
Ask HN: Your favorite to-do list or task manager? - owkaye
I have one large (and several small) personal projects to accomplish during the next year or two of my life (including building a new house) and one professional programming project to start planning.  I think an online to-do list or task manager would be a help in terms of planning, scheduling and reminding me.  I do not need a mobile app, instead I'm interested in a solution with great desktop interface.  What do you use?  Do you recommend it?  If so, why?
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dcuthbertson
I've been using emacs org-mode (<http://orgmode.org>) for a little over a
year. It makes it easy to capture notes, todo-items, and agenda/calendar
items. I wanted to learn how to use emacs and it gave me a reason to run emacs
every day. Now org-mode has become part of my routine for keeping track of
what I have to do and what I've done.

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jrajav
I currently don't use anything for _personal_ task tracking, since I am a part
of a large team and we have project management. However, in college I explored
this quite a bit. Here is what I would recommend:

 __* Text-based __*

If this appeals to you, Taskpaper is a really good format with a lower barrier
of entry than org-mode. There is a Taskpaper major mode for Emacs, a plugin
for Vim, and even one for Sublime Text 2 (though the author didn't credit
Taskpaper or Hog Bay except as "inspiration" at the bottom of the README):
<https://github.com/aziz/PlainTasks>

__* Simple but GUI __*

Literally anything that allows you to create individual items, tag them (or
add them to multiple named lists - same thing), and then filter by tag or
list. Tags are all you need to implement anything from pure ad-hoc task
management all the way up to strict GTD. Priorities are not essential and can
actually get in the way; I've always found it much simpler and less of a mind
burden to categorize tasks by project ("project" here meaning anything that
takes more than one discrete task) and then simply tag the "Next Action" for
any given project. You can then filter by "Next Action" and decide for
yourself at any given moment what task will be best to do with the resources
available to you (time, tools, location, energy).

Some examples of solutions that will do this:

\- A directory of text files with #hashtags in their contents and grep

\- Notational Velocity / Simplenote

\- Any todo list app with real tags (not Wunderlist, for instance)

\- Outlook

\- Taskpaper or org-mode

I actually used Gmail for this for a while. I could expound on that if you're
interested.

 __* The Full Monty __*

OmniFocus, plus the book "Getting Things Done" by David Allen. It's cliche for
a reason. It's not a silver bullet (obviously, I hope), but it is an effective
system, it works for a lot of people, and you will probably get at least a few
takeaways out of reading about it.

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waxjar
I just use a piece of paper.

For coding I use comments and a git alias (git todo) that returns the
comments.

    
    
        todo     = !git grep --color=always --no-index --exclude-standard --heading --break --ignore-case -e ' FIX: *' -e ' TODO: *' | sed -e 's/^[[:space:]]*//'
    

Long term stuff I keep in Notational Velocity, among a load of other things.

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philjackson
Org-mode for emacs is excellent. I've been using it for years.

<http://orgmode.org/>

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afshinmeh
Trello. Powerful for managing team tasks and simple for managing personal to-
do(s).

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olegp
I launched StartHQ, a web app directory, this week. You can see a list of todo
apps here: <https://starthq.com/apps/?category=productivity>

I will also add all the ones mentioned here. My personal favorite is
<https://starthq.com/apps/wunderlist>.

~~~
olegp
By the way, you can vote for your favorite apps on StartHQ by liking or
tweeting the app profile page and that will count towards its popularity score
and ranking.

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gorbachev
Wunderlist.

I was using Things before, but the rip-off pricing and lack of web and non iOS
clients made me switch.

I like Wunderlist for its simplicity and the "GTDishness".

Supports multiple projects (or lists), sub-tasks, reminders, repeated tasks.

No support for tags, and the recent Wunderlist2 release dropped support for
the great "smart dates" functionality, which was an absolute killer feature on
their old version.

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michielvoo
Do you use a Mac? If so, I recommend Things for Mac

<http://culturedcode.com/things>

<http://culturedcode.com/things/mac/appstore> ($49.99)

Edit to answer to ralfy's reply below:

I recommend it to Get Things Done [1], for its versatility (projects, scopes,
labels, scheduling and repeated tasks), its excellent user interface and
aesthetics, and the seamless synchronization across multiple devices (Mac,
iPhone and iPad).

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Getting_Things_Done>

~~~
kennu
I also recommend Things, because it's an app that makes you feel good if
you're into OS X and iOS style user interfaces. I bought it years ago, but
truly started using it when they got the Things Cloud sync working.

So now I always keep it open on all my Macs (I switch between 3). It's always
up-to-date, shows the number of tasks pending for today in the Dock icon, and
it's comfortable to very quickly switch to the app, and create new tasks or
mark old ones done. And when you're procrastinating, you can organize the
tasks into projects and drag'n'drop them around, enter tags and descriptions,
etc.

I think you can achieve the same with any todo list app or even text files,
but Things makes it look and feel nice.

~~~
pooriaazimi
Have you tried OmniFocus? The Mac client is just fantastic (if you take the
time to learn and customize it). And v2.0 (due in seversl months) is even
better.

Of course, you have to learn GTD system to get the most out of OmniFocus. It's
something that'll greatly improve your efficiency in the long run, so I think
it's worth the time you invest.

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richo
It's so far from finished, but I'd be interested to see people think about
where it's going:

<https://github.com/richo/groundstation>

You should be able to get something working by installing the dependencies,
pulling in some github issues with ./slurp_github and then running airshipd

EDIT: Which is the logical successor to <https://github.com/richo/TODO>

I've tried most of the other platforms and none really delivered for me. At
the very least I could find my old TODO anywhere since it was all online.

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grantism
I use wunderlist on my iOS devices and my windows PC at work.

I like it because it offers automatic synching over multiple devices as well
as making it easy to separate out each of the projects I'm working on.

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rschmitty
Since you said a great desktop interface.. check out MS OneNote, integrates
with Outlook for schedule/reminders, very good drag/drop support of anything.

If you can pay $, Atlassian JIRA is the best for programming, you can
schedule/plan tasks, get reminders, much better sorting of issues/categories,
phases, have them automatically close with commits (JIRA is just like github
only way more advanced in what you can do)

Now if you are doing an open source project for the community then hands down
stay on github

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alanmeaney
We launched <http://taskmessenger.com> in January. It's a shared to-do list
for personal and team use. Sign up is free and if you need any features or
help getting started drop me a mail at alan@taskmessenger.com (I'm a co-
founder)

We have a search function for keeping track of tasks, an activity feed showing
tasks completed while we also track stats such as tasks shared, picked up and
completed.

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tbrownaw
Google Docs, but any other text editor would work about as well. I have three
bulletted lists, one (very short) one for things that are currently in-
progress and really ought to be finished before I start something else, one
for things that are blocking on something, and one for things I either haven't
gotten around to yet or had to defer for some reason. For small/quick things
that come from emails, I just flag them in Outlook.

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skycocker
I have recently made a small todo webapp because I needed one myself, it's
still deep in beta, but besides few UI flaws on WebKit works pretty well:
<http://www.rodosapp.com/>

You can add a new group just for yourself or add some people to it, you do it
by typing their email address to "add user" field. Of course that user has to
be already registered in the app.

~~~
siddhant
You should also add some screenshots on the website, just so people get a feel
for what it's like before signing up.

~~~
skycocker
I'm planning to do so, but I need to stabilize push notifications a bit before
I start to make Rodos look better. Thanks for the advice, anyway! :)

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jsherer
I build TodoPaper and combine it with TaskPaper and DropBox to sync across my
PCs and Macs and iPhone. It's a plaintext file format that also has a number
of open source projects that highlight the files when you work in Vim,
Notepad++, etc. Example of the format:

    
    
      Project:
      - task
      - task @done
        - sub task 
          Notes for this task.
        - sub task @due(2013-03-03)

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dageshi
notepad.

* this is something I would like to achieve
    
    
                  -this is a sub step on the way to achieving it
    
                  -and another substep

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merinid
Workflowy.com

~~~
thanthese
I've never had any piece of software become so indispensable so quickly as
workflowy did. It's hugely flexible, dead-simple to use, and easy to use on
all my devices.

~~~
maxkir
Interesting, have you tried Checkvist (I'm the dev)?

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bentaber
Asana is my favorite. It can be used for basic to-do lists or more complex
project plans. The interface feels fast and nicely designed, with key bindings
for everything so you can move through it very quickly. Free for up to 30
people in a team, so you can assign tasks to others if you want to.

<http://asana.com>

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elicox
I use UbikFocus (<http://Appstore.com/ubikfocus>) its a iPhone/iPad App. I use
in my daily activity to organize the tasks of my projects.

I try others apps, some one of the people suggest but for me are so simple or
so complex. Ubikfocus it's a good mix between simplicity and powerful features

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samufuentes
If you don't mind spending some $ on it, I totally recommend Omnifocus. I've
been using several tools over the past years and stopped looking around when I
found this one. It supports several projects nicely, helps with the reminders
and the contexts and syncs over several devices. Fast to learn, fast to use.

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binaryorganic
Clear <http://www.realmacsoftware.com/clear/>

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michokest
\- For simple personal things, a Chrome extension I made that gives you a
simple localStorage backed textarea. I can share if anyone's interested.

\- For code, Github issues/pull requests

\- For team tasks that need to be delegated, Teambox (<http://teambox.com>)

\- For scheduled things, Google Calendar

~~~
jdotjdot
I'd like to see that Chrome extension.

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manuelflara
I use Basecamp for project to-do's, and Gmail with "Show unread at the top"
option on, for "life" to-do's.

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dsyph3r
We recently released our visual task management app DropTask
(<https://www.droptask.com>). It allows you to split your tasks across
projects, categorize them using nested sub grouping and schedule them easily
using the week view.

~~~
mtrimpe
When I first saw DropTask I thought it would allow you to take multiple
perspectives and have a grouping per perspective, like urgency, compononent,
assignee, customer value, etc., etc.

I've been looking for that for ages and was so disappointed when I saw it
wasn't...

If you're still open for it you might want to consider adding what are
essentially additional views to help organize your tasks from different
perspectives. You can even add something like a 'scale' view to help sort
these things on e.g. a linear scale.

Anyhow, just my €0.02 :)

~~~
dsyph3r
Thanks for the feedback. DropTask is still at a relatively early-stage so we
are constantly working on adding new features. The ability to see tasks from
different grouping perspectives sounds really interesting.

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egomaksab
Try Breeze (<http://letsbreeze.com>), it's agile tool that shows your tasks on
a board, also includes todos and calendars.

For more professional use it also has time tracking, reports, email
notifications, dropbox and google drive integration.

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AdamGibbins
Todoist. Why? Because it supports sub tasks and sub projects (this is pretty
rare), freeform tagging so I control how I structure things, a wonderful UI
and works offline by way of HTML5 storage.

I don't like that I can't hide tasks until they're nearing their due date
however.

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RogueX
Todoist. I've used Remember the Milk, Toodledo, Wunderlist and probably a few
others that I've forgotten and have come back to Todoist. It's a simple,
clean, flexible interface that does what I need. I had high hopes for
Wunderlist but gave up in frustration.

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porter
I've used a lot of web and desktop based todo lists....

Turns out it's pretty hard to beat pen and paper.

~~~
alanmeaney
What would you add or change on previous apps you've used?

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Todd_Davies
As a student, I use Schooltraq (<http://schooltraq.com>).

It has both a web interface, Android app and an API so it's fairly ubiquitous
for me. I find it simple and efficient.

Disclosure - I am a developer at Schooltraq.

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BjoernKW
GitHub for software issues / bugs features.

Trello for sales pipeline, general project planning and management tasks.

Remember the Milk for tasks with a specific due date and recurring tasks,
though I'd like to use Trello for that in the long run, too.

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PeterisP
Two plaintext files in dropbox (todo.txt and priority.txt), kept always open
in all my computers.

Search, editing and subtasks-by-indentation are convenient enough, as my text
editor anyway is my main work tool.

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masylum
I (ab)use Teambox. You can plug it with incoming email so its great for
ticketing and also for defining custom processes within your team (hashtags?
love them!).

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3rd3
Apples Reminders.app is actually better than most people say or think. You can
even keep it in sync with your own server using CalDAV.

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aymeric
I am the developer behind <http://weekplan.net>, please have a look if you
have 2 min.

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ekianjo
Task Warrior! All in terminal but very practical.

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jsheperd
I am happy with MS OneNote. It seems to be the most versatile tool. Integrated
to outlook calendars, easy to find open tasks, ...

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joshguthrie
Astrid for daily tasks (paperwork and links or technologies to check later)
and Trello for projects-related tasks.

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berberous
I really like The Hit List. It has a OS X and an iPhone app, but you have to
pay for syncing.

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dfischer
<http://www.kanbanpad.com> free too.

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bumbledraven
todo.txt (todotxt.com) - open source with a simple text file format. Items
have (priorities), +tags, and @locations. There is a CLI interface for
desktops and apps for iOS & android. Syncing over dropbox is supported.

~~~
zenweasel
I chose todo.txt after trying all the others because I can get command line
efficiency and Smartphone portability. Everything is open-source (both the
smartphone apps as well) and easily extendable. I prefer Taskwarrior for a
pure CLI tool, but no visibility on any other platform.

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slake
If you have the discipline to use pen and paper I'd recommend that. Else
Asana!

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ehsania
i use "todo.txt". it is text based todo list, you can edit it easily every
where, it has smart phone app and it's very simple to use
<http://todotxt.com/>

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akirk
todo lists are not it's main purpose, but I use thinkery which can do it too
by giving things a #todo tag. <http://thinkery.me/>

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lajarre
Any stats done on these comments to figure out what people use?

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businessleads
I guess we are the very last to still use Google Tasks.

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drucken
Excel + Dropbox + synced Google Calendar.

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kenshi
Text files on Dropbox.

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alexrson
vi

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fstone
any.do

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oulipo
nvAlt

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modi123
Omnifocus for daily personal task, and Trello for development project.

