The Search for the Perfect To-do List
steveworsley.com
steveworsley.com
I want to mark a task as dependant on another being done.
I want to add time estimates to those tasks, and see a gantt chart. I want tasks to show the sum of their dependencies estimates next to their own estimates.
I want priorities to also flow through dependency chains in this manner - if a high priority task is dependant on a low priority task, the low priority task inherits the high priority while that relationship exists. If a deadline of 7pm exists on one task, and it has a dependant task with an estimate of 1hr, that dependency will inherit a deadline of 6pm.
Good search functionality helps, but so does useful metadata attached to tasks to search on i.e. which tasks haven't I looked at in 3 months.
PM software tends to include other stuff - like team management, SLA considerations etc. dependencies should be part of any task management system IMHO.
To do lists are what the name implies, a list of things to do.
Once you start adding things like dependencies, etc. to a to do list, it's not really a to do list any more.
If you are going to be that detailed about how you do your tasks, then a traditional Project Management tool (like Microsoft Project) is probably what you need.
Sure it's going to have some extra features you don't want, but nothing is forcing you to use those features, especially if the task management part satisfies your primary needs for dependency tracking, estimate/deadline rollups, etc.
Before I can have friends to dinner, I need to buy the ingredients, but before I buy the ingredients it would be good to print the recipes so I don't need to go back to the store. Also, I need to clean the dining room a bit which involves moving the elephant out of the room and into the garage.
Two little streams with deadlines: move elephant, print recipes today.
I worked on an app like this for a while as well, just arranging everything graphically, but abandoned it as too idiosyncratic....
Work projects have multiple dependencies because they involve often many people, but Agile has been also pushing backward the desire to plan too much in advance.
So the desire is to be able to record a target task, and obscure it (so to speak) behind the preparatory tasks. This is where projects and other things come into play. Project: Make a journal for my sister's wedding anniversary. Tasks: Purchase materials, assemble, hire artist friend to produce neat drawing on cover, distribute for signing by family (both sides). Those end up becoming ordered in some fashion (purchase materials, then the rest), or running in parallel (hire the artist friend and paste it into the produced journal, send out a single sewn signature to family and sew it into the final product, assemble the rest and wait). If you've only recorded the task "purchase materials" you don't have a concept of what follows it (and it remains in your head). This doesn't mean you need to see the following tasks, yet (software can hand them behind the tasks they depend on or by date or similar). But recording them is not a problem.
I'd definitely be interested, at least in some screenshots to see what you mean by having both excel-like features and hierarchy. It sounds somewhat similar to Smartsheet[1], are you familiar?
Sweet! Thanks for following up, I'll keep an eye on this thread.
Not sure about the priority thing though.
> It's a new take on a to-do list focused around dependencies and a hierarchy.
Fantastical does this.
Beyond that, we need opportunity tracking. Often, there is a very small window in progress can be made on a task. It could be an unique event, a recurring event, a time of day, access to a resource, etc.
- Buy milk when you're near milk - Talk to John when you're near John - Tan when they sun is bright - Catch the train in the next 5 minutes otherwise you'll wait an hour for the next
You can't make a cake if you never have all the ingredients together at once. Synchronization is extremely important. Your basic to-do list lacks the awareness of the world to make you and others more productive.
This is a general problem that deserves a general solution.
"Your Todo item suggests you are wanting to bake a cake soon? You hovered over a cake recipe using vanilla pods. The store nearby stocks Foo brand vanilla pods for $12..."
Maybe a little too complex though ;-D
A big obstacle to collaboration and global productivity is the assumption that it is cheaper/better to make something yourself rather than purchase it. It couldn't be further from the truth. An expert baker will bake cheaper and better cakes than I ever could.
> Maybe a little too complex though ;-D
It is more important than it is complex. Humanity has waited long enough, it's time we take that step.
And most expert bakers around here don't make the kinds of cakes I like. Way cheaper/better to whip one up in 20 minutes than spend hours trying to find a catering service that will use the right recipe (or an improvement) and then someone who will deliver it. The recipe: http://www.thevintagemixer.com/2013/03/tarta-de-santiago-rec...
An expert baker can bake better and (possibly) cheaper cakes, but it is not necessarily in his or her interest to do so. It may be more practical to make the worst cakes that will sell, and then sell them for as much as the market can bear. (For example, McDonald's employs expert chefs.)
(The app currently has all the infrastructure for such contexts, however I'm not yet sure about how to implement person proximity triggers in particular).
Personal projects look nothing like that. This week I might have 2 hours for it, next week maybe zero hours.
The todo-mania is not any different than the bookmarking OCD or the million-open-tabs infestation. There are only so many moments in a lifetime, and just so much you can and should do. The important ones would come back to you, and for the rest, there is always the todo list.
(Of course professional todos are a different matter - they go into a ticketing system and are meant to be done.)
I'm not sure I agree with you there. Sure the world is complex, but then again so are we. Todo lists allow you to see the bigger picture, as the act of writing down your todo/idea makes you invest time in thinking about it coherently and logically as you convert it to English words on paper. Once you have a list going, you can prioritize it by any means (ease to complete, upcoming events it's needed for etc) and then at least you know that if you were to complete the list in order, then you will achieve your goals/meet deadlines etc.
It's that safety of 'knowing' a path through the unknowns in your future that makes writing a list worthwhile.
Well yes, they had other people to manage their todos :)
I'm glad you found that Trello works well for you, but that doesn't mean everyone else's search will end in the same place.
We actually ended up repurposing a bug tracking system (trac) because the price was right and it mostly fitted what we were trying to do. But a number of well-regarded project rtacking systems just didn't click with our needs.
Next to a board for scrum, I also have a board reserved for planning work things to do in the long term future, like a backlog, but coverings many different aspects of company mostly related to software dev, but also some hardware and marketing.
Eventually I wanted to be able to measure how long would it take to complete some tasks, and prioritize them across lists.
The way I solved this way with a plugin for sublime text, the editor I use all day long [0]. The plugin reads metadata I add to each task on Trello like (backend 1d design 4h) and uses it to compute a schedule for all my tasks. It is also able to prioritize between posts, which in in my case are fucus areas.
When I need to prepare the next sprint, all I have to to is use the plugin to tell me which tasks have the highest priorities, and occasionally review the Planning board.
The plugin was initially developed for Trello, but I found it really useful also for offline task scheduling between different projects.
You can read more about how I use it on my blog [1].
[0]https://github.com/pedrokost/STProjectPlanner [1]http://blog.pedro.si/2015/11/project-planning-in-file.html?m...
With my broken Todoist I've avoided creating multi-level items and eventually cleaned up the list with this one question: is this task something I'm actually going to do?
If the answer is yes, then it goes to the list.
If not, then I discard it right away.
It's surprising how much of an anxiety relief this is. Todo apps tend to offer ways too many options, which makes you use them as backlogs or even notebooks. In my case, all those items were actionable - I've read GTD too -, the items just weren't important enough at most times. Now I get rid of the unimportant items on-the-fly.
I think the perfect To-Do list would have
- the ability create (and allow others to create, subject to black/white-listing) a task by sending an email to my list
- the ability to delegate tasks to others (whether they're users of the app/service or not)
- order in a way that takes urgency, importance and deadlines into account
- an intray, so I can accept/reject tasks sent/delegated to me
- Mailbox app-style swiping to snooze tasks or mark them as Done
- shared To-Do lists (e.g. for teams)
- support for sharing tasks with others so they can comment on them
- API integration
- dependencies and workflows
I created some mock-ups a few months back to illustrate my thinking: http://jackgavigan.com/1tray-concept/
I have messed wit trello. I live the way it looks but Asana fits how I think better. I think that is a big part of why people get wrapped up in the tools they like - it works with their way of thinking. If you process things differently, you'll have different feelings about it.
I've heard good things about org mode in emacs, wonder what added value I'd get from that.
It's worth spending an afternoon playing with it. There are a lot of features.
I'm using org mode to implement some form of GTD.
For work: Outlook Tasks list on the right hand pane
Killer features:
- Single click to flag any email as a task
- Drag and Drop to reorder
- Set custom date/time folow up reminders
For personal life: For things with no deadline - A gmail thread with my wife where we just keep "replying all"; For things with dates / deadlines - A Shared google calendar with my wife
I guess its a highly personal choice...
Actually, this was the main reason I've used Sortd & Yanado (highly recommended) a while.
I do use Outlook for diary management but that's because I work in a corporate environment and trying to do anything else would be working against the system. But it's one calendar for everything (work and personal).
I've tried multiple software applications, from plain text, to trello, to custom software. Nothing works as well.
* This actually serves another purpose as well: in a page full of notes, my drop-shadowed action items pop out.
My ideal system would do the ordering for me, according to the priority, date, postpone hints, and other task properties.
As for the recurrence part, there is a way to do that through Trello. I create cards and entire boards for recurring tasks that I have to do each iteration, when that iteration begins I just use the "Copy list.." and copy it to the new board and Bam a whole new set of tasks to check off.
You describe the outcomes you want in life using a formal semantic language, and broadcast them for the world to see. Then, anyone who has the ability to satisfy the expected outcome (i.e., "I'm at work at 8AM") - bet it yourself, a friend, or a taxi driver - can engage in a contract where the conditions of all parties are described and agreed upon. Then, the contract or commitment to make an ideal become real becomes your task.
Software will simply become an interface to an ideal world, expressed through deltas with the real world. Your job as an agent is to maintain ideals you committed to maintain (i.e., "Don't drive when drunk", "Don't eat peanuts", "Keep your blood sugar below 150", "Don't have your location be within an area that's private property you don't have access to").
Laws of physics, laws of your state, preferences and other contracts populate the ideal you're expected to maintain and approach. Failing to do that hurts your social credit score, which in turns lowers the chance others will bring the world closer to your own ideals.
A to-do list is just a list of things that are wrong with the world. Until we have a system that enables us to precisely communicate and share these deltas, actions will remain meaningless words on a piece of physical/digital paper that only a motivated human can parse.
But I believe we can do much better than prolog.
I think a user must be able to postpone a task without assigning a due date to it. I'm working on a todo app that will implement separate hide-until and due dates.
EDIT: I have a very simple system for my tasks:
- One sheet of paper each day with all of my projects and related tasks under those projects.
- Pending items get a check—these are actions you've completed, but require someone else to take action.
- Completed items get crossed out.
- At the end of the day, I create a new list for tomorrow and transfer any pending items of items not finished over.
For further explanation I wrote a bit about my habits last year: http://solomon.io/todo-list-framework/
I've tried Google calendar reminders, and that hasn't worked. Evernote hasn't been great either. I don't want to go back to Notepad.
Maybe the issue is having the discipline to spend 15 minutes a day planning?
My intuition is that there should be something similar on a smartphone.
If I could use it on my work computer I'd be set (Windows and Linux environment).
Relatedly, I built something for myself, but am working on launching it. I wasn't satisfied with any GTD options out there, and really just wanted a brain for my brain. Something i could just dump thoughts and todos into and it would automatically manage them for me.
You can actually see some of this in action in the screenshot from a recent update: http://blog.mindaux.com/blog/2016/02/27/sneak-peak-beta-acce...
Todo lists and task management software won't ever solve the problem. The problem has to do with the way the system works, how the society is modeled. The application paradigm (where we have disconnected apps that do few things well) is the root cause.
It should be obvious that the solution is to change the UX of software as a whole. Get rid of the silly WIMP paradigm, and move to a more task-oriented one. Make the OS your task management system, and let apps (now semantic agents) help you achieve them.
What we lack is breakthroughs in language. We need a better semantic model to describe and model expected outcomes.
Can anyone who is more familiar with orgmode describe how it might play this role?
> Can anyone who is more familiar with orgmode describe how it might play this role?
Emacs, full screen (https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/FullScreen), auto-starting org-mode, and do everything you can in it (http://blog.vivekhaldar.com/post/3996068979/the-levels-of-em...). It helps if you already use Emacs, such as writing software in it.
A couple perks of the switch: org-mode, magit (wrapper for git), elisp is kind of fun and makes customizing emacs really approachable (subjective of course), I used to live in the commandline (bash, tmux, vim) but I've found that I navigate my system faster and better than before (buffers and registers).
There's a steep learning curve, but being willing to read documentation is helpful. It's definitely been worth it for me. And I do think that conceptually thinking of emacs as an OS or interface to your computer rather than a text editor is helpful.
There was no great notebook out there for this, so my biz partner and I designed our own. We are selling them on Amazon because we have day jobs and don't have time to mess with fulfilling orders. You can see them here: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ZGE1914/
For me, it's the perfect todo list.
I never remove notes, I just add a new header for each note I need to take. These notes are eventually moved into actionable items (Trello is good for this), or if the task is quick and small, I maintain a generic "TODO" at the top of the file and delete that line item when the task is complete.
Keeping it simple just means I don't think about it, and actually get shit done.
I created some rules: subject beginning TODO goes to ACTION, subject beginning READ goes to READ, subject beginning WANT goes to WANT folder. This means I can add to any list just by sending a mail to myself.
I created additional rules so all emails from credit card companies, banks, accountant and other important senders goes straight into ACTION folder.
I try and ensure all unread items are dealt with daily. If I set it to read, it becomes non-urgent.
Does anyone know of a to-do list manager that works this way? I ask because while I like this method, it is difficult to see all your to-dos or deal with a to-do that has multiple steps.
The one tool, Any.Do, has really helped me grind away at life priorities. When I decided to migrate from 2Do to Any.Do, I had around 180 tasks in 2Do. Today I'm at 24 and the only reason it's over 20 is because of tax season, Chinese study, and an investment project.
The list will be back down under 20 soon enough and heading to 10.
It just doesn't seem to be human nature to do it consistently beyond short bursts of focus, like dieting and following step-by-step procedures.
It is very easy to scan a page for boxes and it works everywhere. For example, on printed slides discussed in a meeting or a post-it from the refrigerator.
I often neglect to work on them at the end of the day, because I forget I'm working on so many and what I need to do in them, so I need a reminder of various things I've come up with, which ones I'm actively working on, which ones are on the backburner, which ones are essentially abandoned, etc.
Additionally, my motivation for my personal projects ebb and flow over time, and I might have something on the backburner for a good six months and then suddenly something pops into my head about it and I'm raring to go and my motivation skyrockets again and it's back to the top of my list.
Third, I don't know when I'm going to be satisfied with it, and I really don't want to put a deadline on something that's supposed to be an enjoyable pastime. But at the same time I want to see progress. So I would like to track when I put units of work into the project, without having to have created a specific task to put up against it.
Finally, deadlines should not be required, nor should the sorting mechanism be by deadlines of the tasks. I've tried things like Asana and the like, and I keep just pushing back deadlines because I lost excitement for that project and I'm working on something else for awhile.
So basically here's what I need from my todo for my personal projects: A list of projects so I never forget them, preferably with an image to catch my eye (I work on games a lot, so they're very visual, so something like box art would be nice), a way to add a bunch of next steps in the system but only show me a couple at a time (because reminding me of all my projects is more important than telling me everything I need to be doing for one particular project), and a way to record that I made progress without placing it against a specific task (I was thinking maybe have different color cubes, the colors representing different things, and I could reward myself a work cube just for sitting down and spending at least 5 minutes on the project, since the hardest thing to do is to sit down and get started).
Also a status for the project would be nice. Like if it's writing it could be '1st draft, 2nd draft', if it's a game then 'Prototype, Alpha, Beta, Gold, Released'
I was thinking this could be visually demonstrated with a card like system (kind of like baseball cards), with the project image on the left half of the card and the 'stats' on the right side of the card, and then you can click + drag the entire project card around so you can rearrange the projects to show what you are most currently motivated in.
I would also like to include past released projects so I can see those accumulate over time and remind myself what I've already accomplished, also in a similar visual style. And sometimes there's more I'd like to do after the project is released, or think of something more to do later.
I was considering making something like this myself but I have so many projects and not enough time so the chances of me working on it are low, so if this excites anyone, please run with it and keep me in the loop. I have some other ideas on it and how it would look if anyone's interested.