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

al3rez.com

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

#811
post #354
post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hipster PDAs (a stack of index cards with a binder clip) were all the rage before people even had smartphones. I used something like it for a decade. My extravagance was a corner punch.

Even more hipster: A nicely machined piece of walnut and bespoke pre-rounded cards: https://ugmonk.com/collections/analog I love it! There's a disc-bound version for on-the-go as well.

Love how the French clips ("discbound") version is "only" $29.

I get them at my local stationery shop for €0.80, but theirs don't have brass discs.

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

#812
post #806

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I think he had a blog called LifeHacker and/or 36 folders (I don't know if they were his or just a writer, but I remember following him back in the day). It's wild to think that was almost 20 years ago when Getting Things Done was going through tech circles as the organization method dujour. (I also equate the same time period with learning Ruby on Rails.)

Merlin ran 43folders.com[1]. That domain name was a reference to GTD's tickler files[2]. Merlin did not have anything to do with Lifehacker.com. Gina Trapani[4] founded Lifehacker[3]. But, Lifehacker often covered and was inspired by Merlin's work. 1. http://www.43folders.com/ 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tickler_file 3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifehacker#History 4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gina_Trapan…

Cool, thanks for clarifying. It was just all jumpled in my AMAZING RSS reader. I miss those days.

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

#813
I've being doing something similar for years. I will say that when life gets busy so do my notes. On the other hand, the other apps did too.

So it is cheap, easy to extend, portable and my only concern is that using it on my phone is not the best.

I have notes for target dates too

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

#817
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…

>but who then build quite a lot of snowflake software to regain functionality offered by more structured TODO applications. That includes:

I pretty much don't want any of that stuff though.

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

#818

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…

I strongly agree. I think it's a form of procrastinating. I read about all these complex systems for notes and second brains and whatnot. All procrastinating imho.

>I strongly agree. I think it's a form of procrastinating.

It's like a special extra bad form of procrastinating too, because they've essentially gamified procrastination to make it feel productive.

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

#819

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - having your computer alert you to things that come up If my own experience is a valid example, alerts are overrated. They don't work for long. I hate getting interrupted by something that actually does not need my attention at that precise moment. I would disable those alerts in no time. I prefer leaving physical cues in the real world. I think screens are bad UI unless you already spend way too much time in fron…

I geeked out a bit, after reading another blog post, and used my thermal printer for this. I've been using it for a few weeks now. The little sticky notes it makes are great. https://joeldare.com/trying-to-stop-procrastination-with-my-... I am starting to collect too many of them though. I kinda like the idea of ops text-file because it is renewed from day to day. I'm still not quite sure how to deal with the items I…

>I have noticed that thermal notes fade relatively quickly. When they do that I have to think about weather I want to reprint them or just throw them out.

Or if you don't catch them before they fade, the task must not have been important..

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

#820

I just switched to printing my todo tasks on a receipt printer. I have an arduino connected to a receipt printer and a Python script that can send commands to the arduino to print tasks. Also just finished adding barcode scanning so the task gets printed with a barcode and I use an iOS Shortcut to mark the task as complete. Actually works so well! Having the tasks in physical form helps me stay more focused and scann…

Looking to create something just like this for chores at home.

Inspired by https://www.laurieherault.com/articles/a-thermal-receipt-pri...

And

https://youtu.be/xg45b8UXoZI

Hoping it will make chores more visible and fun to complete for the whole family.

I picked up a used star tsp100 printer and usb 2d barcode scanner.

Still looking for a backend though. Idealy with Homeassistant integration for automating todos that already have sensors and data such as taking out the trash.

https://www.donetick.com looks promising.

Could you share some more technicalities on your setup?

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