1. Make list
October 31, 2020 11:46 AM Subscribe
Do you need a to-do list, but sticky notes, ordinary pieces of paper, daily planners, and physical calendars seem too darn straightforward?
Do Remember The Milk, ToDoist, TickTick, Microsoft ToDo, EverNote, 2Do, Google Keep and your smartphone’s note-taking app have too many fancy graphics?
Does paying for a program like Things or OmniFocus really grind your gears?
Would using the free option from some project management startup like Notion, ClickUp, Clubhouse, Trello, Quire, BaseCamp, or Asana take your household in a disturbingly corporate direction?
Are online bug trackers like Pivotal Tracker, JetBrains YouTrack, GitHub Issues, or Jira just silly?
Is org-mode for emacs too laughably old school, powerful, and arcane?
Well then, you might be be in the market for TaskWarrior! It’s a command line to-do list management tool, that’s as easy as
Do Remember The Milk, ToDoist, TickTick, Microsoft ToDo, EverNote, 2Do, Google Keep and your smartphone’s note-taking app have too many fancy graphics?
Does paying for a program like Things or OmniFocus really grind your gears?
Would using the free option from some project management startup like Notion, ClickUp, Clubhouse, Trello, Quire, BaseCamp, or Asana take your household in a disturbingly corporate direction?
Are online bug trackers like Pivotal Tracker, JetBrains YouTrack, GitHub Issues, or Jira just silly?
Is org-mode for emacs too laughably old school, powerful, and arcane?
Well then, you might be be in the market for TaskWarrior! It’s a command line to-do list management tool, that’s as easy as
task add "Use TaskWarrior"; task 1 done. It can even sync your tasks across devices, although that will take some work unless you’re willing to trust Inthe.am and some guy named Adam Coddington who runs it.Agh, and Workflowy. This post is a disaster.
posted by Going To Maine at 11:55 AM on October 31, 2020 [7 favorites]
posted by Going To Maine at 11:55 AM on October 31, 2020 [7 favorites]
This post is a disaster.
Have you considered making a list?
posted by curious nu at 11:56 AM on October 31, 2020 [83 favorites]
Have you considered making a list?
posted by curious nu at 11:56 AM on October 31, 2020 [83 favorites]
And checking it twice?
posted by aleph at 12:07 PM on October 31, 2020 [8 favorites]
posted by aleph at 12:07 PM on October 31, 2020 [8 favorites]
I appreciated "too laughably old school, powerful, and arcane".
posted by clew at 12:11 PM on October 31, 2020 [6 favorites]
posted by clew at 12:11 PM on October 31, 2020 [6 favorites]
I have more of a philosophical issue. How do I plan for a year that may turn out to be... unplannable in the way that I found 2020 to be?
posted by Selena777 at 12:17 PM on October 31, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by Selena777 at 12:17 PM on October 31, 2020 [1 favorite]
A .txt file has always worked fine for me
posted by one for the books at 12:26 PM on October 31, 2020 [11 favorites]
posted by one for the books at 12:26 PM on October 31, 2020 [11 favorites]
Pity the Commandline Its Forced Embrace of GUI form.
posted by geoff. at 12:30 PM on October 31, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by geoff. at 12:30 PM on October 31, 2020 [1 favorite]
> I have more of a philosophical issue. How do I plan for a year that may turn out to be... unplannable in the way that I found 2020 to be?
One way to approach planning for "known unknowns" is to think up a small number of different scenarios in how a specific unknown could play out -- a middle ground scenario, an unexpectedly bad scenario, and an unexpectedly good scenario. Then break down the outcomes or consequences of each scenario that would be relevant to your planning. Then you could try to come up with a plan that wouldn't produce ruinous results in any scenario, or that "on average" could produce good results, although it might produce worse than average results if one or more of the scenarios happen.
This doesn't work very well for "unknown unknowns", e.g. if you were performing this planning exercise 12 months ago, unless you were really on the ball, global pandemic best case / worst case scenarios wouldn't have been considered.
Another idea is to attempt to increase the amount of flexibility and options that you have, so you're in a better position to react in the event that something major and completely unexpected does occur.
posted by are-coral-made at 12:32 PM on October 31, 2020 [7 favorites]
One way to approach planning for "known unknowns" is to think up a small number of different scenarios in how a specific unknown could play out -- a middle ground scenario, an unexpectedly bad scenario, and an unexpectedly good scenario. Then break down the outcomes or consequences of each scenario that would be relevant to your planning. Then you could try to come up with a plan that wouldn't produce ruinous results in any scenario, or that "on average" could produce good results, although it might produce worse than average results if one or more of the scenarios happen.
This doesn't work very well for "unknown unknowns", e.g. if you were performing this planning exercise 12 months ago, unless you were really on the ball, global pandemic best case / worst case scenarios wouldn't have been considered.
Another idea is to attempt to increase the amount of flexibility and options that you have, so you're in a better position to react in the event that something major and completely unexpected does occur.
posted by are-coral-made at 12:32 PM on October 31, 2020 [7 favorites]
Make a schedule, not a to do list
posted by armoir from antproof case at 12:36 PM on October 31, 2020 [7 favorites]
posted by armoir from antproof case at 12:36 PM on October 31, 2020 [7 favorites]
Make a schedule, not a to do list
Good news! There’s also TimeWarrior. And Google Calendar, and iCal, and your physical calendar, and and and…
I purchased a daily planner last year in a fit of optimism, and then immediately did nothing with it. But yes, scheduling yourself can be quite freeing, if you can hack it.
posted by Going To Maine at 12:51 PM on October 31, 2020 [2 favorites]
Good news! There’s also TimeWarrior. And Google Calendar, and iCal, and your physical calendar, and and and…
I purchased a daily planner last year in a fit of optimism, and then immediately did nothing with it. But yes, scheduling yourself can be quite freeing, if you can hack it.
posted by Going To Maine at 12:51 PM on October 31, 2020 [2 favorites]
Sounds like my old fave todo.txt. Will check it out, thanks.
posted by Hutch at 1:05 PM on October 31, 2020
posted by Hutch at 1:05 PM on October 31, 2020
I’ve long felt that timeblocking is one of those techniques—like “check your email just twice a day”—that really only works if you’re either your own boss or the boss of your organization. The rest of us pretty much already have our time blocked for us by people who have the luxury of choosing what they can work on.
But maybe that’s just because the times I’ve tried it it’s immediately and spectacularly fallen apart, idk
posted by Ian A.T. at 1:09 PM on October 31, 2020 [4 favorites]
But maybe that’s just because the times I’ve tried it it’s immediately and spectacularly fallen apart, idk
posted by Ian A.T. at 1:09 PM on October 31, 2020 [4 favorites]
Quick plug for Dynalist, a Workflowy clone with expanded functionality. (But not too expanded; it’s still easy to learn and use.)
Even better, it has a dedicated, engaged, and responsive dev team who actively work on the system and answer support requests quickly.
posted by Ian A.T. at 1:17 PM on October 31, 2020 [3 favorites]
Even better, it has a dedicated, engaged, and responsive dev team who actively work on the system and answer support requests quickly.
posted by Ian A.T. at 1:17 PM on October 31, 2020 [3 favorites]
At the moment I mostly use taskwarrior, but I’ve lost count of all the others I’ve tried!
I never used Lotus Agenda, but I’m told it was a popular productivity tool for MS-DOS in the late 80s.Tavis Ormandy tries Lotus Agenda
posted by Monochrome at 1:36 PM on October 31, 2020 [1 favorite]
This year I finally abandoned my decade-long quest for a technological solution to my chronic inability to manage the tasks I need to get done and bought a five-pack of reporter's notebooks. I've used them to make daily to-do lists, and it's honestly been the most effective system I've ever tried. I sorta pseudo-bullet-journal, with Xs for things I've completed and arrows for things that need to be bumped to the next day. I have one notebook dedicated to monthly tasks and one dedicated as a day planner. It doesn't eat up much desk space, and the flexibility of a written system is nice.
posted by protocoach at 1:46 PM on October 31, 2020 [12 favorites]
posted by protocoach at 1:46 PM on October 31, 2020 [12 favorites]
When I feel the need, I make a todo.txt file in my home directory. As things occur to me I echo and append them >> to the file. I can review the list with 'less todo.txt' and edit out the done stuff using the v command from inside less to fire up my system editor. It's called the Unix Toolkit for a reason...
posted by jim in austin at 2:14 PM on October 31, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by jim in austin at 2:14 PM on October 31, 2020 [3 favorites]
I have a lot of feelings about how Evernote has become slow as butt and they mystifyingly force me to click, like, 7 times now before I can start typing, and what I type is transformed by monkeys before it gets to the screen. But it is on all my computers and my phone, so it's got that going for it.
I often use the votl outliner for vim to take notes and meeting minutes, and to make lists to check off, it has a superficial resemblance to Workflowy. I've written a whole D&D campaign in it. Not everyone's cup of tea, YMMV, etc.
posted by Horkus at 2:44 PM on October 31, 2020
I often use the votl outliner for vim to take notes and meeting minutes, and to make lists to check off, it has a superficial resemblance to Workflowy. I've written a whole D&D campaign in it. Not everyone's cup of tea, YMMV, etc.
posted by Horkus at 2:44 PM on October 31, 2020
Why would anyone need anything else than org-mode? Toss in org-roam and org-journal and you've covered every base. All right, all right, it took me 4 years to reach this stage, but other than that...
posted by kmt at 3:24 PM on October 31, 2020 [7 favorites]
posted by kmt at 3:24 PM on October 31, 2020 [7 favorites]
As a professional organizer, I'm always pleased when someone else makes the productivity app lists. That said, if someone wants an open source, Mac menu bar app and is open to downloading from Github, I've been using Focused Task. One tidy drop-down for ToDos, bookmarked links to help with whatever your task/project is, and a section for notes.
posted by The Wrong Kind of Cheese at 3:44 PM on October 31, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by The Wrong Kind of Cheese at 3:44 PM on October 31, 2020 [1 favorite]
I've mostly given up digital checklists. I just use a nice journal that I put a few checkboxes in each morning, basically it's the Pomodoro Method. Sometimes I do free-form writing in it about my day but mostly it's just a whole bunch of checkboxes. Some get checked off. Some don't.
Works for a freelance artist. Might not work for someone with Actual Bosses And/Or/Subordinates.
horkus > I have a lot of feelings about how Evernote has become slow as butt
oh god same, I hate the new update, thanks for reminding me to dig into Time Machine and revert to the old one that's an actual Mac application instead of a piece of Electron garbage. Every time I command-tab to EN and hit cmd-shift-n and don't get a new EN window popping up, I am consumed by loathing.
posted by egypturnash at 3:44 PM on October 31, 2020 [6 favorites]
Works for a freelance artist. Might not work for someone with Actual Bosses And/Or/Subordinates.
horkus > I have a lot of feelings about how Evernote has become slow as butt
oh god same, I hate the new update, thanks for reminding me to dig into Time Machine and revert to the old one that's an actual Mac application instead of a piece of Electron garbage. Every time I command-tab to EN and hit cmd-shift-n and don't get a new EN window popping up, I am consumed by loathing.
posted by egypturnash at 3:44 PM on October 31, 2020 [6 favorites]
Why would anyone need anything else than org-mode? Toss in org-roam and org-journal and you've covered every base. All right, all right, it took me 4 years to reach this stage, but other than that...
org-mode is ... ok, but I need to find an Android app that works well with it.
posted by sebastienbailard at 5:19 PM on October 31, 2020
org-mode is ... ok, but I need to find an Android app that works well with it.
posted by sebastienbailard at 5:19 PM on October 31, 2020
I work as part of a creative team that sources and manages relationships with a number of external providers. All are either consultancies or startups where we are working with designers, developers, and creative project managers. Each provider has its own preferred management and tracking software. "It will be so easy to communicate on the project and track our progress if we all just use [fill in the blank]."
I am currently being asked to use Asana, Trello, Jira, Microsoft Teams, Googledocs and Slack, each by a different provider, to track, communicate, and provide feedback. And as the client, I am supposed to develop a competence in *their* preferred tools. And none of them seem to use the tools in a way that makes me go, "wow, this is so efficient!".
Meanwhile, my own team has found the most effective task management to be a series of shared Mural pages with calendars and color coded post-it notes. It's highly visual, it's intuitive, and its dead simple. (And it doesn't send me constant updates and notifications.)
posted by amusebuche at 5:48 PM on October 31, 2020 [7 favorites]
I am currently being asked to use Asana, Trello, Jira, Microsoft Teams, Googledocs and Slack, each by a different provider, to track, communicate, and provide feedback. And as the client, I am supposed to develop a competence in *their* preferred tools. And none of them seem to use the tools in a way that makes me go, "wow, this is so efficient!".
Meanwhile, my own team has found the most effective task management to be a series of shared Mural pages with calendars and color coded post-it notes. It's highly visual, it's intuitive, and its dead simple. (And it doesn't send me constant updates and notifications.)
posted by amusebuche at 5:48 PM on October 31, 2020 [7 favorites]
so how do you share a grocery list with yr partner if you're on an iPhone and they're on an Android phone
do not say Google Docs, I won't do it
If you are looking for a list app with a heavily grocery slant ( you can include recipes and easily populate the list from them) Anylist is excellent. It has IOS and Andoid apps along with a web version that all sync with one another.
posted by rtimmel at 6:07 PM on October 31, 2020 [3 favorites]
do not say Google Docs, I won't do it
If you are looking for a list app with a heavily grocery slant ( you can include recipes and easily populate the list from them) Anylist is excellent. It has IOS and Andoid apps along with a web version that all sync with one another.
posted by rtimmel at 6:07 PM on October 31, 2020 [3 favorites]
Remember The Milk crosses iOS / Android, but you must to share lists. TickTick will too, je crois, but TickTick is also from China and so I am a li’l suspicious of it...
posted by Going To Maine at 6:10 PM on October 31, 2020
posted by Going To Maine at 6:10 PM on October 31, 2020
Sokka shot first: "so how do you share a grocery list with yr partner if you're on an iPhone and they're on an Android phone"
Post it notes on the fridge. Boom.
posted by signal at 6:21 PM on October 31, 2020 [6 favorites]
Post it notes on the fridge. Boom.
posted by signal at 6:21 PM on October 31, 2020 [6 favorites]
Is there one that has:
Open source
No-hassle cross-platform
A daily list that you can draw from a master list
Satisfying click or strikethrough completed tasks
Color coding
I'm with horkus; even with access to many of the above apps, for personal stuff (including work even though we also use apps), I end up using paper which does all of the above and more. Maybe I'll experiment with going in reverse - digitizing a paper list into Evernote to make it "mobile last". Notify with a stylus should work just as well, but unlike the tablet, I always have the paper notebook at hand.
posted by AppleSeed at 6:27 PM on October 31, 2020 [2 favorites]
Open source
No-hassle cross-platform
A daily list that you can draw from a master list
Satisfying click or strikethrough completed tasks
Color coding
I'm with horkus; even with access to many of the above apps, for personal stuff (including work even though we also use apps), I end up using paper which does all of the above and more. Maybe I'll experiment with going in reverse - digitizing a paper list into Evernote to make it "mobile last". Notify with a stylus should work just as well, but unlike the tablet, I always have the paper notebook at hand.
posted by AppleSeed at 6:27 PM on October 31, 2020 [2 favorites]
Just do less stuff everybody, then you won't need to do a bunch of work to work out when you work on what work etc.
posted by SaltySalticid at 6:56 PM on October 31, 2020 [18 favorites]
posted by SaltySalticid at 6:56 PM on October 31, 2020 [18 favorites]
Google Keep exists in all the places I need to keep long form notes, and interoperates with my home-surveillance-cum-podcasting machines pretty well. But I use lists to track things not tasks - groceries, dimensions of spaces for which I need shelves, checklists for common activities (barbequing outside, remember to bring plates, bug candles, etc).
For things I actually need to get done, calendar is the only thing I've ever found that forces me to visualize the time and move things when they need to be moved. Also it forces a kind of economy that you can only realistically schedule what will fit in a day at a time. And in most cases it's shared in a way everybody understands so you can collaborate with family to distribute tasks.
But, beyond that, the value of any technical tool is mostly in it's ability to respond to changes during a project and visualize or game out trade offs. If you don't need that shit automated for large projects (where often the intrinsic risk/error of every estimate is too easily lost) then your favorite text editor or sticky note equivalent is plenty.
posted by abulafa at 6:58 PM on October 31, 2020
For things I actually need to get done, calendar is the only thing I've ever found that forces me to visualize the time and move things when they need to be moved. Also it forces a kind of economy that you can only realistically schedule what will fit in a day at a time. And in most cases it's shared in a way everybody understands so you can collaborate with family to distribute tasks.
But, beyond that, the value of any technical tool is mostly in it's ability to respond to changes during a project and visualize or game out trade offs. If you don't need that shit automated for large projects (where often the intrinsic risk/error of every estimate is too easily lost) then your favorite text editor or sticky note equivalent is plenty.
posted by abulafa at 6:58 PM on October 31, 2020
i got three lines into this post before i started breaking out in hives
posted by Kitchen Witch at 11:04 PM on October 31, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by Kitchen Witch at 11:04 PM on October 31, 2020 [3 favorites]
There are only four rules you need to remember: make the plan, execute the plan, expect the plan to go off the rails, throw away the plan. Follow my lead and you'll be fine.
posted by SPrintF at 11:25 PM on October 31, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by SPrintF at 11:25 PM on October 31, 2020 [2 favorites]
I broke down and paid for OmniFocus. It's very Mac-y and not very Unix-y, but I'll be damned, it actually works. I have my shit together in my personal and professional life to a degree that I have never before achieved in my several decades on this Earth. After decades of cat todo.txt I actually have some control over what I'm getting accomplished. OmniFocus' heritage in their outliner tool (which is good) makes it work in a way that no other workflow tooling has for me.
posted by majick at 11:25 PM on October 31, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by majick at 11:25 PM on October 31, 2020 [3 favorites]
I've found that my brain can't handle any kind of general organizational system. I will start with a new app or tool, from OmniFocus to Bullet Journals, and I'll be very organized for about two weeks at most. Then I'll either stop paying attention to the lists or get overwhelmed when I look at them and start ignoring them as a psychological defense mechanism.
It is very irritating. I'd love to be the kind of person who has their shit well ordered, but I'm starting to embrace the idea that as long as I cover the basics of getting my bills paid (they're all on autopay where they can be) and getting me and my cat fed, then the rest of life will just kind of happen. I don't need a Perfect Golden System, I just need to get things done.
So I do my chores as I encounter the need, and occasionally get bursts of hyper focus on a longer project that I have to ride hard before they run out. If it's important enough, the task will present itself to me again.
posted by JDHarper at 12:25 AM on November 1, 2020 [3 favorites]
It is very irritating. I'd love to be the kind of person who has their shit well ordered, but I'm starting to embrace the idea that as long as I cover the basics of getting my bills paid (they're all on autopay where they can be) and getting me and my cat fed, then the rest of life will just kind of happen. I don't need a Perfect Golden System, I just need to get things done.
So I do my chores as I encounter the need, and occasionally get bursts of hyper focus on a longer project that I have to ride hard before they run out. If it's important enough, the task will present itself to me again.
posted by JDHarper at 12:25 AM on November 1, 2020 [3 favorites]
What really troubles me is that I once was a person who was organized -or so I thought- and at some point became a person who was disorganized. In reality, I think I was a person who in his youth had a certain amount of organization forced on him and, once that structure was lost, was revealed to not really know what to do with himself. I am thus always seeking order, failing to achieve it, ignorant of what’s important to get done, and vexed when I find that I’m idle. It’s a hell of a thing.
More practically, I think that most of these to do list tools end up coming down to whatever fits your life. TaskWarrior is good for me specifically because I’m often at a terminal and don’t have a pen and paper within east reach. If I did, pen and paper all the way, I’m quite sure. Workflowy was really compelling as a notion, but I couldn’t reorient my life around it’s thinking. If a tool works for you, it works for you. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t.
posted by Going To Maine at 12:56 AM on November 1, 2020 [2 favorites]
More practically, I think that most of these to do list tools end up coming down to whatever fits your life. TaskWarrior is good for me specifically because I’m often at a terminal and don’t have a pen and paper within east reach. If I did, pen and paper all the way, I’m quite sure. Workflowy was really compelling as a notion, but I couldn’t reorient my life around it’s thinking. If a tool works for you, it works for you. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t.
posted by Going To Maine at 12:56 AM on November 1, 2020 [2 favorites]
There are only four rules you need to remember: make the plan, execute the plan, expect the plan to go off the rails, throw away the plan. Follow my lead and you'll be fine.
"Make the list"
"Execute the list (once or twice)"
"Stop executing the list"
"Throw the list away"
posted by mikelieman at 3:09 AM on November 1, 2020 [3 favorites]
"Make the list"
"Execute the list (once or twice)"
"Stop executing the list"
"Throw the list away"
posted by mikelieman at 3:09 AM on November 1, 2020 [3 favorites]
I’ve long felt that timeblocking is one of those techniques—like “check your email just twice a day”—that really only works if you’re either your own boss or the boss of your organization. The rest of us pretty much already have our time blocked for us by people who have the luxury of choosing what they can work on.
But maybe that’s just because the times I’ve tried it it’s immediately and spectacularly fallen apart, idk
It's not you Ian, it's exactly what you describe. We're plagued by freelance writers and/or independent consultants advocating systems such as Getting Things Done, or checking email twice a day and turning off all the notifications for it, because they manage their own time, and the few deadlines that aren't self-imposed can be measured in days or weeks or longer; a life unlike the vast majority of their readers.
While reading these kind of blogs or books to handle a position I was in, my typical situation was a manager would email a request to us as a group, email a correction to the request five minutes later, and email asking why they didn't have the answer yet five minutes after that...
posted by DancingYear at 3:20 AM on November 1, 2020 [4 favorites]
But maybe that’s just because the times I’ve tried it it’s immediately and spectacularly fallen apart, idk
It's not you Ian, it's exactly what you describe. We're plagued by freelance writers and/or independent consultants advocating systems such as Getting Things Done, or checking email twice a day and turning off all the notifications for it, because they manage their own time, and the few deadlines that aren't self-imposed can be measured in days or weeks or longer; a life unlike the vast majority of their readers.
While reading these kind of blogs or books to handle a position I was in, my typical situation was a manager would email a request to us as a group, email a correction to the request five minutes later, and email asking why they didn't have the answer yet five minutes after that...
posted by DancingYear at 3:20 AM on November 1, 2020 [4 favorites]
I currently use a messy combination of several programs ( from Pimlical through Thunderbird to Out of Milk ) depending on what platform I'm on, and whether it's a shared list or not. Unfortunately I'm pretty resigned to this being the way I work, but maybe I'm after too much?
I.E. to the list stated above "Open source, No-hassle cross-platform, A daily list that you can draw from a master list, Satisfying click or strikethrough completed tasks, Color coding" I'd add "supports CalDAV, supports automated reading from and writing to - by scripts and via an API, supports mapping dependencies between tasks ( can't do X until I've done Y ), supports triggers of some kind ( I am at the mall, all tasks that I need to do in the mall will alert me or can be easily found )". I'm pretty sure this doesn't exist, and so try and use things that can inter-operate in some way.
I did look at taskwarrior, it looked OK, but appeared to actively not want to operate with anything else, and the Android client not being by the development team is a red flag.
posted by DancingYear at 3:32 AM on November 1, 2020 [2 favorites]
I.E. to the list stated above "Open source, No-hassle cross-platform, A daily list that you can draw from a master list, Satisfying click or strikethrough completed tasks, Color coding" I'd add "supports CalDAV, supports automated reading from and writing to - by scripts and via an API, supports mapping dependencies between tasks ( can't do X until I've done Y ), supports triggers of some kind ( I am at the mall, all tasks that I need to do in the mall will alert me or can be easily found )". I'm pretty sure this doesn't exist, and so try and use things that can inter-operate in some way.
I did look at taskwarrior, it looked OK, but appeared to actively not want to operate with anything else, and the Android client not being by the development team is a red flag.
posted by DancingYear at 3:32 AM on November 1, 2020 [2 favorites]
I use old IBM punch cards, out of habit and abundance and convenience.
In fact, my wife just handed me a list on a tab card. Literally, a minute ago.
posted by MtDewd at 5:06 AM on November 1, 2020 [7 favorites]
In fact, my wife just handed me a list on a tab card. Literally, a minute ago.
posted by MtDewd at 5:06 AM on November 1, 2020 [7 favorites]
I've used various incarnations of Emacs for over forty years. I'm used to using obscure old school text oriented tools. I keep bouncing off learning org-mode. It seems like a good idea and I can understand individual components. I just can't understand it. Maybe this year I'll get it. Perhaps I'll wait another few years for org-mode's 20th birthday.
posted by rdr at 6:32 AM on November 1, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by rdr at 6:32 AM on November 1, 2020 [1 favorite]
After a year of writing "check out bullet journals" on my todo list in Google Keep, I've started a bullet journal.
posted by mecran01 at 7:10 AM on November 1, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by mecran01 at 7:10 AM on November 1, 2020 [1 favorite]
I like the idea of making a schedule over a todo list but, with the wildfires and hot weather in CO, I was never able to go outside and run at a set time daily this summer - always had to wait for the smoke/pm2.5 to be low or the temp not to be too high etc. Any scheduling tool would need to be super flexible because I always put health/exercise first (before work, even) and build my day around it.
posted by hrpomrx at 8:07 AM on November 1, 2020
posted by hrpomrx at 8:07 AM on November 1, 2020
MtDewd, when were these punchcards last used in a computer? (Am equally fascinated by the possibilities "thirty years ago" and "yesterday".)
I find computerized todo lists useful for reminders *later*, e.g. I see something blooming in August and put in a reminder to plant them, if I want them, in March; or the more complicated "every third calendar week" or "every fifteen days after last completion" reminders. Trusting that I'll get those reminders in their day takes the worry-loop out of my head. But I also need a scrap of paper for "what to work on TODAY" or "NOW" (NOW is usually the TODAY scrap, which got too full, turned over and the one important awful task written down again and circled).
posted by clew at 10:21 AM on November 1, 2020
I find computerized todo lists useful for reminders *later*, e.g. I see something blooming in August and put in a reminder to plant them, if I want them, in March; or the more complicated "every third calendar week" or "every fifteen days after last completion" reminders. Trusting that I'll get those reminders in their day takes the worry-loop out of my head. But I also need a scrap of paper for "what to work on TODAY" or "NOW" (NOW is usually the TODAY scrap, which got too full, turned over and the one important awful task written down again and circled).
posted by clew at 10:21 AM on November 1, 2020
Google Keep works for todo lists with nested check boxes, or just as a text file. And it is accessible on your phone (Android or IOS) or on the web.
The problem is that it is Google. Google has the reputation of cancelling even their most basic software platforms: picture viewers, messengers, music players, readers. I've been burned so many times that I'm just waiting for Google to announce the cancellation of Keep because they have something 'better' in the works.
posted by eye of newt at 11:29 AM on November 1, 2020 [3 favorites]
The problem is that it is Google. Google has the reputation of cancelling even their most basic software platforms: picture viewers, messengers, music players, readers. I've been burned so many times that I'm just waiting for Google to announce the cancellation of Keep because they have something 'better' in the works.
posted by eye of newt at 11:29 AM on November 1, 2020 [3 favorites]
If Emacs is like Borges's library of Babel, then org-mode is the index.
posted by dmh at 3:59 PM on November 1, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by dmh at 3:59 PM on November 1, 2020 [1 favorite]
I'd be remiss if I didn't plug Amazing Marvin.
It's like an cross-platform operating system for to-do lists.
posted by borborygmi at 10:56 PM on November 1, 2020 [1 favorite]
It's like an cross-platform operating system for to-do lists.
posted by borborygmi at 10:56 PM on November 1, 2020 [1 favorite]
Here's my blank checklist if anybody wants one.
The way I use these starts by editing a copy and filling in all the stuff I could possibly need, then printing it double-sided.
Their most frequent use is for the house shopping list. On my fridge door I have a little flat magnet I got out of a dead hard disk drive, which sticks to the door like it was glued there unlike every feeble decorative fridge magnet ever made. I also have a pencil with a bulldog clip clipped to the top, and I use the bulldog clip to stick the shopping list to the top of the magnet.
Those are really strong magnets. One of them will reliably hold up to ten sheets of paper between its top surface and a steel clip even with the ceiling fan going at full tilt, so it has no trouble at all securing just one list and a pencil. And since stealing the pencil also dislodges the list, I find that other people in the house tend not to steal that pencil.
As soon as I run out of something I pencil a Need It mark 〼 into the first free box in its line on the list.
On shopping day I take the list and the pencil with me. In the shops I scan the list for Need It marks, grab a marked item, and add a second pencil stroke to turn its Need It mark 〼 into a Got It mark ⛝. I find that the rows with Need It marks on the end stay readily apparent on a visual scan, even in a list that's totally crawling in old Got It marks. When I can't see any more Need It marks it's time to take the shopping home and stick the list back on the fridge.
There are plenty of extra lines to let me handwrite things I didn't think of adding to the list during the last edit.
Once any item's row of checkboxes fills up I re-edit the list, adding in all the things I'd handwritten onto the old one, and reprint it. This is also an opportunity to rearrange items so that things generally found near each other in the shops end up near each other on the list.
This arrangement has been working well for me for some time. I like it better than the handwritten shopping lists I used to use because
posted by flabdablet at 6:36 AM on November 2, 2020 [10 favorites]
The way I use these starts by editing a copy and filling in all the stuff I could possibly need, then printing it double-sided.
Their most frequent use is for the house shopping list. On my fridge door I have a little flat magnet I got out of a dead hard disk drive, which sticks to the door like it was glued there unlike every feeble decorative fridge magnet ever made. I also have a pencil with a bulldog clip clipped to the top, and I use the bulldog clip to stick the shopping list to the top of the magnet.
Those are really strong magnets. One of them will reliably hold up to ten sheets of paper between its top surface and a steel clip even with the ceiling fan going at full tilt, so it has no trouble at all securing just one list and a pencil. And since stealing the pencil also dislodges the list, I find that other people in the house tend not to steal that pencil.
As soon as I run out of something I pencil a Need It mark 〼 into the first free box in its line on the list.
On shopping day I take the list and the pencil with me. In the shops I scan the list for Need It marks, grab a marked item, and add a second pencil stroke to turn its Need It mark 〼 into a Got It mark ⛝. I find that the rows with Need It marks on the end stay readily apparent on a visual scan, even in a list that's totally crawling in old Got It marks. When I can't see any more Need It marks it's time to take the shopping home and stick the list back on the fridge.
There are plenty of extra lines to let me handwrite things I didn't think of adding to the list during the last edit.
Once any item's row of checkboxes fills up I re-edit the list, adding in all the things I'd handwritten onto the old one, and reprint it. This is also an opportunity to rearrange items so that things generally found near each other in the shops end up near each other on the list.
This arrangement has been working well for me for some time. I like it better than the handwritten shopping lists I used to use because
- I'm lazy as fuck, so only having to make a one-stroke Need It mark with a pencil I never have to go searching for has often made the difference between actually bothering to note that I need something and forgetting all about it.
- Having a whole list of things I might need right there in front of me often works as a prompt to remind me that yeah, I do actually need some of that as well, stick a Need It mark there too.
- I get to re-use the same list many times before recycling it, which is obviously bugger-all in the grand scheme of paper wastage but makes me feel good all the same.
- Having made a living in IT for decades, I know for sure that printing out tidy paper lists is about all that the bastard computers can be relied upon to do properly, but they are quite good at that, PC Load A4 notwithstanding. There are reasons why real software developers prefer real wall-mounted kanban boards full of real paper post-it notes.
posted by flabdablet at 6:36 AM on November 2, 2020 [10 favorites]
Everyone has a list until they get punched in the face
posted by thelonius at 6:56 AM on November 2, 2020 [8 favorites]
posted by thelonius at 6:56 AM on November 2, 2020 [8 favorites]
/me pencils in 𝓶𝓸𝓾𝓽𝓱𝓰𝓾𝓪𝓻𝓭𝓼 on fridge door, adds Need It mark
posted by flabdablet at 9:26 AM on November 2, 2020 [7 favorites]
posted by flabdablet at 9:26 AM on November 2, 2020 [7 favorites]
I’ve long felt that timeblocking is one of those techniques—like “check your email just twice a day”—that really only works if you’re either your own boss or the boss of your organization. The rest of us pretty much already have our time blocked for us by people who have the luxury of choosing what they can work on.
But maybe that’s just because the times I’ve tried it it’s immediately and spectacularly fallen apart, idk
It definitely requires having a lot of autonomy over how you spend your time. No-one who is employed, even people who are the boss of their own organisation, are free of external constraints. Even if you're "the boss", clients, board members, shareholders etc will all make calls upon your time. Of course sometimes your plan gets disrupted. About one day out of every ten, someone senior to me makes an "urgent" request that blows my day's schedule out of the water but that still means that on most days I'm working according to a timeboxed schedule.
Before I did this, I would have a my to-do lists for the day written down on an A3 piece of paper. I also had a complicated excel sheet for storing and managing all my long term projects and tracking time spent on them. I've recently discovered Marvin, linked above, and am trying it out, basically running my existing system on it. Seems to work quite well so far.
Checking email twice a day - whether that works reminds me of something that Donald Knuth said about not using email. "Email is useful if you want to stay on top of things but my job is to get to the bottom of things". The more your job is one of co-ordination, the more frequently you'll have to check emails. I have a job where I need to be on top of things and I still don't check emails on a continuous basis. I have a specific slot for processing emails four times during the working day and then very quickly first thing in the morning and last thing at night to spot anything extremely urgent (which there rarely is). In a ten hour working day I spend probably an hour "processing" incoming emails and doing quick responses, adding items to trackers, or asking other people to deal with them, the rest of the time I do not think about email at all and am not distracted by pinging, bleeping, flashing banners, or other mental pollution.
posted by atrazine at 9:07 AM on November 3, 2020
But maybe that’s just because the times I’ve tried it it’s immediately and spectacularly fallen apart, idk
It definitely requires having a lot of autonomy over how you spend your time. No-one who is employed, even people who are the boss of their own organisation, are free of external constraints. Even if you're "the boss", clients, board members, shareholders etc will all make calls upon your time. Of course sometimes your plan gets disrupted. About one day out of every ten, someone senior to me makes an "urgent" request that blows my day's schedule out of the water but that still means that on most days I'm working according to a timeboxed schedule.
Before I did this, I would have a my to-do lists for the day written down on an A3 piece of paper. I also had a complicated excel sheet for storing and managing all my long term projects and tracking time spent on them. I've recently discovered Marvin, linked above, and am trying it out, basically running my existing system on it. Seems to work quite well so far.
Checking email twice a day - whether that works reminds me of something that Donald Knuth said about not using email. "Email is useful if you want to stay on top of things but my job is to get to the bottom of things". The more your job is one of co-ordination, the more frequently you'll have to check emails. I have a job where I need to be on top of things and I still don't check emails on a continuous basis. I have a specific slot for processing emails four times during the working day and then very quickly first thing in the morning and last thing at night to spot anything extremely urgent (which there rarely is). In a ten hour working day I spend probably an hour "processing" incoming emails and doing quick responses, adding items to trackers, or asking other people to deal with them, the rest of the time I do not think about email at all and am not distracted by pinging, bleeping, flashing banners, or other mental pollution.
posted by atrazine at 9:07 AM on November 3, 2020
ToDo lists are a way of keeping track of things I need to get done AND how far along I am in them.
I use a paper notebook (moleskin-esque or cheaper)(I'm a mobile dev and one of these days I WILL make an app for that!) but use specific notation, which helps me.
My lists function with different bulletpoints:
- <- these for just lists of thing I have noted down and need to remember/have for future note
O - open circles for things to complete (a big round O); I can fill them in partially (half a circle, 3/4ths) for things which I have mentioned/partially gotten to but still need to complete
[] - open squares for structural, more long term things. Same with the O they are partially completable but having a different shape makes them stand out
Being able to partially complete things makes it easy to see progress. Things which are completed fully get a nice approval mark through the entire line.
Often this does mean for a new day having to re-write items which are not-done or partially done, but that is better than leaving them in past pages and flipping back because that risks missing them during the flip-back scan.
As for the off-topic email and it's related things/problems?
Yeah, sure, you say 'well, that's a luxury, I can't do that' ... yes you can.
Context switching is a bitch. It COSTS time and effort. And in my line of work (software dev) and many others, it can demonstrably cost an hour per day, minimum and often more of lost productivity AND recent studies have shown that interruption also causes masses of stress.
So, sure, there will be many jobs where you just have to take it. But in many cases you can very easily block out a few hours which you tell your team and boss(es): "due to context switching time losses which cost you money and me productivity(, and also cause me stresses I don't need) I am blocking out 12:00 -16:00 to do actual work".
And EVERYONE (who actually does do work and hates the exact same thing you do) will understand and agree. Your boss because they hate time lost to context switching, your colleagues due to the fact that they know exactly what you are talking about.
Again, I DO understand there are certain jobs where this is not feasable. But MOST jobs CAN handle this (just like Working Form Home! ... remember everyone who said: "sorry, not here!/can't be done!"?).
But you gotta do it right: turn off ALL notifications: phone is silent, Slack/FB/Discord/email notifs OFF. And turn them on again after. I truly think people who have any notifications during actual work are not effective at all. I know a surprising number of almost-C-suite people at multinationals and they have secretaries for a reason ... to block interruptions. And they have blocks of uninterrupted 'processing time', too, where even their PA's will try not to interrupt (of course, us plebs don't have the luxury of a real person doing the discrimination for us, but the principle is there).
Uninterrupted work is BLISS: interrupted work stresses out and costs time.
posted by MacD at 4:03 PM on November 4, 2020 [2 favorites]
I use a paper notebook (moleskin-esque or cheaper)(I'm a mobile dev and one of these days I WILL make an app for that!) but use specific notation, which helps me.
My lists function with different bulletpoints:
- <- these for just lists of thing I have noted down and need to remember/have for future note
O - open circles for things to complete (a big round O); I can fill them in partially (half a circle, 3/4ths) for things which I have mentioned/partially gotten to but still need to complete
[] - open squares for structural, more long term things. Same with the O they are partially completable but having a different shape makes them stand out
Being able to partially complete things makes it easy to see progress. Things which are completed fully get a nice approval mark through the entire line.
Often this does mean for a new day having to re-write items which are not-done or partially done, but that is better than leaving them in past pages and flipping back because that risks missing them during the flip-back scan.
As for the off-topic email and it's related things/problems?
Yeah, sure, you say 'well, that's a luxury, I can't do that' ... yes you can.
Context switching is a bitch. It COSTS time and effort. And in my line of work (software dev) and many others, it can demonstrably cost an hour per day, minimum and often more of lost productivity AND recent studies have shown that interruption also causes masses of stress.
So, sure, there will be many jobs where you just have to take it. But in many cases you can very easily block out a few hours which you tell your team and boss(es): "due to context switching time losses which cost you money and me productivity(, and also cause me stresses I don't need) I am blocking out 12:00 -16:00 to do actual work".
And EVERYONE (who actually does do work and hates the exact same thing you do) will understand and agree. Your boss because they hate time lost to context switching, your colleagues due to the fact that they know exactly what you are talking about.
Again, I DO understand there are certain jobs where this is not feasable. But MOST jobs CAN handle this (just like Working Form Home! ... remember everyone who said: "sorry, not here!/can't be done!"?).
But you gotta do it right: turn off ALL notifications: phone is silent, Slack/FB/Discord/email notifs OFF. And turn them on again after. I truly think people who have any notifications during actual work are not effective at all. I know a surprising number of almost-C-suite people at multinationals and they have secretaries for a reason ... to block interruptions. And they have blocks of uninterrupted 'processing time', too, where even their PA's will try not to interrupt (of course, us plebs don't have the luxury of a real person doing the discrimination for us, but the principle is there).
Uninterrupted work is BLISS: interrupted work stresses out and costs time.
posted by MacD at 4:03 PM on November 4, 2020 [2 favorites]
MtDewd, when were these punchcards last used in a computer? (Am equally fascinated by the possibilities "thirty years ago" and "yesterday".)
Sorry, I've been away, poll-watching...
I've been away from mainframe computing for a while now, but it wouldn't surprise me too much if there were still some in use.
The cards I have were from a government account I had. They were getting rid of five cases of the plain-old 5081's (genuine IBM, made in DC), but they were still using specially printed cards for time card purposes. Using an IBM 3525, they would punch and print employee data on the cards, which were distributed to employees, who would mark them in pencil, and those were sent to some non-IBM machine for reading. There were at least two government computer rooms doing this into the 1990's. I remember I saw a 129 keypunch in use at the local university at that time, and also around that time I was at the US Naval Observatory, where they were using punch cards to run the telescope. (So I was told)
Most of these are way long gone, but there still may be some out there in the boonies.
The way this worked then was that machines were handed down, so that, say, the Pentagon would get the latest thing, and they'd give their old machine to the Navy Annex, and the Annex would give their old machine to a big army base, and so on down the line. In the mid 70's, when the Pentagon would have had 3168's fresh off the line, I was working at the New Cumberland Army Depot, which had several 7074's from the 50's.
posted by MtDewd at 4:41 AM on November 5, 2020 [1 favorite]
Sorry, I've been away, poll-watching...
I've been away from mainframe computing for a while now, but it wouldn't surprise me too much if there were still some in use.
The cards I have were from a government account I had. They were getting rid of five cases of the plain-old 5081's (genuine IBM, made in DC), but they were still using specially printed cards for time card purposes. Using an IBM 3525, they would punch and print employee data on the cards, which were distributed to employees, who would mark them in pencil, and those were sent to some non-IBM machine for reading. There were at least two government computer rooms doing this into the 1990's. I remember I saw a 129 keypunch in use at the local university at that time, and also around that time I was at the US Naval Observatory, where they were using punch cards to run the telescope. (So I was told)
Most of these are way long gone, but there still may be some out there in the boonies.
The way this worked then was that machines were handed down, so that, say, the Pentagon would get the latest thing, and they'd give their old machine to the Navy Annex, and the Annex would give their old machine to a big army base, and so on down the line. In the mid 70's, when the Pentagon would have had 3168's fresh off the line, I was working at the New Cumberland Army Depot, which had several 7074's from the 50's.
posted by MtDewd at 4:41 AM on November 5, 2020 [1 favorite]
I only add things to my ToDo list after I have done them so I can get the mental health benefit of checking them off without ever taking the damaging psychic hit from looking at a list of stuff I have not done and am never going to do.
posted by srboisvert at 8:49 AM on November 6, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by srboisvert at 8:49 AM on November 6, 2020 [2 favorites]
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posted by Going To Maine at 11:51 AM on October 31, 2020