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'I Tried Every Todo App and Ended Up With a .txt File'
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Posted by Andy Brice
Aug 11, 2025 at 07:40 PM
Spotted on Hacker News:
https://www.al3rez.com/todo-txt-journey
HN Discussion:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44864134
—
Andy Brice
https://www.hyperplan.com
https://www.easydatatransform.com
https://www.successfulsoftware.net
Posted by Paul Korm
Aug 11, 2025 at 07:50 PM
No computer needed. A $5 box of 3x2.5 index cards—use one a day to hold that day’s must-do tasks—will get most anyone through the better part of year.
Posted by satis
Aug 12, 2025 at 04:29 PM
The software dev who wrote about this is kind of ridiculous. He gave up on Todoist because he lacked the self-control to turn off an optional gamification feature in the app, “Great until I realized I was gaming the points system instead of doing actual work. Turns out completing “drink water” 8 times a day doesn’t make you productive.” He gave himself B.S. tasks so he could gamify a *completely optional* points-based system in the app.
Not really impressed with text-only todos except for very limited personal use.
Todo.text is cumbersome for sub-tasks or hierarchical structures, it lacks notifications, has no automated recurring items, you can’t easily deal with large notes (which makes the file difficult to scroll through and stops visual flow), you can’t automatically group higher priority items for a given day, and there’s no linking to a calendar - which is incredibly useful. And no location-based reminders, also very useful.
When I’m on the go I can tell my phone to remind me to do something and it puts it in an Inbox in my todo app where I can later triage and categorize it (personal, home, work etc), I can add a due date, I can can set one or more notification alerts including sophisticated repeat todo (eg every 3rd Wednesday), I can optionally set a priority level (which affects where it appears in a list on when viewed in Daily view), and I can see a rich web-preview for attached URLs. And when in apps and web browsers I can easily share info and links into the todo app (and even choose what categories or folders to put them in). And dated/timed events can show up in my calendar, which offers benefits when planning or sharing open availability.
And that doesn’t even touch on collaboration features, which I don’t use but many people find useful.
Posted by Stephen Zeoli
Aug 12, 2025 at 05:42 PM
Ha. You’re right about the post’s author. He quit Things 3 because he didn’t remember to check it, but he does remember to check his text file! I guess he never heard of notifications or alerts. I mean, a text file might be the best choice, but the reasons his other apps didn’t work out are not necessarily solved with a text file—as you point out. It’s like he’s gaming himself instead of the system. I guess if that works, great.
satis wrote:
>The software dev who wrote about this is kind of ridiculous. He gave up
>on Todoist because he lacked the self-control to turn off an optional
>gamification feature in the app, “Great until I realized I was gaming
>the points system instead of doing actual work. Turns out completing
>“drink water” 8 times a day doesn’t make you
>productive.” He gave himself B.S. tasks so he could gamify a *completely
>optional* points-based system in the app.
>
>Not really impressed with text-only todos except for very limited
>personal use.
>
>Todo.text is cumbersome for sub-tasks or hierarchical structures, it
>lacks notifications, has no automated recurring items, you can’t easily
>deal with large notes (which makes the file difficult to scroll through
>and stops visual flow), you can’t automatically group higher priority
>items for a given day, and there’s no linking to a calendar - which is
>incredibly useful. And no location-based reminders, also very useful.
>
>When I’m on the go I can tell my phone to remind me to do something and
>it puts it in an Inbox in my todo app where I can later triage and
>categorize it (personal, home, work etc), I can add a due date, I can
>can set one or more notification alerts including sophisticated repeat
>todo (eg every 3rd Wednesday), I can optionally set a priority level
>(which affects where it appears in a list on when viewed in Daily view),
>and I can see a rich web-preview for attached URLs. And when in apps and
>web browsers I can easily share info and links into the todo app (and
>even choose what categories or folders to put them in). And dated/timed
>events can show up in my calendar, which offers benefits when planning
>or sharing open availability.
>
>And that doesn’t even touch on collaboration features, which I don’t use
>but many people find useful.
>
>
>
Posted by rafael costacurta
Aug 12, 2025 at 05:47 PM
I’ve tried almost all the apps mentioned in the blog post.
When I was full on in the Apple shiny walled garden, used Omnifocus with all my love.
Omni group make Great apps with rarely seen attention to details.
Long has gone these days and today I use Android, Windows, Mac, Linux and iPadOs, so I had to use a multi platform app.
Been using Todoist since then. It’s fine, it’s a well crafted app that has been constantly updated.
But as go deeper in the FOSS world, and my excitement with Linux has been growing, I wanted to go hardcore I mess as much as I could with open stantards, text files and the terminal.
I tried org mode a.k.a *god mode* for a while, but find a bit to overwhelming.
Today I settled with neovim + vimwiki combo in the pc and nextcloud notes on the android.
All that said,
It’s been fun… I feel slowed down with this setup, in a good way.
With all the modern apps was super easy to fill the inbox with a lot of info and tasks and alarms and etc… some times I got anxious with the idea of GTD/Clean my inbox, that was weeks long late to be processed.
So was the overdue tasks…
I know it’s probably my fault, not the app or the GTD system…
But Now every thing feels more intentional , more well though out…
I don’t expect to use this setup forever, but for now, it’s been fun an sane for me