

Ask HN: How you manage your to-do list? Are you happy with it? - anujkk

Yesterday I created an Ask HN post where I asked HN community to share its thoughts on one of Paul Graham's frighteningly ambitious startup ideas "Replacing Email" in which he cosiders his inbox as a disastrously bad "todo list" and email as the way things get into it. Here is the link - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4228402<p>Reading the comments I realized there are two contrasting opinions; two groups of people - one that considers email as a to-do list and other who thinks it is just a communication protocol that is wrongly used by some people as a to-do list.<p>I would like to know from HN community, how do you actually manage your to-do list? Are you happy with it? If not, why?
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allardschip
I write my to-dos in a plain text file. I try to avoid writing down actions; I
prefer deliverables because it's clearer when you actually have achieved
something. I prefix to-do items with a character if the status changes
immediately after the change. Here are the prefixes I use:

No prefix: This item was written down but hasn't started @ in progress: I
started working on it, the item is with me. # finished > means this item is
currently with someone else. It works as a reminder to chase someone after
some time. x means canceled / decided not to do d means on hold because
dependent on something else ! prioritized for today

I have items grouped with the first line being a heading for the group. I
write notes or status if relevant after a to-do item and a comma. If things
are crazy I will start notes with today's date. That's specially useful when
there is a lot of back and forth on something. Daily, I'll copy yesterdays
list and past it above. I remove the items that are done or canceled. The
system is all home grown, arcane and works for me.

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iibtrih
I manage to-dos using <https://www.cosapien.com> It also manages what other
people have committed to-do for me, with built-in quality control.

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iibtrih
... i forgot to add -- it is also useful to me because it integrates to do
with our meeting minutes

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rgregory
I've recently thrown my hat in with Things, with the Beta now supporting Cloud
syncing. I'm a minimalist, GTD-leaning sorta guy and this fits perfectly with
my workflow.

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mukundmohan
I use my calendar as a to-do list. Works for me. Block out time to do tasks -
not just meetings. That way it forces me to bucket time for stuff to get done.

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ammmir
for my primary project, i keep a list of items on a physical whiteboard. i
pace around a lot when thinking, so an app would never be as intimate to use.

for everything else, i use a text file with items formatted like:

    
    
      [X] add feature
      [ ] fix bug
    

neither approach is ideal, but i have no major complaints.

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offsky
I use Toodledo.com and give my tasks tags and priorities so that I can sort
and filter them. It works really well for me.

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vseorlov
I use calendar and Clear app for iphone. Also not to much time ago I installed
Any.do app to try it.

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AndrewDucker
Workflowy. And yes.

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flomincucci
I used workflowy for a long time and I think it's brilliant, but now I need to
keep up with complex tasks, so I'm using tiddlywiki - that allows me to link
between tasks, and make notes of relevant things to my tasks

