Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

al3rez.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

551–560 of 831 posts

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

#551

Post by docmars »

pancakemouse wrote: post #198
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…

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…

Yep, at the risk of repeating what you said: I think this is why so many project management / todo apps exist with their own flavor of the very basics. It's a reflection of those wishes that feel natural to us individually, and it just so happens many of these apps mesh well with our model of thinking and organizing.

This is also why it's so difficult to get teams on the same page about project management in their respective workplaces.

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

#552

Post by docmars »

viraptor wrote: post #549
Aurornis wrote: post #253

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 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…

On managers side the equivalent is making fancy JIRA workflows with all the fancy fields so that everyone is informed. Makes people annoyed with extra work and that time could be spent just talking to people to understand what's actually happening.

Exactly. It takes enormous effort to get product and engineering teams to agree on how to use JIRA properly, because everyone has their own ideas around how and what to organize. It's exhausting.

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

#554

Post by patrickscoleman »

refreeze654 wrote: post #14

I use Todoist in a very light weight fashion. I add tasks and they sit on my screen until they're done, basically identical to a text file. I've never used the points, projects, labels, etc. It does one thing a text file struggles at: scheduling recurring tasks and adding notes to a recurring task. I have annual reminders for infrequent, but important stuff. For example, I have a recurring annual task to review my in…

Came here to say this, thanks.

Only thing to add is that I like the "inbox" feature in Todoist (plus a single catchall project). I get overeager during the day and add a bunch of stuff. The inbox makes it easy for me to mostly just remove things I won't actually do but then file away the stuff I might for later.

I've put weekly chores into a single recurring task and do them on Sundays or kick back another day or two (or just skip) if I'm busy.

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

#555

Post by archargelod »

I came to the same conclusion - nothing beats a simple text file.

But I've also built a simple chooser program for multiple todo files and notes. A very simple cli program that does basic fuzzy search over file names.

For example, I can type `mem mov` to open a `movies.note` file in notes directory. If I use a full name with `.note` extension and it doesn't exist - it will create a new note with that name and open it in editor immediately. It makes it easy to create new notes on the fly and open them in a few keystrokes.

For editing I use neovim with auto-save enabled, so I can keep editor open all the time without forgetting to save.

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

#557

Post by ksherlock »

One bonus from just using sticky notes or plain paper: you might discover that note, 10 or 15 years later, in a long forgotten jacket pocket. 'Those were the days', you'll muse to yourself, as you crumple up and discard a shopping list: pizza; beer; condoms (12 pack).

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

#559

Post by felbane »

eadmund wrote: post #541
jorvi wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Obviously one needs to be an Emacs user first This makes it so infuriating that the top comment on Todo systems is almost invariably "just org-mode lol". Same as remote editing "just TRAMP lol". I am not going to completely change my editor and rebuild two decades of optimization just to use two Emacs tools. On-topic: TickTick or Todoist with a slimmed-down "Getting Things Done" system works really well. Almost no…

> I am not going to completely change my editor and rebuild two decades of optimization just to use two Emacs tools. Change your editor and rebuild two decades of optimisation in order to use Emacs, two Emacs tools, and also every other Emacs tool out there. Org Mode, TRAMP, Magit, gptel, eglot, flycheck, elfeed, ERC, Emms, EWW … there are a ton of reasons to use Emacs. Or you can keep using less-capable systems and…

Your argument highlights its own flaw; changing your editor opens up a world of tooling that's certainly adequate for most use cases you can throw at it, but it also requires either discarding or (worse) un-learning all of the tooling that you've learned for your current editor.

For example, I'm perfectly content to use nvim as my primary editor, and this was born out of having to develop for and administer literally tens of thousands of linux servers professionally. I have all the plug-ins and configuration necessary for productivity on my development machines, and when I'm on a remote system ad hoc editing a configuration it already has a built-in lightweight version of the editor I'm already used to.

If I switched to Emacs locally, I'd still have to maintain a working knowledge of vi and context switch when in a remote shell. Changing to Emacs would require more cognitive bandwidth when the whole purpose of "switching for org mode" is to reduce mental load.

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

#560

Post by zxexz »

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’m very guilty of trying all sorts of productivity software as a form of procrastination. The best one did, in fact, turn out to be index cards and a pencil.
Post reply on HN