
Ask HN: What tools do you use for note-taking, progress tracking and TODO lists? - storik
I usually work on multiple projects at once, using several computers and phones and need to get better at tracking progress I made (for my personal purposes), managing TODO lists and taking personal notes.<p>I&#x27;m quite unorganised in this regard and I&#x27;m looking to change this so that I can finally stop worrying that I forgot about implementing a feature or that I forgot how I solved a particular problem a few months ago.<p>I need to obtain inner peace to be able to focus more on solving actual problems rather than living in fear over note-keeping.<p>My &quot;system&quot; so far is like this: I keep one Markdown file per computer I work on. Each file contains:<p><pre><code>  - TODO lists for multiple projects

  - personal, general TODO lists (not related to particular projects)

  - my insights (regarding e.g. newly read papers or notes when learning new algorithms)

  - links to materials I find interesting and want to read later (papers, tutorials, links to HN :), etc.)

</code></pre>
All of these MD files are unorganised (TODO lists for a single project can be found at multiple places in the file, interleaved between links and unrelated notes). I tried synchronising the MD files using Git, but that seemed like an overhead for me. I think I need something that does <i>automatically</i> save history and it would be nice to show the date and times when a note was taken (so that a graphs of my activity could be made over time - but this is not required).<p>I guess I would like to have a solution that not only synchronises across all platforms (Linux, macOS, Windows, iOS), but most importantly is secure as my notes can contain sensitive information. If there is an open-source solution for this problem, I have no problem with self-hosting such system.<p>How do you keep your notes&#x2F;TODOs&#x2F;track progress?
======
fathead_glacier
Org-mode. Once you get hooked and comfortable there is hardly going back.

Org-mode support todo lists, agendas, scheduling, recording time per task,
latex export, references (with org-tef) and executing code in the document
(with babel) and more.

To give you an idea of what the workflow is while I am working on my PhD
thesis. I write text with references in sections with todo tags, add my python
code, execute it and export to latex. Now I can track how much work I did
today in what section and I can also see other files in a common agenda. All
of this is in plain text files so git work as well and if you decide to
migrate a python script can parse it.

All of this in a free and open source solution if you are happy to work with
Emacs. In my opinion it is worth it even if you keep a running Emacs version
only for this.

~~~
Mxtetris
+1 for org-mode.

Org-mode files are tree-structured, so anything you can structure as a tree
should work well with org-mode. The navigation controls work nicely:
expanding/collapsing, reordering, searching within subtrees.

~~~
noobly
Perhaps you know this, but other curious readers may not: it's worth noting
(perhaps in an org-file) that properties such as tags, priorities and
timestamps allow you to catalogue and access information without using the
tree structure, so it can work for non-tree like structures too.

To any interested readers, I'd watch Carsten Dominik's (the original Org-Mode
auhtor) Google Tech Talk on the topic. It's good to see it explained from the
creator's perspective, imo.

------
spdebbarma
I have two primary programs to handle this on a generic level across devices.
It was important for me to be able to easily access everything from my phone
or PC.

\- Notion [1]

I use Notion to create notes, share thoughts, save links and resources, and
write blog drafts. The focus here is to easily share them with my partners or
publicly, if needed. Notion is extremely versatile and if I had to recommend
an application, it would be this.

\- Standard Notes [2]

I wanted a tool like Bear (for Mac) and this is the closest I could find. This
is for personal use so I wanted something that would securely store my data. I
use this for journaling and maintaining To-Do's.

To manage projects and keep track of how I've been progressing, I use
Trello[3], cause it's one of the best kanban boards out there.

[1] notion.so/ [2] standardnotes.org/ [3] trello.com/

~~~
notJim
Why use both Notion and Standard Notes? I use Bear, but have been vaguely
thinking of moving to Notion.

------
lioeters
In collaboration with others, I often use Trello, Asana, Notion, Google Drive.

\---

That said, if you have the time and inclination, you can always roll your own
custom, personalized solution by combining tools at hand: editor/stack of
choice, Git, rsync, grep, etc.

My own "system" has evolved over the years. These days I use (and continue to
develop) a React app that serves a personal dashboard and watches a folder of
Markdown files for live/hot reload. It has various features that I've added as
needed, like calendar, events, to-do list, different "views" that organize and
list the notes, extracting Markdown "front matter" for metadata like tags.. I
also use it as a scratchpad for code.

The biggest advantage to this approach is the infinite extensibility. If I
want, I can integrate my book collection and keep virtual shelves for "reading
now" and "to read"; use Git for tracking tasks/time/progress; push the system
to a remote server and put my dashboard behind a login, for different devices
to access the central repo; share and up/download static files; dynamic
spreadsheet-like functionality (calculate tax, currency conversions); add a
text-based chat over WebSockets for collaboration..

But this is kind of how I've always used personal computers, by building my
own systems. I get great enjoyment out of it, and the tools fit my needs
perfectly (well, limited by my technical ability and there's always room for
improvement).

------
niklasmtj
Since you use MD files for "organising" you may have a look at Notable [1]
which is Open Source and uses MD files under the hood. And you can tag your
posts to organise your projects

Personally I use a combination of Bear App [2] for Mac to organize my Notes.
Bear has a built in tag function which is really easy to use. Also I'm a huge
fan of it's minimalistic design. For ToDos I use Things 3 [3] which let's you
categorize your ToDos in different projects.

But both are Mac only currently which is a pain point at work where I use
Windows.

[1] [https://github.com/notable/notable](https://github.com/notable/notable)

[2] [https://bear.app/](https://bear.app/)

[3] [https://culturedcode.com/things/](https://culturedcode.com/things/)

------
JohnFen
Over the years, I've tried all sorts of different approaches and tools for
this, and some have worked better than others.

At this moment, I use four tools. On the desktop, I use a basic text editor
for all of those. When I'm not at my desktop, I use an Android app called
LectureNotes.

I use git to archive my notes, etc.

I also run my own Wiki, where I consolidate the current notes for every
project I do (mostly to make it easy for future me to refresh myself when I
need to change something on a project I did 10 years ago, and to make it easy
to share the notes with others in a comprehensive way).

------
funkjunky
I use a dot grid bullet journal with multiple colored fountain pens. I find it
addresses most of your concerns whilst being flexible enough to accommodate
any deviation you can dream of, without any dependencies on technological
solutions. It's dated, organized, consolidated, efficient, flexible, portable,
with room for artistic expression, and it gets you away from your monitor and
keyboard and phone.

------
kosmodrom
For daily TODO lists pen and pencil is the best, you will feel this funny
dopamine hits when you cross out finished a task.

~~~
smartis2812
Personally, I also have the feeling that I remember points better, if I write
them down instead of digital notes. Nothing beats Pen&Paper.

------
cparsons3000
I use Trello for TODOs and Bookmark OS for notes/bookmarks. I like the overall
UI of Bookmark OS and it's use of tags.

[https://trello.com/](https://trello.com/)

[https://bookmarkos.com/](https://bookmarkos.com/)

------
h1d
After trying several tools, I just got to feel a plain text is all I need for
my todo list as I don't want to start decorating the list when I have that
list to consume first.

For Mac, Unclutter is really useful (which also acts as a clipboard manager)
as it gives you instant access to the note with a scroll down from the top of
the screen. And I just have the list written in the order of priority under
several categories, which are just bracketed text headers and it serves me
well.

[https://unclutterapp.com](https://unclutterapp.com)

For Notes, I ended up using Apple's note as it did things fairly and you can
attach files and also encrypt individual entries which I find useful to keep
sensitive information.

------
kashyapc
Like some others here, I've been a diligent and an extremely happy Org mode
user. I use it extensively for work and personal projects, to generate
reports, documents, summaries, and task tracking of all kinds.

And since about a few months, even for mobile, I switched (from "Keep") to the
"Orgzly" app, that supports the Org mode format. In addition to other goodies
like (manual) sync, export, etc.

Org mode is a delight (an understatement).

And oh, I also use the old-fashioned notebook and pen to take notes while
reading books. Something about the rotary motion of pen on paper brings me
joy, and seems to help me better crystallize what I'm trying to learn. (And if
I may say so myself, my handwriting is not terrible.)

------
OedipusRex
I used to use Wunderlist because it had a GREAT widget on Android. Then I
switched to Evernote when I got an iPhone. Now I'm in a hybrid of real pen and
paper and Evernote. Eventually I feel I will go 100% pen and paper. I use
Pocket for saving things on the web that I want to come back to.

I've found that because I work with computer SO much that I need something
analog to bypass that resistance to using a screen after a long day on
computers. I have two notebooks. One strictly for work that I treat like an
Engineers Notebook, 1-page a day, date at the top, sign off when the page is
done, etc. The other I use for personal stuff and usually is just a to-do
list.

~~~
m-p-3
"Eventually I feel I will go 100% pen and paper."

I'm still looking for THE epaper notepad that works well for note-taking, but
also reading emails, managing a calendar, etc and that is also running
Android.

~~~
OedipusRex
One day brother, one day.

------
DougWebb
On Windows, I just use the Microsoft Sticky Notes app. I'd used text files for
a long time, and tried various local and web-based apps, but the key feature
for me is that the note has to be visible or I'll eventually forget about it.
I've got a whiteboard beside my desk and that's good for some things, but
having the notes on my desktop is easier to edit. My second monitor on each
work computer is a mess of notes, but I never forget about them.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sticky_Notes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sticky_Notes)

------
dummy2work
Emacs and Org-mode for almost everything. The eventual rewards significantly
out weight the steep learning curve. IMHO Beyond a point - the ability to
create custom workflows becomes critical to progress.

------
creativityland
Personally for ToDo Lists and Tasks I use Taskade [1] which let's you organize
structured docs into different project workspaces and makes it easy to track.
For more visual tasks and organization, I've been playing around with Mural
[2] and it gets the job done but can get chaotic.

Both are cross platform which makes it easy to collaborate on.

[1] [https://taskade.com](https://taskade.com)

[2] [https://mural.com](https://mural.com)

------
Mxtetris
> I guess I would like to have a solution that not only synchronises across
> all platforms (Linux, macOS, Windows, iOS), but most importantly is secure
> as my notes can contain sensitive information. If there is an open-source
> solution for this problem, I have no problem with self-hosting such system.

If access across machines and operating systems is a priority for you, you may
want to set up a private wiki and ticket tracker, either on your own machine
or with a cloud provider.

------
Darmody
I'm looking for something like this but a bit more complex.

I'd like to have an ENCRYPTED database with my TODO lists, ideas or whatever
comes to my mind, maybe contacts, calendar, alerts and very important, a sort
of wiki where I can store news, images, articles or anything I find
interesting.

A very important feature is encryption. As it's something very personal I
wouldn't like people to be able to read it.

------
saint_abroad
Taskwarrior, where have you been all my life?
[https://blog.djy.io/taskwarrior-where-have-you-been-all-
my-l...](https://blog.djy.io/taskwarrior-where-have-you-been-all-my-life/)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17029560](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17029560)

------
rman666
I use MS OneNote because it’s available for free for all my devices, syncs,
and has a decent UI. It does not support MarkDown at this time.

------
amirouche
Nobody seems to do my technic, I used to do org-mode but then the TODO became
too big and I could not remember exactly what happened. So instead, I use...
one github private repository.

I rely on (sometime big) issues and projects. I store documents and papers in
the git repository.

It also gives me more room to procrastinate, like add emojis, tags etc... on
something that will be useful.

------
s_c_r
I use vimwiki. Simple, light-weight, and does exactly what I need. I also use
org mode in spacemacs with evil, but so far I haven't come across any
functionality in org mode that I needed that vimwiki didn't also provide.

[https://github.com/vimwiki/vimwiki](https://github.com/vimwiki/vimwiki)

------
ha470
Bear.app is incredible! It's been my daily driver for todos, notes, thoughts,
planning, etc for a while.

------
SubuSS
Simple Draft Emails (in Gmail for me) is the easiest IMO.

I also use keep.google.com for personal purposes. Both work great.

------
lormayna
I use Zim, writing notes in Markdown and push the changes in a private
Bitbucket private repository.

------
vs4vijay
I use Standard
Notes([https://standardnotes.org/](https://standardnotes.org/)). It support
extensions which allows you to use markdown, publish to blog, etc etc..

Main feature is that it supports End-to-end Encryption.

------
neuroticfish
Reminders on my phone for important personal tasks, Slackbot for reminders at
work, and then Simplenote for general notes/things I want to come back to or
remember. I find that anything more is superfluous and difficult to keep up
with.

------
mindv0rtex
I use Joplin. It can sync across Windows, OS X and iOS (didn't try it on
Android), notes are in Markdown. The note editor is not awesome, compared to
smth like Typora, but it's ok if you just want to type in Markdown.

------
samrohn
You can take a look at
[https://colab.research.google.com/](https://colab.research.google.com/)
(hosted jupyter notebook from google) to keep your notes organised.

------
sngz
Used to use trello until atlassian bought them. Now I use
[https://www.phacility.com/phabricator/](https://www.phacility.com/phabricator/)

------
raaaar
Trello is amazing. For a more versatile tool I'd say Asana. You can also move
downstream to expert project management tools, but these to are my go-tos for
a simple workflow.

------
simpalmdigital
Notepad is best to write down day to day todo. It is very easy to use and
easily available in any device. Now it has more features and you can quickly
perform your operations.

------
agbell
The archive for plaintext notes [https://zettelkasten.de/the-
archive/](https://zettelkasten.de/the-archive/)

------
FullMetalJason
1\. iOS reminders app for to-dos 2\. google calendar for day to day tasks and
meetings 3\. Evernote for weekly, monthly and yearly progress(I should get a
better tool for this)

------
vinay_ys
I have Evernote subscription and I use that. But lately, I find myself using
more and more Apple Notes and it seems to meet my needs as I have an iPhone
and MacBook.

------
notJim
I use Bear. It's basically like Apple Notes, but more fully-featured. In
particular, it uses markdown (more or less), and has checkboxes you can use
for todos.

~~~
h1d
While I liked it feature wise, I don't think I want to pay a monthly fee just
to take notes.

~~~
Farraige
I thought the same, but it's €15.99 a year. I usually buy a couple of
Leuchtturm notebooks a year, which cost that each. Looking at it that way,
it's well made and I want it to stick around.

~~~
eliasson
> ...it's well made and I want it to stick around.

Fully agree. And for me personally I think €15.99 is cheap - I use it way more
than any of the video games I keep buying.

------
m_fayer
Dynalist - it specializes in hierarchical lists like Workflowy, but with a lot
of rich functionality layered on top. I've been using it daily for over a
year.

------
tmaly
I use the Things 3 app on Iphone. It was built to work in GTD style with
things broken out into spaces and projects in those spaces.

The mail to cloud feature is very handy.

------
jeromescuggs
i have pretty severe adhd which causes a somewhat difficult situation where i
need to keep todo lists to remain on track for even basic stuff, and the
system needs to be pretty foolproof because, you know, the adhd

i dream of doing something really fancy, but i always come back to the same
trio of tools:

-every morning i grab a few sheets of paper and keep them folded up in my pocket, to jot things down when needed. this covers my irl day-to-day pretty well

-for the virtual stuff i use simplenote because it's got apps on every platform i use, and failing that there's a webclient which is nice in the event i am on a computer that isn't mine.

-i really, really wanted to get a nice taskwarrior setup going, but i found that getting the server up for sync purposes to be overly complex. after alot of searching and trying-outs and whatnot the setup that remains due to its ease and portability is a little thing called dstask, which uses a private github repo as its base. setup is as simple as a 'git clone .my/repo' and a 'npm i dstask', and running the sync command updates the repo in a way that i -wish- hub's 'hub sync' command would operate.

with the speed of computing these days, i reformat and reinstall my os maybe
once a week or so because it's literally faster than trying to un-break
something when i manage to mangle something up. so this is a super easy thing
to have to constantly re-deploy because git and npm are, naturally, some of
the first things that get installed on a fresh setup

so that's how i manage to be somewhat functional and independent in my short-
term type stuff. for longer projects and just to keep up the habit, i keep a
pretty large amount of notebooks around, because i am prone to forgetting to
grab one so my solution was to have so many that there is now one or two at
just about any place i am at routinely. i have a sort of system to keep track
of what i guess i would call this 'distributed notebook' but it would probably
drive you insane in a sort of lovecraftian way if you tried to make sense of
the clusterfuck method - like if i refer to something in another notebook i
draw an arrow and depending on the orientation i know what other notebook i am
referring to, because the arrow points to its physical direction relative to
wherever it is i am writing.

obviously the big problem here is encryption but the first rule of encryption
club is,...

------
codefreakxff
Dropbox Paper. Excels at combining notes and todo lists with assignment and
due dates. Easy markdown editing, code blocks, embedded content

~~~
ktm5j
I love Paper except for the fact that I can't get it to show the folder view
as default. It's just one click, but it drives me crazy that it won't remember
that I want to see the folder view.

------
rofo1
GNU's nano. Seriously :)

And nfs-equivalent between machines to "sync" (if nfs is out of the question,
rsync works good enough)

~~~
JohnFen
I've never managed to get along well with Nano, personally, but I'm with you
on using a fairly minimalist text editor.

------
Elixyrs
I use Etherpad on a regular basis.

[https://etherpad.org/](https://etherpad.org/)

------
macos9point1
I've tried a lot of things over the years and I keep coming back to this:

vim ~/notes.txt

I sync with Google Drive to edit on mobile

------
andrei_says_
Team tasks require communication. For these, basecamp or if no budget, trello.

Personal tasks: things, in gtd system.

------
fosco
Emacs org-mode.

For everything.

------
ssawyer06
Google Keep. Free. Desktop + mobile. But they’ll probably discontinue it one
day.

~~~
jazoom
And they are probably mining it for data. I use Keep as a synchronised
shopping list with my wife, among other things. I'd really like a self-
hostable replacement.

------
sexyflanders
Been using todoist lately and like it pretty well

------
thepra
Self hosted nextcloud with notes and tasks

