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The to-do list problem

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Re: The to-do list problem

#11

Post by tsahyt »

antidoh wrote: post #8
tsahyt wrote: post #6

Slightly off-topic, but never auto-play video (or audio) content on a website. If I want it to be played, I click on it, otherwise it's just annoying.

This is one of the two benefits of flashblock for me. If I want to watch a video, I click on the circled F, otherwise it's just a box that takes up space. The other benefit is that I don't give my cycles and peace to flash advertisements.

The cycles part is actually non-negligible. Those things are usually so horribly written that they'll eat up processing time in big chunks. But that's not a Flash-only problem. I've seen JS-things on webpages actually spinning up my laptops fans even though there was really nothing much on the screen, and it's not like I've got a bad laptop either. It's not high-end but an i7 with 8gb of RAM shouldn't notice the load of a pretty average webpage.

But that's just my 2 cents.

Re: The to-do list problem

#14

Post by roel_v »

Primitive version of GTD. GTD solves the issues raised in this post and more. Many todo apps work with a GTD workflow. I use Toodledo (web app) and Due Today (Android), they sync perfectly. Re-reading the GTD book every 6 months or so helps to be consistent with applying it, because the devil is in thinking 'oh I'm just going to skip this or that task for now', or not being diligent in e.g. assigning contexts. For GTD (any system, really) to work, you need to hammer it into your habits until it's stuck so snugly that it feels weird to do things any other way.

Re: The to-do list problem

#15

Post by MatthewPhillips »

roel_v wrote: post #14

Primitive version of GTD. GTD solves the issues raised in this post and more. Many todo apps work with a GTD workflow. I use Toodledo (web app) and Due Today (Android), they sync perfectly. Re-reading the GTD book every 6 months or so helps to be consistent with applying it, because the devil is in thinking 'oh I'm just going to skip this or that task for now', or not being diligent in e.g. assigning contexts. For GT…

I'm really glad that this works for you, but it sounds like hell.

Re: The to-do list problem

#17

Post by ZoFreX »

tsahyt wrote: post #11
antidoh wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one of the two benefits of flashblock for me. If I want to watch a video, I click on the circled F, otherwise it's just a box that takes up space. The other benefit is that I don't give my cycles and peace to flash advertisements.

The cycles part is actually non-negligible. Those things are usually so horribly written that they'll eat up processing time in big chunks. But that's not a Flash-only problem. I've seen JS-things on webpages actually spinning up my laptops fans even though there was really nothing much on the screen, and it's not like I've got a bad laptop either. It's not high-end but an i7 with 8gb of RAM shouldn't notice the load…

My dad didn't understand why his (admittedly quite old) laptop really struggles on some websites. For most of his usage - buying tickets, checking emails - it suffices just fine, but a badly coded flash advert can bring the entire machine to a crawl.

It was very difficult to convince him that yes, it was actually the crappy slideshow advert on one tab that was making his entire computer unusable.

Re: The to-do list problem

#18

Post by vidarh »

Swizec wrote: post #2

> To build an intelligent to-do list it will take more than polished pixels, so please start putting more intelligence in your to-do tools. Your users will be thankful and will hopefully have much shorter to-do lists. After trying many things, I have now switched to Trello. Using it I've become convinced that "intelligent to-do lists" are a fallacy, what we need are dumb todo lists. Something not much smarter than a…

I think the problem is workflows for todo lists are incredibly diverse and trying to incorporate support for them with a single UI without cluttering it to the point where it adds more friction than it removes is an incredibly challenge.

E.g. grouping things on paper: write down a few headlines and write your stuff underneath each one of them. Want a fresh todo list daily? Write down a few lines every morning, transferring from past list as needed. Want a historical record? Well, you just got that for free anyway. And so on.

A "dumb" todo list interface solves our workflow problems by abdicating the responsibility and making us "implement" the workflow manually and just provide support for implementing workflows. And so the need to complicate the UI in ways that will almost inevitably end up adding friction goes away.

Creating a mass market application with a sufficiently "fluid" workflow support to allow this in a "smart" todo list app without adding endless configuration screens is something that'd likely be incredibly hard.

For my part, I have my own heavily customized app that works for me. But it works for me because I can tweak the code itself to my workflow whenever I decide to change any of it, and can as a result take lots of shortcuts I wouldn't have been able to with a product intended for anyone else.

Re: The to-do list problem

#19

Post by harshreality »

zimbatm wrote: post #9

I hate to-do lists. The worst are the ones where others can pile up things for you. The problem with most to-do lists is that they treat your time as infinite. You just have to take one item after the other and chunk trough it. You're just the CPU executing the tasks you've been handled trough like a puppet. Soon enough the list becomes a big graveyard of things you didn't have the time to do and it's depressing. It'…

Isn't that merely a case for periodic pruning and reordering of the list(s)?

I'm not very dedicated in my usage of to-do lists (probably to my detriment), but I think people who use them consistently revise their list at lunch and again at the end of the day... perhaps at breakfast too. Unless they have an assistant who does all that for them.

Re: The to-do list problem

#20

Post by bluetidepro »

tsahyt wrote: post #6

Slightly off-topic, but never auto-play video (or audio) content on a website. If I want it to be played, I click on it, otherwise it's just annoying.

I'm glad someone beat me to this. This is the first thing I thought when I went to the post. It soured my opinion of the whole article before I even read it because of that small usability mistake.
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