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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

#531

Post by BLKNSLVR »

don_neufeld wrote: post #519
dap wrote: post #483

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Folks are criticizing this as too much or coming from too much anxiety. I might have agreed before owning a home and having kids. But I totally get it. A typical week involves dozens of random tasks like those you mentioned. Then there's the long backlog of stuff that's important but not urgent. I've used Todoist for the last few years. It's not perfect. But it's been game-changing in terms of reducing anxiety becaus…

Yuuuup. I remember the days before I had this much complexity. Frankly, it’s forced me to get a lot better at stuff. Back to school was a blizzard of forms, meetings, drop offs, etc. each with their own unique timelines. Sandwiched between all the rest of life.

I have multiple times had the thought that it's not actually possible to "get ahead" because it takes 110% of available time (because no one gets enough sleep) just to tread water.

Investments and Property I see as kind of essential to having much of a retirement, but these things need knowledge and research to get a handle on initially and to closely manage going forwards, such that they could be a part-time job on their own.

How does that fit around a full time job plus kids school and sports plus maintaining a healthy diet and exercise?

The one thing that all of the above does teach a person, though, is: filtering of bullshit; ability to say no.

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

#533

Post by jv22222 »

I feel exactly the same as the OP and went on a long journey to build something better. 5 versions and many years later I think have something. It's remarkably similar to a text editor.

I just kept peeling back to that because for each product I tried to build I still ended up reverting back to a big ass text file to manage my building of my product!

Only the current version is the one I have been able to stick with. It starts with text editor as the foundation and then adds features (that are hidden) on top of that.

Hoping to release to some friends in Sep.

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

#535

Post by spauldo »

akkartik wrote: post #103
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…

Do I need to start living in Emacs to get these benefits? Or are you saying I can use Emacs as my todo list app, close it after writing a todo, and have it pop up notifications?

Yes, with a little setup. But never forget that org-mode is the gateway drug of Emacs.

You start using it for the agenda and TODO lists, learn it has spreadsheet functionality that ties in with the arbitrary-precision calculator, start taking notes and exporting them to PDF via LaTeX, writing reports in it with your company letterhead, merging your contacts list, migrating your email into Emacs, and next thing you know you find yourself fifteen pairs of parentheses deep in a custom elisp function that tweaks the date format for that one manager that insists on yy/dd/mm whenever you send your weekly progress report.

Not that I'd know anything about that.

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

#536

Post by spauldo »

makapuf wrote: post #237
rambambram wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not so fast my dear, just this year I finally adopted the default home-directory structure of my linux distro (Document, Pictures, Music, Video, etc.) in my workflow. I'm not ready for more big obvious changes like this. ;)

Am i the only one to generally find those directories getting in the way ? I have very few videos or music, or even images worth storing as images and not related to other documents. Downloads and documents might be useful but then, documents is almost everything that is not online so why not put it in $HOME. And I don't like capitalized folders but that's me.

Nope, I've hated those for years. Seriously, capitalized directory names?

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

#537

Post by hal009 »

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…

Emacs is the unholiest of them all.

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

#538

Post by jwrallie »

I’m using code server running on a VPS so that my .md todo list is accessible from all my devices through a browser. I use the vim plugin for editing.

I have two categories, todo and done. I separate them by project. I use markdown checkboxes. A checked item on todo means doing. Moving it to the done section means… well… done. Git is used from time to time to have a copy elsewhere. Basically kanban on a text file.

Sometimes I’m doing lots of small tasks and need it to keep track, sometimes I’m doing tasks that span for days and don’t look at it. I’ll look at it when I want to think of the next step.

Around once per month I remove things from it, cleaning up and consolidating tasks. I think it’s important to let go of tasks that are there but never done, they can be a source of stress. If they are that important they will find their way back there.

I also use an online calendar for tasks that have a clear start and end time. I consider it separate.

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

#539

Post by spauldo »

amelius wrote: post #254
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.

It's a portable Lisp environment that just happens to have an editor as its default application. I know it's advertised as an editor, but that's like saying a web browser is a website viewer.

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

#540

Post by spauldo »

listic wrote: post #496
mikestorrent wrote: post #495

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ?

I'm not the person you're replying to, but I have several TODO items on my current project for fixing HMI screens. Those will be performed by one of my teammates. I could easily embed images into the org-mode document I use.

Unfortunately for him, the HMI is air-gapped so getting screenshots is cumbersome. He'll have to make do with my notes.

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