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Show HN: TodoBot is an AI coach that helps you write a better todo list
todobot.ai
accountabilibot
Please, go bother Dall-E with this instead.
Personally my todo lists are all 2-5 words, quick to write and just enough to job my memory for what I want to do.
For example, I need to clean the neck of my skimmer for my saltwater aquarium, I'd put "clean skimmer neck" on my todo list.
TodoBot says this is poor because I didn't include location or what I'd clean it with. It suggested "Clean skimmer neck in the pool with a brush"
Location isn't helpful here, I know where my skimmer is, saying "Clean skimmer neck underneath my 100 gallon saltwater aquarium in my office" would get high marks from the bot, but not actually be useful. "with a brush" is also equally useless. What else am I supposed to clean a skimmer neck with? I know how to clean a skimmer, I don't need to write where and how to clean my skimmer every time I add it to my todo list.
Another aquarium related task on my todo list it was helplessly lost on "Waste Away 50ml 6/1" Which tells me to add 50mls of Waste Away to my aquarium on 6/1. The AI bot rates it really poorly because I don't describe what I'm doing with the 50ml. I don't have too. There's only one thing I do with that 50ml.
A more common example, most people don't have saltwater aquariums. "Take out garbage" for the night before the garbage runs, was rated similarly as poor by the bot. It suggested including which bins need to be taken out and to where. All the bins need to go out and the go out to the only place you take the garbage out to on garbage night. The road.
Feels like one of those productivity tools that let you feel productive, but don't actually help you be productive.
This doesn't seem super useful to me. Personally my todo lists are all 2-5 words, quick to write and just enough to job my memory for what I want to do. For example, I need to clean the neck of my skimmer for my saltwater aquarium, I'd put "clean skimmer neck" on my todo list. TodoBot says this is poor because I didn't include location or what I'd clean it with. It suggested "Clean skimmer neck in the pool with a bru…
This doesn't seem super useful to me. Personally my todo lists are all 2-5 words, quick to write and just enough to job my memory for what I want to do. For example, I need to clean the neck of my skimmer for my saltwater aquarium, I'd put "clean skimmer neck" on my todo list. TodoBot says this is poor because I didn't include location or what I'd clean it with. It suggested "Clean skimmer neck in the pool with a bru…
I think this is a great point. There are a lot of items on my todo list that are super vague, and I never start on them because the next action isn't clear. However, it'd be useful to distinguish between these times, and when a task is acceptably vague (eg "take out the garbage"). I will try updating the prompts to take this into account.
Doesn't mean either of us are wrong!
I'm a heavy user of bullet journaling. I start my day with a few lines of todos and they're always short and sweet. Works for me.
My first problem with this idea (not necessarily this app) is that I don't know that I would want to hand over the control of my prompts to another service. I want to write my own prompts. I also want more control to give it wider context. Right now I'm using a couple of different AI add-ons for Obsidian for this.