

How my todo list works - antirez
http://antirez.com/post/my-todo-list.html

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itmag
Personally, I'm very bitter/blasé toward any talk of todo systems, because the
problem most often does not exist at that level.

The main thing for my productivity has been figuring out what I want and don't
want in life. That's a big rabbit-hole; to do it properly you need multiple
Phd's in psychology, it feels like sometimes. Much easier to just dick around
with this or the other Getting-Widgets-Cranked app.

Once you know what you want and don't want, everything becomes much easier.
Don't fall into the trap of procrastiplanning, is what I'm saying.

~~~
runjake
You're completely right.

For the most part, it doesn't matter what tools you use if you (1) have
developed discipline, and (2) have actually defined what you want to
accomplish.

The key hill to climb, where most would-bes are going to fail is at this
sentence: "READ THE DAILY LIST EVERY DAY once you sit in front of the
computer".

To do that, you've first got to develop the will and desire to accomplish
stuff -- and if you had that, you probably wouldn't be fiddling around with
the todo-method-du-jour.

~~~
cpeterso
As a former member of the GTD and Seven Habits cults, I think the weekly list
is more important than the daily list. If you are always heads down focused on
your daily list, you will be stuck in fire-fighting mode. Weekly lists provide
a chance to balance your personal priorities and see big picture opportunities
when you start thinking beyond one day.

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miniatureape
> Deletion forces you to rewrite the items on a new piece of paper often.

I find this one of the best features of a paper system. Every time you copy it
over, you reevaluate your items.

~~~
a_a_r_o_n
One person's bug is another person's feature.

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hammock
I love it when people post their todo lists because you can learn something
each time. Everyone has a different way of doing it, and inevitably ends up
being a combination of a bunch of techniques that are out there.

Right now I have two lists, a "hopper" list where all goals go - it gets
filled at the start with everything I want to accomplish that week - and a "do
today" list which is populated from the hopper and organized the night before
each coming day. Technique stolen from someone here on HN. Simpler seems to
work better for me, even though my days are jam packed with multiple
clients/projects/etc; I have tried all the notes apps and the complexity adds
extra work, time and mental effort that is not worth it in my opinion. I keep
my 2 todo lists in a memo on my phone and that's all there is to it.

~~~
isurfbecause
Hey awesome I have been in the same boat using the Pomodoro Technique where
they have an Activity Inventory ("hopper") and a To Do Today List ("do
today"). It's just this technique has a process for unproductive people like
me to follow hehe.

<http://www.pomodorotechnique.com/>

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bsmith
I actually do find 'todo management' methods to be useful, if only to the
extent that they help me figure out what I should be working on _right now_.
When faced with multiple overlapping projects/clients/deadlines, it can be
very difficult to keep all this stuff straight in my head.

One of the most useful 'todo system' concepts I have encountered is the notion
of 'hiding' a todo item (i.e. keeping it from distracting me) until it is
relevant [idea from <http://bitliteracy.com/>, a book by Mark Hurst]. For
instance, I shouldn't need to see anything about filing taxes on my todo list
every single day of the year—this shouldn't show up until the relevant time.
The OP's method addresses this with the 'weekly' and 'monthly' lists that are
read less frequently, allowing reminders to become daily only when they are
relevant. The system Mark Hurst designed (<http://goodtodo.com>) instead
allows you to specify a sort of 'start date' for a todo item, and it won't
show up until that date. I have found this idea, however implemented, to be
very useful in allowing me to get things out of my head and into an organized
system, but not let them distract me until relevant.

[Full disclaimer: I have no connection with Mark Hurst other than having read
the book linked above and attended one of his talks.]

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grammati
Hey, I use almost exactly the same system, except that instead of evernote I
use backpack (<http://backpackit.com/>), and instead of the three sections
being day, week, and month, I have "Next", "Soon", and "Backlog". Also, I have
two todo lists - one for work, and one for non-work.

I like backpack because I can reorder and drag items between lists easily.
There is even a checkbox beside each item, which I get an unreasonable amount
of satisfaction by clicking.

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brcrth
Clever idea. I'll implement that using a text file and dropbox (specially with
Epistle on Android). Every time that I try Evernote on OS X it feels alien.

~~~
Craiggybear
" _Every time that I try Evernote on OS X it feels alien._ "

Yeah! Weird, but I get this too! What _is_ it that makes it feel so strange on
OS X?

But yeah, a text file on Dropbox is my favorite solution.

Edit: I do actually use and like todo.txt, myself. Worth getting to know.

~~~
brcrth
For me it feels like a beta app. Things works in a strange, kinda buggy way of
an unfinished product.

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ww520
Here's how my todo list work. Each project directory has an org mode file
named todo- _project_.org. The org mode file has a current product version
todo list and a general todo list. When the current version has been released,
its list is moved to the bottom, a new version todo list is added.

The general todo list is for things not fitted in the current version. Its
items can be done in parallel to the current release list or moved into the
next version list.

The Emacs org mode is just a plain text file and make it very easy to organize
the todo list.

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darklajid
I'm currently setting up my home away on a shiny new vps (with lots of goals
like 'try blogging for the nth time' & 'really migrate away from gmail' being
on top).

I discovered taskwarrior [1] and fell in love. So far it's blissfully simple.
No syncing (I guess I could easily tack it on though), but I'm on that machine
anyway, always (irc, mail, tinkering).

So far it's the most natural interface that I could imagine.

1: <http://taskwarrior.org/projects/show/taskwarrior>

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emehrkay
I've been using trello, works well and it could fit this model easily.

~~~
thoradam
I love Trello, simply because it's such a generalized way to organize
thoughts. I use it for everything from project outlines to detailed to-do, to-
read and to-watch lists.

One thing I've found convenient for my high priority to-do card is a script
that prints it on to my desktop. Trello already has a fairly solid API.

In my opinion the biggest challenge for to-do solutions is how to stay in the
users face all the time. Which is probably why sticky notes on the monitor are
still popular.

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verelo
The amount of time i used to waste deciding what to do next completely out-
weighted the benefit it provided. Your approach is very similar to mine, love
it.

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gexla
Emacs org mode works great for this sort of thing. I create a different agenda
file for each project where I keep todo's and general notes for the project. I
can then do a C-c a t to view the global list of todo's. Org mode can also be
combined with the calendar to view items by day / week, etc. I'm still new
with it so I'm not a guru, but so far it works great.

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chmielewski
My to-do list isn't so detailed (but it is LONG), though my appointment
planning is. I use Calcurse so I can manage both in the same terminal.
<http://www.calcurse.org> may be worth a look if you have to manage
appointments along with your to-do list.

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aaronf
It's fascinating that despite all the to-do apps, people still resort to home-
grown, highly manual solutions. Do people think there will eventually be an
app that works for the masses, or will planning continue to be a personal,
isolated experience?

~~~
vl
I think there are two reasons for this:

a) It's extremely hard to make todo list app that accommodates all workflows
that people want well. For example, RTM is not that well suited for GTD, but
wouldn't you expect each of the most popular to-do list app to be well suited,
for, you know, the most popular todo-ing method?

b) Sometimes manual steps are the point - rewriting list actually gives you
time to review the items, so some people opt out for paper and such. I usually
use RTM, but, for example, one-off packing lists I do on paper.

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donniezazen
No wunderlist fans here. Available on every system. Multiple List. It does
pretty much everything you need in a simple TODO list manager.

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samirahmed
is anybody else disappointed with evernote's minimal todo features. I think
that if they include an special todo note with some of the remember the milk
features, evernote would serve as a superior todo note medium

