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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

#721

Post by davsti4 »

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…

While this may work for others replying in support of, you can't use this software without logging in. That's a showstopper for me. It leads me to believe it'll begin syncing my data outside of my local environment. Can you put details about an upcoming employer meeting there without notifying your employer you've shared this data with a third party vendor? Can you put sensitive customer information in it without a governing contract without notifying the customer? ;)

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

#722

Post by ge96 »

Tangent, I've written many note taking apps (Chrome extension, Android widget, desktop app, web app, PWA, mobile app, etc...) my central local API (running on an RPi) the MySQL db went down and also my node pm2 error-log file grew to like 14GB taking up my whole 16GB sd card... later had to move this tc.log file to get MySQL running again, pretty funny. Otherwise been running solid, it's an htmlcontenteditable type so you can drag/drop images and it renders them. Issue is the caret position that can be problematic when you lose your position same for a regular textarea input.

I was lazy the images are converted to base64/stored as such so like 30% growth in storage vs. hosting/url.

What I still have to setup is a centralized store/preferably statically encrypted and remote/syncing.

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

#723

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#724

Post by cainxinth »

I still have the same .txt file I've been keeping my notes in since Windows Vista. Here's what's at the bottom:

- Ideas for businesses I never started

- My eyeglass frame measurements

- Tips for maintaining battery health

- Concepts for tattoos I never got

- Specs for my ThinkPad T400

- Passwords to websites I don't use anymore

- Rough calculations for home solar buyback time

- Instructions on how to edit a video for a seamless loop

- Inside jokes

- List of antivirus tools

- List of browser extension

- Motivational quotes and bits of personal wisdom

- Dimensions for small subwoofers

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

#725

Post by bluGill »

skydhash wrote: post #713
bluGill wrote: post #696

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OR to put is differently - everyone has their own needs they are trying to get done. Each one need individually is simple so it is easy to demand that need is added too. Until the whole system for each different need becomes so complex it collapses under its own weight and you move to a new tool. This cycle seems to repeat every 10-15 years at all companies. JIRA is the tool everyone talking about today, but there we…

I don’t know if anyone has done so, but why not export a static html version of the old tool data and have an archive that way?

Because all the bookmarks/links are still worthless since they point to a server not there.

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

#726

Post by jll29 »

A simple plain text file

  ˜/todo.txt
and either Emacs or Sublime are hard to beat. I've been following the same system, also after experimenting with multiple systems.

My system has a few minor differences:

- I don't use dates/time in TO DO lists (anything with times or deadline are what calendars are for).

- Done items are never deleted, they are merely moved from the TO DO section to the DONE section.

- I use the todo.txt from one machine only (main laptop). While I use many other machines, I don't bother with synchronization, I just open it on the main laptop if I need it. [It's tempting to implement some distributed P2P or C/S sync protocol somehow, but I view this as procrastination, because in the same time I could generate more value in other ways.]

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

#728

Post by Barrin92 »

mikestorrent wrote: post #495
ghostly_s wrote: post #477

Earlier 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…

>There's a great meme with the classic intelligence bell curve setup

This meme has taken on the character of the "Einstein was bad at math and school" urban legend. Yes, you can overthink it, but you can also under-think it if you picture yourself to be some romantic-era genius sitting in a heap of notes. If you want to go meta you might as well put the usage of that meme on the middle of the curve.

You don't need 15 note taking apps but it does pay off to invest in at least a bit of a system (I'd recommend https://johnnydecimal.com/ because it takes about an hour to set up), because you're not actually the 150 IQ guy and you probably benefit from a bit of structure (as do most very intelligent people in real life)

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

#730

Post by matthewfelgate »

I use Todoist and I like it for repeating tasks:

  * A list of daily tasks small and quick too many to remember 
  * Tasks to do or check every three or four days ie about twice a week
  * Tasks to do about once a week eg hoovering.
  * Tasks to do every three months like wash house windows etc
Most days I put my todo list into ChatGPT and get it to put my todo list in order from quickest to longest.

Sometimes I ask ChatGPT to order my todo list by importance.

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