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

My requirements were: - ability to sync the TODO lists between devices (web and android). - ability to have sub-items, so that I can organise my complex lists into magnificent trees of tasks. I sometimes have 5 levels of details on some travel checklists. - ability to handle periodic tasks, and ability to create a task and hide it until a specific date (topics for my future self) - ability to be self-hosted.

I'm now using Vikunja, and Tasks.org for the Android side. That setup has worked for me wonderfully for a couple years now. Vikunja has a ton of features I don't use, and that's fine. They don't get in the way.

I use Obsidian on my phone, and I use syncthing to sync it, and then I just edit it with vscode on my computer.

I have Obsidian set up to create a new week file every week, and then I add things to do there, I also move things from previous weeks if I still feel they are relevant.

Works like a charm.

I'm a heavy Todoist user and I think it's great. I used to use org-mode, but all the Android apps I used for it were clunky and had issues with syncing when my file was concurrently edited somewhere else.

Todoist's API is pretty good too, so I've ended up building my own little webapp that fills some of the gaps in Todoist's functionality (e.g. finding a list of the projects that don't have a next action defined).

There was a period in my life when, just like OP, I tried many TODO apps. With each new app that I tried, I was filled with immense expectation that this finally is the app that will help me get my life in order. Needless to say, the early high was soon filled with inevitable dread, as the items and lists in the app kept on growing and I struggled to keep up with the brutal requirements of life as it is.

There were certain apps which would give the user a lot of options to customize the lists and the items in them. Customize in ways that would make the TODO item the most unique TODO item in its requirement and its quality. Such apps made me think a lot. Or should I say, overthink a lot. I would spend a lot of time trying to find the ultimate, most specific, custom setting for a TODO item that would make it unique and give it a life of its own. Looking back now, I am not sure how useful it all was. Ultimately, I ended up doing some items and not doing others. I cannot quantify what additional productivity they brought to me.

Now I dont use any TODO app at all. I just try to remember things, and I don't feel any different from the time when I was using those apps. Makes me wonder! Was I trying to invent a problem so that I could use these apps as a solution.

Perhaps that's why so many people come back to the old plain paper or a simple text file approach. Perhaps we all realize that it was perhaps not a problem after all and we would still have achieved most of what we set out to do. And even if we didn't, in the end, it doesn't matter all that much because life still goes on regardless.

I guess the real workhorse here is Neovim and the custom hotkey for launching todo.txt