Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: Best To-Do/Task List Software?
Albanach writes: Despite searching, I have not identified a good solution for managing to-do lists, a problem that can't be unique or unusual. For a variety of reasons, I need something I host myself, which allows me to organize tasks, give them due dates and/or priorities and to easily reorganize. I'd prefer a web interface so that I can access my list from home/work/mobile. My searches generally turned up hosted solutions that don't work for privacy reasons, or very old software that has shown no sign of updates in years. What are other Slashdotters using to manage their real-world task list?
Self hosted on a FreeNAS machine.
Accessing it from the outside web requires a login/password, it's not password protected from the LAN.
Wunderlist is great for the interface as well as the connections with other programs. Unfortunately, Microsoft's pursuit of a computing singularity has forced them to mothball it. I'd appreciate if you would start using it so they think before acting like mongrels.
I have wunderlist set up to feed tasks into my personal health tracking tool, habitica.
Why are your todo lists so top secret? What are you planning? I'm forwarding this to the authorities.
Run an eGroupware on Apache with CalDAV Turned on. Tasks lists are just another form of Calendaring.
On Linux and Windows: Configure Mozilla Thunderbird with the Thunderbird Lightning extension.
On Android: Configure DavDroid From F-Droid with CalDAV resource.
http://ackertodo.sf.net
Before Yahoo, with their longsightedness bought and killed it for absolutely no reason, astrid tasks was effing glorious. The old sources are still up https://github.com/todoroo/astrid and this for is still being worked on https://github.com/tasks/tasks there is also an android app for this second one.
... or very old software that has shown no sign of updates in years.
How is that relevant? I understand if the software has outstanding major bugs or is not feature complete. However, as you point out, the todo list is basically a universal problem that has been around since the beginning of time. So what if some application was last updated 10 years ago if it does the job and is essentially bug free?
I also get it if you really want a nice responsive mobile experience and the only tool you find was "completed" before responsive design was a thing. But, the point still stands: a lack of recent releases does not automatically make a piece of software unsuitable or undesirable. Lack of responsive design would be an example of a missing feature, as opposed to an outright bug.
I would be interested to see what came in your search that you deemed "too old". Assuming that age is the only problem you found with them, I suspect that one or more are actually still quite useful.
Right there you’ve eliminated 95% of the applicable software.
Do you actually need to self-host, or is it just necessary due to your own philosophical predilections?
#DeleteChrome
Does not fulfill all of your requirements, but it is simple, and has web and mobile apps:
https://trello.com/
Made by https://www.joelonsoftware.com... , who has a style that most, but not all, developers like.
Kanban Flow meets all criteria except being hosted on your own machine. It's one of the most comprehensive feature filled tools I have ever used.
I honestly haven't found a general TODO list / calendar tool that I liked either. Seems like a blatantly simple problem, but yeah.. have yet to find a solution that ticks all the boxes for me. My requirements are pretty basic (I almost prefer simpler with less bells and whistles), so very much considering just rolling my own one of these days.
I currently use CherryTree for general purpose note taking.. but looking to migrate to something else. Possibly one of the billion of (self-hostable) js based wikis.
Pen and paper. No need to over complicate something so simple as a to-do list. If you really have tasks so complex it requires software, you probably should get Microsoft project, outlook, or Google docs
I am one of those who moved to emacs because of org-mode.
Give it a try. If emacs is the kitchen sink, emacs is the rest of the house. And it is especially good as a (human) task manager
I use Orange scrum hosted on an old hp workstation at home. Uses Centos, PHP and MySQL. Works a treat!
Keep your todos in todo.txt format. Store them anywhere you want for security. Use dropbox if you want. Use Swiftdo on iPhone. Use Emacs or any other text editor (and there are emacs modes to make using the todo.txt format easier) to modify. Never worry about obsolescence. Total control over your data in a format that will be readable forever.
On a Mac I like OmniFocus.
Though lately I've been using a self-hosted GitLab instance to manage projects and tasks. It is overkill for a SIMPLE todo list. I find it helpful to be able to manage other files with projects, along with code when I am doing a coding project, it also allows me to manage tasks/issues which I can run through a kanban board, and tag tasks in various different ways, comment on tasks (remind myself where I was with it) and do all of what I used OmniFocus for. Though to be fair, I've never used the full extent of OmniFocus features. The nice thing about gitlab is that once hosted, it can be accessed from any platform with a web browser.
https://tiddlywiki.com/
Seriously, my phone. It goes where I go, and if I keep the list in apple notes, then it's cloudified and i can hit it from my PC or ipad or from any browser, really.
Alternatively, a... a.. *GASP* I can't say it in this day and age!
A... s small spiral-bound notebook, be it hinged at top or at the side, and a trusty old Pentel .5mm pencil. Like a really, really old one like the P225. I have at least half a dozen. Yeah. One of them dates to 1978 or so. That one has a place of honor on my piano, it's from 4th grade.
Hey, you asked. Sometimes the oldest of tools are still the best...
Truth be told, I prefer paper and pencil..
The "Civilized World" jumped the shark ca. 1973.
vim ~/todo.txt
TaskFreak? http://www.taskfreak.com/origi...
Yeah, it's old. But also you can host it yourself, it's simple, it has a web interface, and it works. Just because something is old, doesn't mean it's bad. Especially if it's a solution to "a problem that can't be unique or unusual"
"Live as if you'll die tomorrow." Ridiculous. You could die later today.
Remember the Milk
http://www.mytinytodo.net/
I have tried a bunch of TODO lists of various types. There are tons of them and many of them are great pieces of software; marvels of design and user experience and technology.
But all of them have the same critical fault: they require you have discipline. If you don't have discipline they quickly turn from a handy list of all the things you need to do into an extensive catalogue of your failure to get anything done at all.
The thing that made the biggest difference to me was to stop listing things and start putting them into my calendar. Give them an actual slot in your life like any task you have to do at work.
Obviously this still requires the exact kind of discipline but I found it way easier to get things done - both at work and at home - if I'd already set aside a time to get things done. Plus all your time management and task management and TODOs are all in a single application.
It's not perfect but when I started putting my entire life into my calendar - 'extreme calendaring'! - I found that I was more effectively able to manage my time for the drudge tasks that otherwise I'd just put off inevitably. Of course you do end up 'snoozing' items, but if you get in the habit of this meaning 'move it to another free slot' it takes a lot of the boring overhead out of trying to figure out all the things you have left to do.
The downside is you end up feeling a little bit ruled by your phone and computer constantly telling you what to do. But I found this better than the constant background radiation of dread knowing all the things on my TODO list that I kept procrastinating about.
I just use Google Keep. It's not great. In fact, it's utter crap, but I don't need anything too fancy. When I do (e.g. sorting), I weep silently in my corner, clutching my knees tight.
If you like kanban, Kanboard is great. Is a web application but it's simple to install. If you can self-host a webserver, installation is really simple and has both kanban methodology and all the features you pointed out.
-- Look to the Rose that blows about us--"Lo, Laughing," she says, "into the World I blow..."
I keep a rolling list on gedit. Most important items are at the top. If I need to re-prioritize, I cut and paste. When the item is done, I mark it with an asterisk.
Once a month, I create a new list. The old list gets saved as year_month_tasks.txt. All the items still active from the past month get moved to the new month. Everything stays synchronized on all my computers with my SpiderOak.
It just works.
*ducks*
I'm honestly not really sure what in my todo list would be considered critically private, so in my opinion, I'm not too worried about hosted solutions. This also makes it easier to use from multiple devices, and keep them synced. Unless people are really all that fascinated with when I make my shopping lists, when I schedule groups of tasks for work, or whatever, and want to take the trouble to hack in, I hope they have fun being bored out of their skulls.
That being said, I use todoist. I can nest things, I can use templates (which is great as I have a lot of things that have multiple similar tasks, and I can just drop in a CSV to autocreate them) , color code certain topics, etc. The only nitpick I have is not being able to more easily order them my day view, but I can just drag and drop if I need to. The ability to have easy date/repeat parsing goes a long way too.
I've only had my schedule.todo.txt file for 19 years now.
ftp, download, edit, upload, done.
grab a quick web site, dropbox, one drive, or any other file hosting service if you don't like ftp as a protocol for transferring files.
start lines with a date stamp or two, and you can sort it in any reasonable text editor, or manually in mere moments.
make it a spreadsheet instead of a text file if you really think you're productive enough to get through that many todo items in the first place.
why are you making it difficult? whatever solution you use, it won't complete the tasks for you. Why does it need to be in active development? You think your todo list is any more complicated than your grandmother's was 50 years ago?
Jut because something hasn't been updated in a long time doesn't mean it's abandonware.... it could just be stable and feature complete.
https://taskwarrior.org/
I doubt anything better exists. It is CLI, but third party GUIs are listed on the web site.
Suggestion: Learn the CLI first. Then install the syncing server "Taskserver" once you gets used to its awesome power.
http://todotxt.org/
Don't knock it 'til you've tried it. I use it for social dates, work estimates, shopping lists, etc. The paper is cheap. The notebook is mobile.
Multi-platform, mobile apps, Android widgets, web version, offline mode, priority, date, category, flexible recurrence, sub-tasks, notes, delegation, powerful, flexible (better on both the latter counts than the anemic Wunderlist).
Only thing wrong: it lies about tasks without a "due time". In fact, such tasks have an unstated time of midnight on the due date. Which means that when you cross a time-zone boundary, and your phone's clock gets a new time zone, all your time-less tasks are hopelessly fucked until you return. Any time-less tasks from the new time zone are then fucked when you do. RTM have known about this for years, will not fix.
In all other respects, it's the best one I've found, after trying dozens.
Like a normal person.
Throw in Outlook and Exchange on-prem if you want to be really fussy or just save OneNote lists as files.
...pencil and paper. They take effort to use and it takes effort to stick to a plan.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
I use a custom LibreOffice Database with a single table: fields for Header, Priority, DueDate, Done, Body. Simple, but it's been my most critical tool for years; the first thing I open on my desktop and leave there every day.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
You can rather easily host an instance of Nextcloud on rather modest hardware in my experience. It just needs to be able to run apache/nginx, php, and sqlite (you're supposed to use mariadb/mysql but don't absolutely need to if you're just running it for yourself). Activate the tasks app and you're good to go. The entire infrastructure is all open source and you get a whole lot more benefits than just self-hosted tasks.
Everything is accessible with CalDAV so you can use the built-in sync from the iPhone or DAVdroid and OpenTasks on Android. For desktop/laptop you can access it from the web interface or through your preferred groupware software.
Since security is an issue, if you don't want to pay for an SSL certificate you can self-sign one or get one from Let's Encrypt.
I was recently looking for a good todo app as well, turns out what I really needed is actually akin to a project management/list management/mind mapping tool.
I need a mind mapping list with dependencies and resource management. Project management tools are too ridgid (no wonder nothing ever gets done by PM's) and mind mapping tools just become an unmanaged web of semi-interconnected things.
Ideally I would have something that takes speech and associates it with the right "project"
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
Pen and paper works for me. I keep a minimalist bullet journal. Google âoebullet journalâ.
Self Serve: CLI server and free local mongo DB integrated with install. Modify to heart's content with JavaScript
"Knowing everything doesn't help..."
Something this simple is easy to program, you get exactly the features that you want, and as much secrecy as you need.
While I use LibreOffice Writer, Calc and Impress, every time I tried the database was a disaster. It bombs often in my Linux, so it doesn't instill confidence. I used MS Access about a decade ago, and it's the only MS product that I really miss.
socket.emit('task.get',{page:{skip:skip,limit:limit,max:max,sort:{date:-1}}},function(e,tasks){ //display
if(tasks){
tasks.forEach(function(task){
});
}
});
Not exactly rocket science, honestly did you seriously ask for software from a 3rd party to handle what you could do on your own if you would just put on your big boy pants? Grow the fuck up you lazy brainless twat and do for yourself instead of being spoon fed like a goddamn giant 6 foot tall baby.
I think the entire problem is that anyone would reach for a 3rd party in the first place for something so banal. How do you live with yourself if you see yourself as so crippled and incapable? Are you a child or a man? Where the hell are your testicles and your ability to create?
Fight club might have been on to something, because right now I want to punch you right in your cornflower blue tie wearing throat for being so utterly incompetant.
Notepad is the only software worth using that's produced by M$. Once your To-Do list is saved as .txt file, you can import it to any of your portable devices from iPod, iPad, iPhone, Android Phone, Nokia. Seriously, I just use notepad, but the first line of each To-Do is a specific date to accomplish the task, then I regularly check them and set series of Alarms on my 1$ phone's Calendar app, so I can remember those To-Do.
... allows me to organize tasks, give them due dates and/or priorities and to easily reorganize.
Use index cards, wrapped with a rubber band; carry them in your pocket.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
That and tattooing shit on your dick. I guess for you that might only be 1 or 2 reminders.
Horde has a web client and can sync to phones. Does lots of stuff that you probably need done on your phone anyway - email, calendar, contacts, tasks, notes, etc.
See that "Preview" button?
Wife and I ended up with a habit of taking a picture of the dry erase board on the fridge before going to run errands.
Or asking the person at home to text a picture of it.
It's a mix of old and new school. Not great, not even good, but it mostly works.
Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
As they come up you add them to the list. As you complete them you mark them off. If you have to add new stuff to page 2, then page 1 is still going to be the first thing you see. Older stuff tends to either become more important, or irrelevant (this is when you start a new list on a new page).
Granted, I retired 5 years ago. But I looked at a lot of time management apps in my day (that would be 10 years ago) and none of them could beat that $0.25 pad of paper I hauled around with me everywhere. Even when I put it into a $25 leather case, it was still at heart a $0.25 pad of paper.
More like gayjs!
Did you meat him on grindr?
For some reason I forgot about it.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Kanboard. I've run it myself, very easy to setup and easy to link into things like RSS. www.kanboard.org
I use a text file in the todo.txt format (http://todotxt.org).
I keep the file in Dropbox, and use SimpleTask to edit it on Android.
It's relatively low tech, but I've tried just about everything over the years and I always come back to using a spreadsheet. I use a Google Sheet, but only because it's super convenient to have it "sync" to every computer and device I use, but there's no reason you can't just store an actual spreadsheet (ODT/XLS) file on a server. I have some misgivings about using Google for this, but the utter convenience of it trumps those concerns.
A huge consideration in any sort of task tool /has/ to be the "cost" of the most basic CRUD operations. If it takes 20 seconds to add a quick task or reminder to your todo list, or to mark something as done, etc., then you are almost certainly going to stop using it before too long because the tool will be too much in your way - you need as close to a frictionless experience as possible or it will feel burdensome.
A related issue is that any tool you use /has/ to very closely fit your organizational needs. If you have to adapt too much to the way the tool works or the way the author of the tool conceived its use, then again you will almost certainly stop using that tool before too long. This is especially important because your needs will almost certainly change over time. Sometimes I need to put subtasks into buckets and move tasks between them, other times I just need different areas to track tasks for unrelated projects. Sometimes I need prioritized lists, other times I just need to jot down lists of items whose order is unimportant.
I am always on the lookout for something better, but a spreadsheet comes closest to hitting the sweet spot of flexibility and power at a low cost. It is just free-form enough to make it trivial to add a quick, unofficial or temporary todo list (and columns make it easy to add multiple lists to the same page), while also supporting more structure via tabs, sorting, and text formatting.
Support for formulas is also surprisingly useful - for some lists I want to attach a time estimate or some other cost, and so it's nice to be able to include basic calculations like the total estimated time or the estimated completion time/date and have all of that update automatically. Or in the case of priorities like the OP mentioned, it's a trivial matter to constantly adjust priorities or add new ones and sort the tasks in whatever ways make sense.
My spreadsheet ends up being a combination of my todo lists for work, personal life, etc., my daily/weekly/monthly calendar, and also the thing for tracking goals and progress. Since those things are all sorta related anyway, it ends up being really nice to use a single tool to manage them all.
It has everything
http://saveie6.com/
Not web based but a fantastic GUI based python program:
ETM: Event and Task Manager
http://people.duke.edu/~dgraham/etmtk/
It's an analog system that allows yearly, monthly, weekly planning and daily planning and logging. It also includes an app.
http://bulletjournal.com/compa...
Still haven't found anything as nice to use as Progect for PalmOS
https://progect-manager.en.sof...
There was a Linux desktop version as well that could sync. If someone could port that interface it would be awesome.
I've more or less given up on the self-hosting requirement and have embraced... Google Tasks (somehow buried in the gmail sidebar) with the Gtasks app/widget. It's not ideal, but it's simple enough for long-term stuff, with due dates and alarms.
For short term (daily) stuff, call me old-fashioned, but I still use a pen and small notebook that I carry around. I draw little checkboxes. If a task falls too far behind in the queue, I copy it again on the current page and cross out the old one. If I get tired of doing that, I usually finally get motivated to either complete or drop the task. It works for me :/
If you have something you want remembered, it should be introduced immediately before & after extreme physical duress. This is more effective than traditional reminders. The subject will continue to recall the item long after you program it; flashbacks, nightmares, etc. Reasonable uptime and capacity.
Old school dead trees. I've got to physically write the words or it doesn't stick.
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
. . notepad.exe or vi if you have linux. I spent a long time writing software the manages todos (https://oggflow.com) (among other things), but nothing beats notepad.exe (or any plain text file editor.) I use the following notations:
- this is an unfinished task (due date: Apr 1 2018)
- this is a subtask (note: don't forget to whatever)
o this is a task I'm currently working
v this is a task I've finished
Nothing beats this for me. I sometimes even do this on paper instead of the computer.
A to do item is the same as a defect, so use defect tracking tools, like Redmine.
While there are a lot of todo list software, a lot of them are freeware as well, they lack one essential feature that I feel would benefit the users more
* The TO THINK LIST
While 'to-do' list is what to do, and when, the 'TO THINK LIST' feature can enable users to group up items the users might want to find some time to think about
Couple with that, if they can add in the 'why' and 'how', to aid the thinking process, it would be even more useful
Any more feedback on what kind of features you desire?
You forgot to mention what it is worth to you. It might be a common problem that millions of people also have, but if NONE of you are willing to pay a dime for the software then why is anybody surprised that the only solutions are 'Free' services that are hosted by someone else and either force you to look at ads every time you want to access your list, or require you to give a lot of personal information so that they can sell it to their real customers.
OF COURSE
I've found nothing better than Outlook tasks. Tons of flexibility in how you use them. Already integrated with Calendar and Email. They're pretty darn good.
I don't respond to AC's.
Seriously. The only time I've ever had a "task list" that was complex enough to require software was at work, and the decision was made by higher-ups. For personal stuff, what is anybody doing that's so complex they need software to manage it? Get some magnets for the fridge. Paper scraps. An old-fashioned calendar? Problem solved.
Write the up requirements, rank them by importance, and submit them for a custom software quote. Keep the UI simple (close to standard HTML) so that you minimize screwy JavaScript dependencies.
Everybody has different ideas for what they want and don't want in schedulers such that no existing product will be a sure fit for you.
Table-ized A.I.
No matter what I do no matter how hard I try for the last 20 years I've tried to find a digital to-do list. But I keep going back to an 8 1/2 by 11" piece of paper that i write my stuff on and I cross it off afterwards. For some reason I need the tactile component of it and I've given up trying to find a replacement. It works. Why fix it?
I use radicale (http://radicale.org/) as a calendar/todo list server. It even supports committing all modifications to a git repository if you want to keep history. It supports caldav, so I then access it from thunderbird on the desktop; on android a combo of Davdroid(https://www.davdroid.com/), to add the caldav account, and OpenTasks (https://github.com/dmfs/opentasks/blob/HEAD/README.md), to actually view tasks.
I recommend OpenTasks, its open source, can be downloaded from F-Droid as well. It has nextcloud support so you can host it yourself.
On Github
On Google Play
Org-mode. If you use emacsclient then you can basically access it from anywhere via ssh.
The OP didn't specify collaboration, which is org-mode (and Emacs') only real weak point, although if you control the list and only need others to view it then org-mode will export to HTML and you can slap that on a server or whatever. Emacs and Org-mode are cross-platform too, as regards desktop OSes, and there's a mobile client too although I've not used it so I don't know how good it is.
The time-tracking and reporting is very good too and since you'll be doing all your other work in Emacs too (obviously), it's very easy to put together time sheets and billing etc. as well as seeing where you went over estimates and so on.
It's also very actively developed and supported by about a million tutorial videos, wikis, blogs, and a couple of reddit forums (there's a fairly quiet org-mode board and a much more active Emacs one which tends to draw in the org-mode traffic).
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
Http://getontracks.org
$10 for up to 10 users. Think of it as a simplified project manager oriented version of Jira Software.
If you want it self-hosted, just use todo.txt (http://todotxt.org/ and https://github.com/todotxt/todo.txt) and put it on whatever you want to. Use whatever you want to interact with it - CLI, Vim, Sublime, Thunderbird, whatever. Want to use it on a phone but self-hosted? Use SSH, or an editor that's able to connect to whatever method you're using for making files available, or fork one of the clients (e.g. https://github.com/todotxt/todo.txt-android or https://github.com/todotxt/todo.txt-ios), or use something that'll download a local copy to your device, let you edit it, then sync it back up.
The "Best" to-do list software is the one that you're actually going to use. Looking for "The one True Task Manager" is just a way to avoid actually doing anything productive.
fencepost
just a little off
Nextcloud has a tasks add-on, you can self-host nextcloud on a raspberry pi if you like. Then you can manage your tasks using any software that can access caldav tasks (e.g. Thunderbird with Lightning).
I used to manage projects for a Fortune 10 company at an enterprise tech archtect. There were times when I had 20-30 projects and was working on designs for each. Thousands of tasks. It was almost overwhelming, before I learned the GTD method. I tried to use all the GTD tools, but found nothing that could beat a multi-tabbed spreadsheet. ...
It was freeing to ABSOLUTELY KNOW that I wasn't dropping any balls just because I slept. Everything was written down somewhere and would end up in the spreadsheet.
I could sort on the top 10 items for any "context", generate a paper report and have that with me throughout the day - making me efficient when away from cell coverage, my desk, my home
I was always able to know that I was working on the highest priority tasks. THAT is very freeing when someone else isn't happy about progress on their part of a project and they are waiting on you. Being able to share other priorities usually made them STFU. It also works with your boss, who will get those calls that you aren't working on some other project. It becomes a prioritization chat, not a "you're fired" chat. Highly effective in communicating up and down the chains, it is.
I really like disconnecting for 2 hrs and just working tasks, in the appropriate priority for where I am, what I can do, and what needs to be done now. Peace of mind. Priceless.
Yep, a simple spreadsheet has all these powers.
You Sir, have nailed it.
OTOH, for most of my career as a software developer or beginning tech architect, I didn't need this system. A 10 item todo list is more than sufficient and trivial to manage. But when things start to become overwhelming, I switch back to the full-on GTD spreadsheet ... and take a nap.
My work are currently using SharePoint task lists for this and syncing them up with outlook to give the "personal tasks" view. There are a few limitations for this in that each list needs to be completely flat (no sub tasks) for the sync to work properly. Alternatively you can have the tasks lists with sub tasks and use a dashboard tool like PowerBI to create a view of your personal tasks using user context and row level security.
I use OSTicket.
It meets all your criteria, and it has a lot of features you probably do not need, which are aimed at large organizations. I use it to track multistep tasks. After a year's use it has not given me any trouble.
Simon's Rock College
That was made for lists
Try taskwarrior. Command line interface, extensions for web.
you can install it on your own server or vm
Just started using GoPlanDo. Its has a free version and works on Android and iOS so I always have my list with me. Itâ(TM)s lightweight enough not to get in the way, and helps me focus on the important stuff. I also started using it for a shared project, to share a list with a few people on a side project. It does the job. The only downside is setting up a team project to share a list with multiple people was kinda a pain the first time around.
Strongly recommend these products! Toodledo - As a to-do list Dynalist - Deep-dive hierarchical planning
I second the old-school methods. I'm using sticky notes on a a4 notebook. The visual representation is very quick to grok what needs doing (particularly when the notes are ordered), the ease of creating a task and moving tasks between categories is unrivalled (IMO) and the satisfaction of peeling a completed one off and chucking it away is unparalleled :)
The biggest problem with todo lists is that priorities are generally constantly changing. So the list might make today will be mostly wrong by next week.
Besides, if you have something really important, and high priority, to do then you wont need a list to remind you.
I find pieces of paper work best because they are easier to ignore when then get buried deeper in your pile of todo lists. They are also much easier to manipulate, and to draw diagrams on if need be. That combined with my email inbox is my todo list.
But in any case if you cannot store what you need to do in your own brain then you will never have a full sense of what you are supposed to be doing and where you are heading. You brain really is the best organizer when it comes to matching your capabilities and personality. Use it. You really do need it's slightly chaotic organization.
I run NextCloud in an FreeBSD jail here. I was originally only running it for the auto photo upload to my server at home (don't want to auto-dropbox or auto-google or auto-apple or auto-anyone else).
It was painless to configure. My upgrade from OwnCloud was a bit difficult but that's because an OwnCloud upgrade hosed my database and I was reconciling the files in the file share against an old snapshot of the database. This page was pretty-much gold in getting the required packages for FreeBSD: https://ramsdenj.com/2017/06/05/nextcloud-in-a-jail-on-freebsd.html It was much easier to install a little too much than do the piecemeal fail to start, track dependencies, fail to start, install more dependencies, etc.
I connected the calendar and address books to my phone and PCs and started to find I was using it more and more. All my contacts are synchronised to it and connected to all my devices. If only Thunderbird spoke CardDav natively, but it does speak CalDav enough - although you need to manually add every one of your calendars from the NextCloud server because it TB doesn't support discovery like everyone else does. Android speaks Cal+CardDav is you use on of the Dav adaptors. iPhone supports Cal+CardDav. Mac supports them.
All my devices supports its task/todo lists. Mac and iOS natively, Thunderbird via the calendar addon. Android you have to install OpenTasks. You get one per calendar.
It's also got the iCloud/Dropbox/GDrive-like file syncing so you can get at your files from anywhere. I don't expose it directly to the Internet, but all my devices tunnel over my VPN anyway so they have access no matter where I am.
Up vote on this one, but I would add one thing. I use yellow sticky notes ( 3 x 5 ) written on long way, for the today stuff.
Goes anywhere, cheap, flexible, and the 5 in list is about what I can get done in a day. Tried the Bullet Journal thing but not organized enough and lost the notebook.
https://opensource.com/alterna...
I tried all kind of stuff, but the best that worked is a simple spreadsheet with filtering capabilities. You can easily add fields and therefore define your own properties a task should have. That way you create a task-management tool that is totally configured to your own needs.
I use Excel, but if you need something online, you could use google sheets or Excel 365.
With web and iOS and Android. Sign up with Google account.
It's geared toward software development, but it has several display models that could accommodate normal task lists and it's pretty nice to use.
Todo lists can be viewed as bug lists. Redmine is an issue tracker, and works wonderfully for that task. Its main drawback is that it's written in Ruby. But if you don't want to dig into its internals, it is otherwise great software.
If you are thinking about lists with due dates then you're already in trouble. The best method I've found over many years is the Getting Things Done (GTD) method, though you don't need to take it to the extreme like he does in the book. If you follow that method, it'll change the way you think about to-do lists, for the better.
Now at home I do have a system to organize papers by *when* we need to deal with them (think bills, permission slips, registrations, etc.). I made a stack of 183 (=366/2) plastic sleeves held together by 3 big binder rings. I labelled each sleeve with two days (the first is Jan 1 and Jan 2, etc.). Total cost about $50, and well worth it. The top sleeve has today's date on it. When you get a new physical thing that you need to deal with at a later date, you stick it in that date's sleeve. Every 2 days you just flip the top page over. Now you only have relevant stuff on top to deal with.
For other things that just have to be done on a certain day, you just need a regular old calendar app. Google calendar is great because you can share it with your spouse. The GTD method talks about calendars too.
A good companion to GTD is still the whole "time quadrant" chapter from 7 Habits of Highly Effecive People. If your time is in demand, you can't possibly do everything people want of you. The quadrant idea help filter out the crap.
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
Notepad.exe
How about pasting gpg blocks in pastebin like I do? I don't host it but it is nice and secure and sufficiently nerdy you can still use vi and cool math. Maybe you want your list to sing and dance, then don't do this, but happiness - gpg + pastebin
Retro iPhone... Spiral bound notebook... Vintage mechanical pencil... Piano in your house....
I just realized that it's pretty hard to tell a nerd from a hipster now. Do you even own a TV?!?
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Not self hosted but first app that really works for me.
I have tried a lot of tools: stuff run on my computer, online tools, phone apps, etc.
In the end, the thing I end up consulting the most and not forgetting about is the piece of paper on my desk.
Just to say that a solution doesn't have to be digital to be good.
Swift To-Do List - have used it for years. Integrates with Outlook, pop-up and email reminders, and more. What really sets it apart is the ability to collaborate. Have a work associate who can never keep track of his deliverables and has paper notebooks everywhere...you know the type: 5 different notebooks running at any one time but no way of telling where specific info is at or if a topic is spread across multiple notepads.
Add to that great service and it is a well rounded tool with new features being added frequently.
I'm not affiliated with them just an enthusiast :)
Free edition: https://www.jetbrains.com/youtrack/buy/#edition=stand-alone
It's called a pad and a pencil.
I searched around quite a bit and settled on ToDoist.com. The combination of projects, filters and other features works well for me. I like the fact that current priorities automatically roll into overdue and show up in the Next 7 Days filter view. It works on the web, android, Windows and Mac and stays synched between them. There's even an Outlook add-in. Downsides? No conditional todo's - schedule task 2 for 3 days past task one. And, there's only 4 levels of priority. I would prefer more to more finely tune importance. Otherwise it's a great tool.
I just keep a monthly text log, use [ ] to mark to-dos, and review it frequently. When a to-do is done, I mark it [x].
At the end of the month I carry forward any outstanding to-dos. Some are never going to get done, and eventually I drop them.
Mar 05
09:30 commented at Slashdot
[ ] see if anyone replies
Keep it lightweight with one of these:
http://www.treepad.com/treepadfreeware/
http://theguide.sourceforge.net/
http://www.byedesign.co.uk/
I use a hardbound notebook, one page per day, for to-do lists, meeting notes,and project tracking. It's cheap, portable, doesn't need to be backed up. It helps with day-to-day continuity and is permanent, providing a good future record of what actually happened if I need to CMA. I have found no software that is is convenient and accessible at this, and I have looked.
A... s small spiral-bound notebook, be it hinged at top or at the side, and a trusty old Pentel .5mm pencil.
Er, which part of "very old" or "shown no sign of updates in years" didn't you understand?
When I used PalmOS, I used DateBk3/4 from Pimlico Software. The author has kept up with the times and has a feature-rich product for Android: http://www.pimlicosoftware.com...
OneModel (text-only) would work over ssh. You can host it (AGPL) for yourself, and I'd be happy to provide setup tips & answer questions (I'm the author).
It is very stable and the best (at least for my work-style), that I've found. Details & contact info are at the web site in link in the sig.
A Free, fast personal organizer for touch typists: onemodel
My solution is still the black hardcover engineering/lab books, but I write in pen. Pages aren't supposed to come out of it.
Been using the same system for over 20 years, never saw any reason to change it. I also have a whiteboard at home and at work.
No, I don't need some piece of technology for this.
Yeah, I use the spiral notebook. I even talk to it from time-to-time: "Hey Notebook, what's the temperature outside?" And it doesn't even respond!!
What more could you ask for?
If youre paranoid, you wouldn't want this on a web server, self hosted or not. And he even says "mobile device". Come on. Someone carrying a cell phone with them everywhere obviously doesn't care about security.
The correct answer here is notepad++. Notepad++ can be customized to be 1) on a physically air gapped machine (if required) or 2) accessible via openvpn from anywhere securely.
A web server is not secure, so when he said that, you can assume that he is just being cheap going with self hosted, not for security reasons.
Yeah, I use the spiral notebook. I even talk to it from time-to-time: "Hey Notebooks, what's the weather like outside?"
And it doesn't even respond!!
What more could you ask for??
Yeah, I use the spiral notebook. I even talk to it from time-to-time: "Hey Notebook, what's the weather like outside?"
And it doesn't even respond!!
What more could you ask for??
I wrote my own. It's a complete rip off of Meistertask. I can't sell it to you because I seriously just ripped off the look feel and functionality of Meistertask. I was in a similar situation to you. I needed a task list software but could not use a hosted solution. Anyway message me back if you like. email me, ican (at) mailinator.com
Why would you have just one list? Why not nine (home, work, spouse, lover, family, friends, volunteering, bucket list, and "one to rule them all")?
http://mytinytodo.net/ has simplicity that appealed to me even after looking at a lot of various host-able task management/organization applications. An online demo link is present on that address. The look-n-feel and simplicity overcame my angst about its no longer being actively maintained.
My absolutely hands down favorite task manager for Android: http://www.tinjasoft.com/ . It allows creating tasks in a tiered tree structure. When I was looking for an application to use years ago, I didn't ever find another that let me create sub-tasks of tasks on my phone. I've kept using it even though I've changed phones several times. I suspect most won't care for the fact that it was pulled from the Play Store because it's name irked *oogl*, but I liked it so much I paid for it on multiple devices before it was pulled, and I would pay for it again...
It is self-hosted and highly responsive. It runs on Java. I'm interested in finding beta testers who are also located in the US.
even though "TodoMVC" shows that a todo app is kind of a cliche, it's interesting how many of the same (incorrect) assumptions so many things make. (Also, many people make idiosyncratic lists of their own requirements, see below ;-)
Table stakes is having good "repeat" events, and some choices for stuff like "Final Friday of Month" or whatever- as well as a crisp "this repeats when task is marked complete vs this repeats when task was dude" I've found some apps that do this pretty well (Appigo Todo - but it hasn't been updated in years) but too many either don't support it or bury it in the UI.
Of course even Appigo makes very-engineery (vs. human-factorsy) presumptions like "everything with a date is more urgent than anything without a due date" and "the more overdue something is, the more urgent it must be" while the opposite is most likely true.
One other thing I haven't seen in an app (at least not one less than $20) - I want categories for my todo items, but I don't want to have to navigate back and forth to view the various categories... way too many apps treat these as separate lists for some unfathomable reasons, so trying to skim both urgent and less urgent stuff (less ugent might be stuff that needs to be done in a certain place, like at home or a store) requires clickng back and forth. I just want a big old list with subcategories inline
I'd also like tracking and charting of how many things I have pending vs get done, so I can do a little self-gamification if i want - but that's not as important as a categorized-but-browsable-as-single-list
SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
You know, as a long time geek, and someone pushing 50, I find it pathetic that the use of paper and pencil/pen makes one a hipster.
The realization that technology doesn't add much to the solution of a problem is hardly a new thing. And, quite frankly, every 2 years or so someone asks this exact same question, and a lot of basically say "ummm, old fashioned paper technology works best here".
If grumpy old man is that easily confused with hipster, then I no longer have the slightest idea of WTF the term is supposed to mean.
I built my own, as part of a bigger, modular web based framework:
https://github.com/Hackerfleet...
It is still WiP and i'd be happy if someone is interested in it, maybe even adding some more features etc.
https://taskwarrior.org/ covers all you'll ever need.
I use a pen and a piece of scratch paper. It works during a loss of power. It doesn't require batteries. Even if exposed to many types of disruptions (including one wash cycle) it can still be read. Updates are simple. When all the to-do items have been executed, it can be easily discarded with little landfill acreage required.
/.ers, for some things you don't need a stinking computer.
If security is an issue, dispose via a paper shredder. Use a cross-cut variety for additional security.
Backups are as simple as your nearest xerox machine. Hosting is via a convenient pocket.
Sheesh,
Circle the wagons and fire inward. Entropy increases without bounds.
I had exactly the same irritations and frustrations. Every solution seemed WAY overbuilt for my needs. I wanted the simplicity of the old-school "take notes on index cards" that I learned in elementary school combined with the ability to search and cross reference things provided by modern database and web tools. I DIDN'T want flashy or overbearing interface elements getting in the way (Trello, Evernote, and just about EVERY other solution I tried).
So, I rolled my own "structured logging" tool. It's an easy text interface that allows you to insert custom "tags" into your notes - then search by those tags. I even made it multiuser - so you can add the email address of someone and they will get an invite to your log (handy for sharing the "household stuff" log with your significant other!)
After I saw your post, I spent some time cleaning up the code, adding PHPMailer as the default option for sending out mail, and making it somewhat "releasable" to the public. No doubt there are problems/issues - and I haven't tested the installation instructions - but if you're even vaguely PHP and Web savvy, it should be easy to install and configure.
You can find it at: https://github.com/dm42net/tlog
Take it for a spin - leave notes/comments. Granted, the tool is intended for my own use cases, but if there's a feature or option that looks interesting, add an issue and I'll probably take a crack at it sooner or later.
As mentioned above, the discipline to use it... that's another whole issue. But as a tool, this at least gives me NO excuse (except no wifi or web access on my phone - in which case - some paper and a pen works until I get back in range).
I have been using ActiveInbox for several years now.
https://www.activeinboxhq.com/
It connects to a gmail account. You can set due dates, keep track of items you need to take action on or you are waiting on other people for. It uses the Getting Things Done methodology and has helped me stay on top of my life in an organized fashion. You can even create custom categories. Its worth the money in my opinion. You can use it with extensions for most browsers. They also have apps on ios and android I think.
How about a piece of paper and a pencil
I do that w/ a Note8 and then I can still cross things off my list. It's hella simple.
Most apps need an "always on" connection to the web to work correctly - and more often than not are just interface tools to access some datastore on the web. At that point, why not just write a decent JAVASCRIPT app and host it on a web page and save the memory on my phone? There are even datastore solutions for JS now so you can buffer data between your script and the online datastore.
Since we're hawking our own wares.... take a look at this one: tlog the structured logger
Browser based access - self hosted - multi-user - and reminscent of the good old days when we were taught to take notes on 3x5 notecards - one fact per card - but with the added benefit of searchable arbitrary tags. Use it for todo's, project management, shopping lists, or any of a million other things. Fast, responsive, easy. No goofy convoluted interfaces. Type, save, go. Add, delete, edit, search, sort.
The constant need to rewrite the lists - and sort through pages and pages of crossed off items everytime I needed to clean things up was irritating. While I like the sentiment - and for quick short term lists, pencil and paper are VERY helpful - it's very difficult to cross reference lists and tasks and items that are related across several pages. And if you have a need to switch contexts regularly (home, job1, job2, etc,) keeping those lists manageable becomes a nightmare - and you spend almost as much time updating your lists as you do getting things done (ok, a bit of an over exaggeration, but it's kind of like those bosses who want time logs of everything and get ticked off that one of the entrys each days is, "spent 15 minutes filling out time log").
Quick, easy, searchable, flexible, self-hosted, and multi-user these are my requirements.... I ended up rolling my own - and ended up VERY happy with it.
Anyone who can set up a publicly accessible webserver running PHP can download it and give it a try. (Working on a public demo - watch the github README for details).
TLog - Based specifically on your post, I rolled it up into a publicly consumable form (the tool is in production - but there may have been some errors in the "cleanup" as a public project - so feel free to submit bug reports if you have problems - I did a quick test install, so I'm pretty sure it should work out of the box).
If you wish you could put your todo lists and project notes on 3x5 cards and search/sort them by tags and keywords... this is the tool for you. If you're looking for a flashy UI with drag/drop and where you have to click a million things and scroll around here there and everywhere to put things in the right list, use Trello or something similar. If you want something as simple as pencil and paper, but with searching, editing, sorting... this is the tool for you.
It's being actively developed/maintained for my uses (bug reports and issues and feature requests will be considered - but I didn't create it as a public project, so, honestly, as long as it continues to work for me and my purposes, unless you're willing to issue a pull request or front some $$... only things that are "interesting" to my purposes will be further developed). It is also undergoing expansion for use as a general remote logging tool.
In any event, it's simple and effective - easily purposed for "todo" lists and a million other things.
Personally, I would love to have a version of Dynalist or Workflowy that I could host locally, for similar use - tracking tasks and task information, but not out there on the Intertoobz. Anyone know of such a tool?
Downmodding is the refuge of the weak. Don't downmod, make a better argument!
I have been an Evernote user for several years, and probably have over 400 text notes.
For a long while, I kept TWO todo lists, one for work, and one for home.
I teach for a living, and I dread the end of the semester. Last semester, I did something different: I listed all of the tasks (grading homework, prepping exams, giving exams, and grading exams) for each course, and then parceled out each item. In the end, I had a very manageable TWO things to do every day (in addition to other stuff) which relieved A LOT of anxiety.
todo.txt sync'd via nextcloud to phone/pc.
simpletask on android for phone management. vim for pc management.
Seriously, 95% of ideas are garbage and only worth slightest inspection, move into bottom pile with code X for Done or P for Postponed. Can trivially be prioritized by sorting or prepending numbers in front. Can always revisit later, but experience shows any description to be worthless when you've forgotten all about it.
Task management is more about prioritization and NOT doing everything, rather than striving to do everything but accomplishing nothing of high value, or not being valued.
workflowy. Installed also as chrome extension
Simple, can be used by keyboard only
My wife keeps a list in her head. - Every time I complete a job, several more are added to the end.
Never fails.
- Sometimes she emails or texts me with new additions or an action list as well.
- Get married. It's the only way to keep a to-do list alive.
Frankly Covey Daily Planner which uses the "Getting Things Done" methodology. Technology isn't always the best thing! It works because it's effective, and, when you're working in your planner you're not distracted by anything else be it email, websites, etc...
Your primary objective when planning is to have a singular focus on your tasks to prioritize them and follow-up on them. In my opinion, that is easier to do when you have a singular item devoted to that planning that is physical in nature.
That being said, if you absolutely want something on your computer. Check out Taskwarrior, it's open source and is based on the "Getting Things Done" methodology as well.
Post-it notes.
Here's what I use, and I think it meets all the criteria you were looking for. Best list management tool I have ever used:
Kanbanflow.com
Web-based and portable. Customizable to whatever degree you want.
Out of the box, the to-do/task functionality is limited, but there are numerous custom versions that fill this gap. Try them, and pick one you like, or roll your own.
https://www.tuleap.org/
I use Tuleap and make a Kanban board for each of my categories (Work, Honey-do, Personal, etc.). It runs CentOS 6 or RHEL 6. I run it on CentOS 6 within its own VM. I have it hosted myself as I'm not crazy about putting all of my tasks on some cloud service. After quite a bit of searching this is what I settled on. I've been using it for almost 9 months now and I'm quite happy with it.
https://www.pagico.com/
Used it for quite a few years now, supports Linix, OS & Windows. very responsive dev team.