Learning from failures is giving a different perspective then learning from praise.
And most of the general comparison topics are focused on whats good or bad in the programs.

But what is the advise for software developers where they should not spend a lot of time?
Features are implemented and advisertised often just to fill the "me too" table column.

Are they just to hard to use from the current state of UX/usage design or did you just never found a real usecase for them.

I think how useful a feature is depends less on the feature and more on the implementation and how well integrated it is into the app. Tagging in Ulysses is useless for me because it is hidden in its own window (after the update!) and not central to organizing one's data. Tagging in Bear, however, is wonderfully well thought out and is central to how I use that app. Having said that, there are some features I have never found useful in any app:

1. Mind Mapping
I love outlines, but despite having tried dozens of mind mapping apps, I've never found them useful for me. Maybe because my outlines are so text-heavy? I think it only works if you have short entries...

2. Contexts
GTD apps like the idea of contexts, but my work doesn’t have a clear context. I could be at home, in my office, or at a café and be doing pretty much the same thing. Location alerts are sometimes useful however. For instance, to remind myself to pick something up when I'm in the office.

3. Check lists
Checklists just remain stuck inside another task. What if an item on your list turns into its own project with its own sub-tasks? Todoist, 2Do, and Taskcade can handle this, but in apps with only checklists, your items are stuck where they are!

4. Estimated time
Seems like an absurd thing to include in a task manager. You can tag items as "quick" or "major project" but trying to narrow it down to a given time frame seems like a fool's errand - and also a waste of time. I do like having "durations" however - which is how 2Do calculates a "start date" based on the "due date" without having to enter a given due date.

5. Grammar check
The grammar rules included in any contemporary computer - whether apple, or the service grammarly, are laughable and no good writer should keep these features turned on. Only useful for second-language learners I think.



Lothar Scholz wrote:

Learning from failures is giving a different perspective then learning
from praise.
And most of the general comparison topics are focused on whats good or
bad in the programs.

But what is the advise for software developers where they should not
spend a lot of time?
Features are implemented and advisertised often just to fill the "me
too" table column.

Are they just to hard to use from the current state of UX/usage design
or did you just never found a real usecase for them.

Luhmann wrote:

1. Mind Mapping
I love outlines, but despite having tried dozens of mind mapping apps,
I've never found them useful for me. Maybe because my outlines are so
text-heavy? I think it only works if you have short entries...

One of the things I liked most about Tree for Mac (a horizontal outliner) was its ability to look similar to a one-direction mindmap while easily handling text-heavy nodes. You can see examples of this in this old article:

https://mac.appstorm.net/quick-look/productivity-quick-look/tree-a-new-dimension-in-outlining/

Most of a mindmap's benefits for me can be found in a good outliner.

I know people who say mindmaps get even better when using an iPad with the ability to use a pencil (to ad lines/nodes, or write directly on the screen) and the ability to move nodes around with a finger, but to me that just means taking one's hands from the keyboard, possibly picking up a pointing device, then having to put it down to get back to the keyboard. For me negates many the benefits; when I use a mindmap it's because I want a frictionless place to quickly start to dump ideas and lists, and for me that means keeping my keys on a keyboard.

Also, the candy colors and rounded sans serif fonts the apps tend to use (or have as styles) don't appeal to me, and it can be difficult or impossible, depending on the app, to create one's own style. (Actually, that's a complaint I have with OmniOutliner as well.)

Luhmann wrote:

3. Check lists

Checklists just remain stuck inside another task. What if an item on your list turns into its own project with its own sub-tasks? Todoist, 2Do, and Taskcade can handle this, but in apps with only checklists, your items are stuck where they are!

I agree with your main point about checkboxes. However, there are definite times I find having them in the notes useful. Case in point: If I am slowly working my way through a book, reading a chapter or two, then taking a break to read something else, I like having a note summarizing what I've read and the checkbox list of chapters, so I can see my progress. This, of course, isn't vital. I can track my progress other ways, but I find the checkbox approach a bit motivational.

Steve Z

A nit-pick, and an endorsement.:

Luhmann wrote:

4. Estimated time
Seems like an absurd thing to include in a task manager. You can tag
items as "quick" or "major project" but trying to narrow it down to a
given time frame seems like a fool's errand - and also a waste of time.
I do like having "durations" however - which is how 2Do calculates a
"start date" based on the "due date" without having to enter a given due
date.

One arrangement when "estimated time"/"duration" is useful is - if you're into what's been called "hyper-scheduling" - when dragging and dropping Omnifocus 3 tasks into Fantastical 2: Fantastical 2 schedules the task according to what OF 3 calls its "estimated duration" (Ha!).

5. Grammar check
The grammar rules included in any contemporary computer - whether apple,
or the service grammarly, are laughable and no good writer should keep
these features turned on. Only useful for second-language learners I
think.

Absolutely - although I'd add for English at least, for grammar apps and grammar features in other apps the trend is in the direction of slow improvement. Although such apps and features remain broadly inadequate and liable to lead the user astray (in my view), they're a whole lot less bad than they were even fifteen years ago.

The concept of "contexts" always befuddles me. It feels artificial. "Oh, look, I'm in the garden. Let me look at my list to see what I can do now." I know the GTD theory is "out of mind until you're in place where the task can be done". But, really?

Tagging is a bit less artificial, and I do a lot of tagging in Dynalist -- because it facilitates finding things in lists, not because it facilitates doing things.

Luhmann wrote:

2. Contexts
GTD apps like the idea of contexts, but my work doesn’t have a
clear context. I could be at home, in my office, or at a café and
be doing pretty much the same thing. Location alerts are sometimes
useful however. For instance, to remind myself to pick something up when
I'm in the office.

I have something I call 'context' that I find very useful but I gather it's not the same thing discussed here

It's basically 'geotags' for your notes, which in my own cases are almost exclusively trains of thought

Often I remember a past train of thought, and the one thing I know with utter certainty is the "context" in which I had that train of thought ─── some cafe, while walking through some park, etc.

I use TheBrain so I just create a 'jump though' linking a note to 'XXX cafe' or 'YYY park'. Then later you can get to those via these geotags.

I often do my work inside a office building, and I like to go to different floors to work. This means I have tons of extremely fine-grained geotags: 3rd floor, 4th, 5th ... each floor is further divided into this or that room, even this or that seat ...


Paul Korm wrote:

The concept of "contexts" always befuddles me. It feels artificial.
"Oh, look, I'm in the garden. Let me look at my list to see what I can
do now." I know the GTD theory is "out of mind until you're in place
where the task can be done". But, really?

Tagging is a bit less artificial, and I do a lot of tagging in Dynalist
-- because it facilitates finding things in lists, not because it
facilitates doing things.

Luhmann wrote:
>2. Contexts
>GTD apps like the idea of contexts, but my work doesn’t have a
>clear context. I could be at home, in my office, or at a café and
>be doing pretty much the same thing. Location alerts are sometimes
>useful however. For instance, to remind myself to pick something up
when
>I'm in the office.

@smalldog, your example is the useful case for "context".

I was referring to "context" in the Getting Things Done sense for task tracking -- a sense that I have probably bastardized, something I suspect happens a lot.

Little icons, like a musical note, or a vegetable, or a question mark.

I didn't make use of tags for a long time, but now I'd hate to do without them. If GTD's idea of concepts is similar to Omnifocus's old notion of concepts, I agree. OF's old contexts were stilted because a task could only belong to one context. I never used them.

Now, I could live without folders easier than without hierarchical tagging, because one way to think of tags is as an alternate folder structure. That was the concept that got me started with tagging things in Devonthink and Omnifocus.

I use tags for contexts, status, and relationships. My group (folder) hierarchy in Devonthink is sort of the table of contents to my data, the tags are the index.



Paul Korm wrote:

The concept of "contexts" always befuddles me. It feels artificial.

I could live without the collaboration features many task management apps now have. But that's not going to happen. Appealing to corporate customers is where these developers' bread is buttered, because they can charge higher per user fees. I just appreciate it when they allow for us single-users.

I am back to using TickTick, and I can't see any features I'd strip out of it. The ability to color-code lists is kind of a waste, but more due to the implementation, I think. The color-coding is so minimal as to be virtually useless.

Steve Z

I tried DropTask in an effort to get my team (4 people) to collaborate on projects. I was the only person who used it, so I discarded the idea.

Stephen Zeoli wrote:

I could live without the collaboration features many task management
apps now have. But that's not going to happen. Appealing to corporate
customers is where these developers' bread is buttered, because they can
charge higher per user fees. I just appreciate it when they allow for us
single-users.

I am back to using TickTick, and I can't see any features I'd strip out
of it. The ability to color-code lists is kind of a waste, but more due
to the implementation, I think. The color-coding is so minimal as to be
virtually useless.

Steve Z

We tried using Asana in my office, but our boss never got the hang of it and we abandoned it. I also tried SamePage to coordinated with the board of a nonprofit I serve on. Maybe two out of ten of us used it... SamePage has gotten a lot better since then. It might be work a look if you're still looking for a collaboration site.

Jeffery Smith wrote:

I tried DropTask in an effort to get my team (4 people) to collaborate
on projects. I was the only person who used it, so I discarded the idea.


Stephen Zeoli wrote:
I could live without the collaboration features many task management
>apps now have. But that's not going to happen. Appealing to corporate
>customers is where these developers' bread is buttered, because they
can
>charge higher per user fees. I just appreciate it when they allow for
us
>single-users.
>
>I am back to using TickTick, and I can't see any features I'd strip out
>of it. The ability to color-code lists is kind of a waste, but more due
>to the implementation, I think. The color-coding is so minimal as to be
>virtually useless.
>
>Steve Z

Digital task managers and reminders.

I find digital task manager collect cruft like nothing I know. The whole, “let’s put it into Todoist, Omnifocus, etc” and deal with it later is a real disaster. The easier it is to put tasks in the more you put in. The subtask feature then increases the cruft further. Instead of write letter we now have, get paper, find pen, write letter, put letter in envelope, stick envelope shut, find stamp, stick stamp, place letter in briefcase, then set a location reminder when I’m near the postoffice. Digital task managers can take 30 tasks and turn them into 300!

Reminders are an issue because the temptation to use them for everything means you can spend your life postponing 20 reminders a day.

I know this is a little bit exaggerated, but pen and paper, or in my case Apple pencil and Goodnotes, make me far more productive. One master list, daily tasks written down and crossed off has made me more productive than any digital task manager ever has.