milk. If the reminder was 'i see you are going in the direction of a store: we need milk if you have time to stop' that…
Certain tasks have deadlines - can you really have one of those without some concept of time? Creating a calendar entry for those doesn’t make any sense to me - they are not events happening at a point in time with a given duration, but things that need to be done BEFORE said point in time.
Re: I tried every todo app and ended up with a .txt file
#495There is a format called todo.txt that works follows very readable syntax (like your own example) and has some minimal bells and whistles if you want it to: http://todotxt.org/ As an alternative: I started using org-mode 5 years ago and have never looked back. This is my workflow ( https://karelvo.com/blog/orgmode ) although I sync it via Git now, and have an iPhone where I use Plain Org ( https://xenodium.com/plain-…
Lost me at "But it's not easy to open todo.txt, make a change, and save it"—huh?? Clicked around a bit and found nothing describing how "todo.txt" is better than todo.txt (great branding), and seems to offer no solutions for iOS.
There's a great meme with the classic intelligence bell curve setup where the "grug" and the "elite" sides both use a plain text file with their own ideas of how to do things, and only the "midwit" in the middle is using a huge pile of tooling to accomplish roughly the same thing.
I too went through the phase of using Dendron and Obsidian as well as more common todo list tools (and tickets)... and here I am back at Apple Notes, whose sole advantage over a text file is that it has enough capabilities to store a screenshot. That's all I really needed. My notes are like the classic notebook: a lot of the time it's write-only, a lot of the time it only has to be able to be understood for a week or two before the information is too old to matter anyway.
Don't overthink it.
Re: I tried every todo app and ended up with a .txt file
#496Earlier quoted context omitted.
Lost me at "But it's not easy to open todo.txt, make a change, and save it"—huh?? Clicked around a bit and found nothing describing how "todo.txt" is better than todo.txt (great branding), and seems to offer no solutions for iOS.
There's a great meme with the classic intelligence bell curve setup where the "grug" and the "elite" sides both use a plain text file with their own ideas of how to do things, and only the "midwit" in the middle is using a huge pile of tooling to accomplish roughly the same thing. I too went through the phase of using Dendron and Obsidian as well as more common todo list tools (and tickets)... and here I am back at A…
Why is capability to store a screenshot useful in a to-do list?
Re: I tried every todo app and ended up with a .txt file
#497I've gone through this too and came to the same conclusion except for phone. While on laptop/desktop nothing beats txt (or md or org), it's just so uncomfortable using a text file like that on the phone and relying on dropbox or something. And I get it, all the note taking apps on the phone have issues: not local first, proprietary, subscriptions, or no encryption, or a thousand features before making sure the full t…
I tackled this years ago but found that having a todo list was too limiting.
I ended up building a very simple scratchpad [1] (initially iOS and MacOS, then of late, a PWA version for everyone else...).
Re: I tried every todo app and ended up with a .txt file
#498In my experience of trying dozens of todo apps and systems over the years, they become a reflection of some theoretical ideal version of myself and inevitably fail because I am not someone who is inherently organised and disciplined with task completion.
Turns out this was my problem. I just wasn't serious about keeping track of things to do, and doing them. No app in the world could solve that. Once I started to take it seriously, it doesn't really matter what you use to keep track of things. If it's there, you'll do it.
Re: I tried every todo app and ended up with a .txt file
#499Reading 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…
Im perfectly happy with markdown in vscode. Right next to my work and with a search function. I guess I could do txt but the syntax highlighting makes things a bit more readable. I think it works for me because it's mostly just a working memory. I virtually never visit my notes again. It is not some personal knowledge base nor project tracker.
Same and if I need to share a bit often times I just highlight it and tell an LLM to blast out a markdown table, render preview and screenshot it to someone.
Re: I tried every todo app and ended up with a .txt file
#500Why do these types of blog posts always blow up on hacker news?
"I tried every new zany method but our tried and true classic is what I selected!"