Ask HN: How do you manage your todo list?

by vbgon 11/12/2021, 4:33 AMwith 10 comments

by isbvhodnvemrwvnon 11/12/2021, 6:51 PM

I have a list of long-term TODOs per topic, as well as weekly and daily lists. Tasks have topic, description, due date.

Every Monday, I dump into the weekly TODO list every task which has to happen that week, plus whatever I think is reasonable to do otherwise.

From the weekly TODO list, every day I take some topics to the "today" list. All the things with a strict deadline have a calendar entry associated with them.

If anything pops up during the day, it goes to the daily or weekly TODO list.

On Fridays I see how much of the list I managed to do, how many items came in, where they went. The remainder of the weekly list goes into the relevant topics list.

If I have a lot of stuff left over from the Monday's dump, I try to figure out why it happened and what I can do to plan better next time.

This way I don't have long-term topics mixed with short-term ones, which I found is of great help. I avoid pulling tasks from the topic lists into weekly list if there is something else that needs doing and is not blocked.

This has worked for me reasonably well, I use the same system outside of work.

by SirensOfTitanon 11/12/2021, 2:07 PM

I used org for tasks and notes for a long while, but just switched to todoist and Obsidian. I love emacs, but I’ve always felt a sense of friction in it when dealing with notes and tasks. I think I spent more time tinkering and less time using.

by kingkongjaffaon 11/12/2021, 10:46 AM

A mix of a whiteboard on my wall by my desk, emacs-org-mode and a bullet journal.

In org mode I keep one big log.org file with sections split by month, projects get their own sections.

I used to use Evernote and todoist and trello.

by aezeon 11/12/2021, 7:19 AM

Every morning I write ‘standup notes’ (including non-work related items), and in those I keep a rolling list that carries over from the previous day.

by ssss11on 11/12/2021, 8:59 AM

For personal - Trello boards per subject.

For work - paper. Cross an item out when it’s done.

by throw03172019on 11/12/2021, 6:06 AM

I was using Asana before. But now I just use Notion with a checkmark list.

by elenaturneron 11/13/2021, 9:10 PM

A mix of google keep and a whiteboard works great for me!

by approxim8ionon 11/12/2021, 9:15 AM

I'm using TickTick. The free tier is pretty good.