
Ask HN: What do you use to track your todo's? - _fabio
Is there any way you were able to stick with for a long time and increase productivity?<p>The more detailed answer the better.
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ajford
I use Git and a markdown file.

I keep a repo on all my systems that track a Gitlab repo (any Git repo would
work). This repo contains a primary ToDo file with an overall list. When
necessary, I spawn dedicated lists for specific projects or events. This is
all written in Markdown (usually Github flavored).

The text editor is left to the reader's preference :) I'm strongly
preferential of Vim, and use a few different Markdown plugins to ease writing.

Occasionally, if needed I build a printable PDF using Pandoc. Usually I only
do this when I need to bring it with me.

Of course this doesn't bring any sort of notifications or reminders, so I
supplement this with Google Calendar (and more recently Google Keep) when
needed.

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josefdlange
I wrote a thing for this!

[https://github.com/josefdlange/doit](https://github.com/josefdlange/doit)

To be fair, I don't use it anymore because I'm a disorganized wreck (but
that's just a personal problem!). Despite that, I think it's a neat tool. It
was inspired by Zach Holman's "Boom" \-- and its Python port, "Bam" (credit
goes to Ben Tappin for Bam). It borrows a handful of code from the latter for
data persistence in particular, and for the scaffolding that the CLI rests
upon. Thanks Ben! I haven't updated it in almost two years but it serves its
purpose when I choose to use it.

I wrote it because I found that switching context away from my terminal was
detrimental to my workflow. My day-to-day work has since evolved from being
buried in a tmux session, so it doesn't really make sense for me anymore.

Feel free to contribute to it, file an issue, or generally bitch about it; it
was honestly a couple-hour job to play around with creating something from a
nascent idea, and with learning how Python / PyPI packaging goes. I'd love to
revisit it and improve it if there are reasonable issues/features worth
fixing/implementing!

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jsli
Well, no one mentioned Bullet Journal:
[http://bulletjournal.com/](http://bulletjournal.com/)

They've already done a good job explaining the system, so I won't do it here.

I used it when I was still in graduate school writing a paper. I managed to
track tons of tiny details in the writing process.

I think the most useful thing is the task migration. You must migrate
unfinished tasks from today's log to next day's log, _manually_. During the
migration, I sometimes cross out some random thoughts that I put as tasks.

This is the time that you _must_ spend everyday. It somehow can keep up your
sensation of completeness. I know some apps can help you do this
automatically, like todoist, but I don't think that really works for a long
run (at least not for me). I find that if I didn't do the review (migration),
I intended to get slow start the next day, and gradually the system would
collapse. That's how I failed todoist :(

Just my 2 cents.

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jdlshore
Index cards and a pencil. I organize the cards into columns that represent
calendar weeks (Thur-Wed), and I keep the next six weeks' worth of columns at
all times. There's an additional column for "future" that holds everything
with a date more than six weeks away.

Stuff that doesn't have a date, but is a nifty idea to do in the future, gets
put into a stack of future ideas. They're categorized. At any given time, I'm
working on just a few ideas. When an idea is finished, I can take a new idea
from the "future ideas" pile. In practice, I often know what I want to work on
next and I don't look at the pile.

Cards are estimated in terms of points. I know from experience how many points
I can get done in a week. At the beginning of each week, I count up the
estimates on the date-sensitive cards. If there's extra time available, I
either pull forward cards that need to be done in the future or bring in cards
that will progress one of my current ideas.

Every day, I completely clear my inbox. Spam, no-response, and quick-response
email gets taken care of immediately. Everything else gets turned into a card
and put into the calendar. There's enough slack in my weekly budget that I can
absorb these sorts of administrative tasks.

When I finish a card, I mark it with a little sticky dot. At the end of the
week, I bundle up the cards with a rubber band and put it in a cardfile. I
also add up the total estimates and write down the ideas I was working on for
future reference. That info gets put on another card, of a different color,
that acts as a sort of "cover sheet" for the bundle. I don't need to do this,
but it makes me feel a sense of progress.

Been doing this for years and it works very well for me. It breaks down when I
travel as I'm (a) busy and distracted, and (b) don't bring the cards with me,
so I have trouble staying on top of my inbox.

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meik
Google Keep as a write-only TODO. A sheet of paper with a pen with a few
entries for my "tasks-of-the-day", and I strike any "done" entry.

Didn't find anything more efficient.

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meesterdude
I use my side project, MindAUX.

Creating Todos is pretty easy; i can create as many as I want at once via an
email or entry in the search.

Categorizing them is the next trick: I get emails every other day for todos I
created that aren't classified yet.

After that, they get regularly reviewed and timestamped as reviewed so they
don't need to reappear for a while. I get emails for any todos that have never
been reviewed, or that are overdue for a review.

When I'm deciding what to do in the next i select several I think I can tackle
and add them to my list of active todos, then sort them based on priority.

Anything with a due date gets noisy (pesters me via email) as the date
approaches as well as if its overdue; until it's removed or completed.

I could but haven't needed to use contexts yet or time estimates; primarily
it's been a matter of making sure something is at least in the system and
being tracked/reviewed in a way that I can forget about because I know it
remembers and will remind me through a variety of ways.

I also get a weekly report of open todos, new todos, and other statistics.

This works for me, because it is easy to do brain dumps of this or that, while
also making it harder for me to drop a particularly important ball, or lose
track of it.

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ereckers
Trello board with lists setup like so:

[Inbox][Queue][This Week][Today][Done][Done Apr 2nd]

Text files version controlled in git:

    
    
      /notes/ 
      /notes/project1/todo.txt 
      /notes/project2/todo.txt 
      /notes/project3/todo.txt
    

Since I'm in terminal all day I quickly jot down todos in .txt files as I go.
The real management of them is done in Trello.

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nibs
I use a notebook and write a * followed by a one-line description of the task.
If I create a task, I have to do it. When I finish it, I cross out the whole
link. When I finish all the tasks on a page (I put notes in there too) I put a
checkmark in the top lefthand corner of the page. I have a todo.txt for work
stuff that contains all ongoing todo items.

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cweagans
Taskpaper. There are vim, atom, emacs, and sublime text plugins to support the
format, but I use the official Taskpaper app. I also have a handful of scripts
that I use to help manage the file, including an any.do-like daily review in a
terminal (i.e. find all the overdue stuff and for each one, prompt to either
mark as complete or assign a new due date or delete it; same with @today and
some others). I use a separate file for an inbox, and part of the daily review
is moving each of the inbox tasks to an appropriate project list in my main
tasks file. I use IFTTT and the DO Note app to append new tasks into my inbox
file, and I have a couple other triggers set up (for instance, a Github
project of mine will drop a task into my inbox when a PR is opened to go
review the PR -- this is much less distracting than an email notification or
similar).

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dougdescombaz
Pen and paper pad. Usually put exclamation points next to things I think are
priorities. The next morning, I copy over things I didn't get done the
previous day. Eventually, if I keep copying them long enough, I stop because I
come to term with the fact that they aren't high enough priorities.

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gaza3g
I'm using Workflowy. Tried it for a few hours and I was pretty sold on it. Got
a whole year sub for it. Got buyer's remorse shortly after. Gave it another
shot and now I can't live without it.

I use it mainly to track ALL of the things that is going on at work.

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guilhas
Zim-wiki is very good for general note taking and simple todo. It's worth to
try.

Highlights: * Markdown to visual in real-time * Create pages and tags link
between them * ! Back links, where a page or tag is being referenced * Past
images * Drag drop file * Save storage is in folders files * Python plug-ins

It looks simple at first, but is actually very powerful.

[http://i.imgur.com/iPE9OIS.png](http://i.imgur.com/iPE9OIS.png)

[http://zim-wiki.org/screenshots.html](http://zim-wiki.org/screenshots.html)
[http://zim-wiki.org](http://zim-wiki.org)

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arvinsim
I run Spacemacs org-mode first. I use it to commit all the todos that I can
think of to paper.

Todos with timeframes and deadlines get done. So I peruse the todo list and
set their timeframes. I use Google Calendar to schedule them.

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a3n
somefile.rst

Which is plain text, and vim knows how to display headings and such. I never
render it, .rst is just for syntax highlighting in vim. My current file is
2742 lines, and goes back to Sept. 2014.

I have the following shell script:

    
    
      dt="$1" || "today"
      date --date="$dt" +"%Y-%m-%d %a"
      echo "--------------"
      echo "- "
      echo
    

I call it from vim:

    
    
      :r!newday
    

or:

    
    
      :r!newday tomorrow
    

Which creates this, which I then fill in as I go:

    
    
      2016-04-03 Sun
      --------------
      - Commented on HN.
      - > Make another comment on HN.
    

A plain bullet records what I did. A bullet followed by '>' means something I
need to do today (or tomorrow). Most of the time when I complete a todo, I
just remove the '>'. If it's still there at the end of the day I move it to
the next day's entry. In the manner of .rst, I sometimes have sub-bullets.

A new entry goes at the top. I have a few undated long-ish term entries at the
very top.

That's for my work life. For my personal life I just sit on the couch and wait
for emails from my ex-wife.

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gh02t
Taskwarrior, with my own task server to sync between multiple devices. Been
using it for a couple years now.

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Aij7eFae
Vim with some todo plugins, Emacs orgmode, but there are also some lists which
I need daily on mobile, for that purpose I use Wunderlist with abbreviated
descriptions ( Yea I know I'm paranoid, but hey it's in the cloud and
Microsoft owns it )

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exolymph
I use Apple's Notes app. It doesn't really need to be more complicated than
that.

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theknarf
Professionally I use Jira, there's really notting quite like it.

Personally I tend to use Google Spreadsheet, it allows for collaboration on
small teams.

Sometimes I use a plaintext file in a git-repo (usually formated as a markdown
or org-mode file).

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patrickgordon
I use Trello.

Three lists: TODO, DOING, DONE

Items in DONE get archived the next day. Items in DOING get moved back to TODO
if not completed. I organise them in their list by importance - i.e. ones at
the top are most important.

I use labels pretty heavily too such as red for BLOCKED.

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tmaly
I use Google Keep app for short lists. For more involved projects, I use
Trello. When neither of these are available, I use a simple text based file
with markdown.

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rman4040
I use operating system sticky notes.

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kiloreux
Habitica is really fun, it makes accomplishing tasks as a fun and entertaining
way by gaming it more.

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ljk
after trying many apps and tools like trello, todo lists, a simple .txt file.
I found that the most useful thing for me is just a pen and a small notebook
and write the things down and cross them out when it's done

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peternicky
Paper and pencil/pen.

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acaird
emacs org-mode, sections with the date and [/] and subsections with the TODO
tag, moving things forward as needed; sort of a cheater's GTD.

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thakobyan
I use a simple .txt file always open in Sublime!

~~~
guilhas
Then try [http://zim-wiki.org/](http://zim-wiki.org/)

Before I was also using notepad++ with 3 text files TODO.txt NOTES.txt and
INBOX.txt always open.

And AutoHotkey shortcuts to print date time and \n\n / _\---===
2016-04-04_09-50_2016w14 =========----_ / \n\n separators

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Davidbrcz
Emacs org-mode

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albasha
WorkFlowy

~~~
hatchoo
Same here

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IgorPartola
TODO.yaml

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Kinnard
Pomotodo

