19 ms·

I have ADHD and hence am generally quite interested in apps in this space. Maybe it's just me but I found the app controls to be way too small, too many onboar

I have ADHD and hence am generally quite interested in apps in this space. Maybe it's just me but I found the app controls to be way too small, too many onboarding walk through steps and way too much information density in the Task screen. Progress, Highlight, Due Date, different lists - it's a lot. It seems to me you wanted to pack a punch, but it's so dense and so many steps involved that it falls into the productivity fallacy for me: It's increasing my executive disfunction and makes it harder and cumbersome to add tasks instead of reducing it. One app that really works for me, does one thing and does it well is for example Due: https://apps.apple.com/de/app/due-erinnerungen-timer/id390017969 https://apps.apple.com/de/app/due-erinnerungen-timer/id39001... Not affiliated in any way with the app or it's creator. When it comes to apps like these, less is more for me.

bbminner 2y ago
For years I have been fiddling with the idea of a personal task management system that synchronized status, due dates, prioritization, planning, projects, etc across platforms, and came to a conclusion that nothing beats a flat text file (with own notation for all the above) synchronized well across devices via something reliable yet lightweight like google keep, that I "scan, update, reorder" at least once a day. One huge insight was a notation to keep track of blocked tasks (usually by other people) and what/whom to "poll" periodically to check the status.
- amenghra 2y ago
  Getting things done (GTD) has a notion of “waiting for”. Lots of people successfully follow GTDs structure methodologically.
  - ghaff 2y ago
    I’m not much of a productivity system guy. But GTD has some good ideas that I’ve tried to adopt: Breaking down tasks into actionable steps Separating things out that really have a firm due date from those that really need to be taken care of but not by a specific date I also keep a maybe someday list of things that may never happen and may outlive there being a good reason to make happen. I did what I liked to refer to as a value renovation project on my house this summer and there were a number of projects whose cost and/or effort just exceeded their utility.
- ozim 2y ago
  I pay for Todoist because all the other synchronization stuff requires my attention or somehow is not supported well. Ideally I would like to have git available on iPhone and Apple tablets then I could use my repo that I have notes in on laptops and android phones. Well I am pissed by poor text editing on iPhone anyway so I will go back to android and then I can go back to text file with git on private repo.
  - amiantos 2y ago
    > Ideally I would like to have git available on iPhone and Apple tablets I'd like to introduce you to Working Copy - https://apps.apple.com/us/app/working-copy-git-client/id896694807 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/working-copy-git-client/id8966... - https://workingcopy.app https://workingcopy.app
    - bravura 2y ago
      This looks great but... to work with a github repo I have to give: * read and write access to ALL gists * read and write access to ALL repos, public and private * read and write access to SSH public keys That's a no from me.
- h0l0cube 2y ago
  > and came to a conclusion that nothing beats a flat text file (with own notation for all the above) synchronized well across devices via something reliable yet lightweight like google keep Checklists in Apple Notes also works well for this if you’ve already bought into that ecosystem. I only wish it could track list items, so I could get basic stats on velocity.
- oezi 2y ago
  In my own markdown-driven workflow with tool support (https://github.com/coezbek/rodo https://github.com/coezbek/rodo) the solution for me is to only look at tasks relevant today and just move blocked tasks 1 or 7 or n days into the future so they show up again then.
- SoftTalker 2y ago
  For me, I want it all in one place: the calendar. Even for stuff that just need to get done but doesn't have a particular "date" -- that stuff could just float from day to day somehow. It has never made sense to me that Apple has a separate "Reminders" app that's completely divorced from the Calendar. I don't want stuff in multiple apps. I tend to disable notifications very aggressively because otherwise my phone is "dinging" every few minutes. I would prefer that all my notifications for tasks/due dates/appointments come from the Calendar.
codersfocus 2y ago
It's not so much a task database that people need. People need a way to structure their day. I find the calendar approach a lot of these apps use to be too cumbersome. I want structure, but something looser. I'm working on my solution to this, that I call a "process manager." You have prompts that are composed of the prompt text, a recurrence pattern, and some prefill or "carry over" state. Essentially, a human version of a Turing machine. Each day has a list, of the prompts that are due to show up that day. You can print it from your phone, and keep the paper folded and always with you. Processes > projects. Our life is naturally process based. If you use food as an example, it's not enough to go grocery shopping once or make a meal once. Instead, "staying fed" is a never ending process. You can subordinate those tasks to that process, though. So processes like that need to be managed, and currently there aren't any tools for that I know of. I launched it on Testflight yesterday if anyone wants to give a spin: https://testflight.apple.com/join/2VNkUqy9 https://testflight.apple.com/join/2VNkUqy9 I am planing on adding more powerful features, like the ability to script the prompt instead of having it be static text.
- jhardy54 2y ago
  Initial feedback: it opens to a blank screen, and adding a prompt opens a form with a bunch of fields like “prompt”, “prefill”, and “category”, which bounced me. Would love some concrete starter examples to understand the idea and give it a shot!
  - codersfocus 2y ago
    Yeah definitely not ready for prime time yet. I'm working on a reddit community to discuss this concept though, will add some prompts and how to use it there. https://www.reddit.com/r/PromptYourself/ https://www.reddit.com/r/PromptYourself/
- oDot 2y ago
  This fairly easily achievable with a tool I built called Nestful https://nestful.app https://nestful.app Nestful is built on a different but similar premise called Spontaneous Productivity: https://blog.nestful.app/p/spontaneous-productivity https://blog.nestful.app/p/spontaneous-productivity
evntdrvn 2y ago
I have ADHD as well, and Due has been an absolute lifesaver and core of my life management for years now.
- Scottn1 2y ago
  Why Due over built-in Reminders app on iOS. Reminders has grown into a pretty neat app over the years. With iOS 18 it can even do Kanban view. Reminders on iOS also has the unique system advantage of having it's notifications stay on top of others until marked done. No other app has this permission as others I have tried, the notification just gets buried and I sometimes miss them. With that said, Reminders remains just a tad basic for me for full life/project management. I just need deeper nesting! Currently in "My Lists" you can only go 2-deep. A folder then a list. I need folders inside folders. I've been playing around with Twos App (https://www.twosapp.com/ https://www.twosapp.com/) for a month which replicates Bullet Journaling. But it is too complicated I think for my needs. I don't need my notes/journals inside my todo's app.
  - Terretta 2y ago
    How badly do Twos want to SEO rank on searches for Things? https://culturedcode.com/things/ https://culturedcode.com/things/
hanniabu 2y ago
Just use a text file where you drop all your todo items. At the end of every week bring to the top everything you plan to do next week. At the end of each day bring to the top everything you plan to do tomorrow.

bbminner 2y ago

For years I have been fiddling with the idea of a personal task management system that synchronized status, due dates, prioritization, planning, projects, etc across platforms, and came to a conclusion that nothing beats a flat text file (with own notation for all the above) synchronized well across devices via something reliable yet lightweight like google keep, that I "scan, update, reorder" at least once a day. One huge insight was a notation to keep track of blocked tasks (usually by other people) and what/whom to "poll" periodically to check the status.

amenghra 2y ago
Getting things done (GTD) has a notion of “waiting for”. Lots of people successfully follow GTDs structure methodologically.
- ghaff 2y ago
  I’m not much of a productivity system guy. But GTD has some good ideas that I’ve tried to adopt: Breaking down tasks into actionable steps Separating things out that really have a firm due date from those that really need to be taken care of but not by a specific date I also keep a maybe someday list of things that may never happen and may outlive there being a good reason to make happen. I did what I liked to refer to as a value renovation project on my house this summer and there were a number of projects whose cost and/or effort just exceeded their utility.
ozim 2y ago
I pay for Todoist because all the other synchronization stuff requires my attention or somehow is not supported well. Ideally I would like to have git available on iPhone and Apple tablets then I could use my repo that I have notes in on laptops and android phones. Well I am pissed by poor text editing on iPhone anyway so I will go back to android and then I can go back to text file with git on private repo.
- amiantos 2y ago
  > Ideally I would like to have git available on iPhone and Apple tablets I'd like to introduce you to Working Copy - https://apps.apple.com/us/app/working-copy-git-client/id896694807 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/working-copy-git-client/id8966... - https://workingcopy.app https://workingcopy.app
  - bravura 2y ago
    This looks great but... to work with a github repo I have to give: * read and write access to ALL gists * read and write access to ALL repos, public and private * read and write access to SSH public keys That's a no from me.
h0l0cube 2y ago
> and came to a conclusion that nothing beats a flat text file (with own notation for all the above) synchronized well across devices via something reliable yet lightweight like google keep Checklists in Apple Notes also works well for this if you’ve already bought into that ecosystem. I only wish it could track list items, so I could get basic stats on velocity.
oezi 2y ago
In my own markdown-driven workflow with tool support (https://github.com/coezbek/rodo https://github.com/coezbek/rodo) the solution for me is to only look at tasks relevant today and just move blocked tasks 1 or 7 or n days into the future so they show up again then.
SoftTalker 2y ago
For me, I want it all in one place: the calendar. Even for stuff that just need to get done but doesn't have a particular "date" -- that stuff could just float from day to day somehow. It has never made sense to me that Apple has a separate "Reminders" app that's completely divorced from the Calendar. I don't want stuff in multiple apps. I tend to disable notifications very aggressively because otherwise my phone is "dinging" every few minutes. I would prefer that all my notifications for tasks/due dates/appointments come from the Calendar.

codersfocus 2y ago

It's not so much a task database that people need. People need a way to structure their day. I find the calendar approach a lot of these apps use to be too cumbersome. I want structure, but something looser. I'm working on my solution to this, that I call a "process manager." You have prompts that are composed of the prompt text, a recurrence pattern, and some prefill or "carry over" state. Essentially, a human version of a Turing machine. Each day has a list, of the prompts that are due to show up that day. You can print it from your phone, and keep the paper folded and always with you. Processes > projects. Our life is naturally process based. If you use food as an example, it's not enough to go grocery shopping once or make a meal once. Instead, "staying fed" is a never ending process. You can subordinate those tasks to that process, though. So processes like that need to be managed, and currently there aren't any tools for that I know of. I launched it on Testflight yesterday if anyone wants to give a spin: https://testflight.apple.com/join/2VNkUqy9 https://testflight.apple.com/join/2VNkUqy9 I am planing on adding more powerful features, like the ability to script the prompt instead of having it be static text.

jhardy54 2y ago
Initial feedback: it opens to a blank screen, and adding a prompt opens a form with a bunch of fields like “prompt”, “prefill”, and “category”, which bounced me. Would love some concrete starter examples to understand the idea and give it a shot!
- codersfocus 2y ago
  Yeah definitely not ready for prime time yet. I'm working on a reddit community to discuss this concept though, will add some prompts and how to use it there. https://www.reddit.com/r/PromptYourself/ https://www.reddit.com/r/PromptYourself/
oDot 2y ago
This fairly easily achievable with a tool I built called Nestful https://nestful.app https://nestful.app Nestful is built on a different but similar premise called Spontaneous Productivity: https://blog.nestful.app/p/spontaneous-productivity https://blog.nestful.app/p/spontaneous-productivity

evntdrvn 2y ago

I have ADHD as well, and Due has been an absolute lifesaver and core of my life management for years now.

Scottn1 2y ago
Why Due over built-in Reminders app on iOS. Reminders has grown into a pretty neat app over the years. With iOS 18 it can even do Kanban view. Reminders on iOS also has the unique system advantage of having it's notifications stay on top of others until marked done. No other app has this permission as others I have tried, the notification just gets buried and I sometimes miss them. With that said, Reminders remains just a tad basic for me for full life/project management. I just need deeper nesting! Currently in "My Lists" you can only go 2-deep. A folder then a list. I need folders inside folders. I've been playing around with Twos App (https://www.twosapp.com/ https://www.twosapp.com/) for a month which replicates Bullet Journaling. But it is too complicated I think for my needs. I don't need my notes/journals inside my todo's app.
- Terretta 2y ago
  How badly do Twos want to SEO rank on searches for Things? https://culturedcode.com/things/ https://culturedcode.com/things/

hanniabu 2y ago

Just use a text file where you drop all your todo items. At the end of every week bring to the top everything you plan to do next week. At the end of each day bring to the top everything you plan to do tomorrow.