I've recently been using Habitica again after a long hiatus (as this article predicts) and I have to agree. For those who don't know about Habitica, it tries to address the reward component of the problem by gameifying the TODOs; completing tasks rewards you with XP for your character and gold to spend on items, whilst failing to complete daily tasks or succumbing to bad habits damages your character. The problem is, the reward is meaningless unless you're invested in the game. If the RPG doesn't interest you or, like me, you lack the time to make sense of what exactly you're spending your virtual gold on and why, it doesn't feel like a reward at all.
That said, what does give me a real sense of reward is the streak tracker for daily tasks. Seeing how many days in a row I've managed to do a task _is_ rewarding to me, but as soon as that streak is broken, I lose a lot of the motivation to maintain it (which I believe is, again, a problem predicted by this article).
Todo apps are unfinished ticket management tools. What the author sees in Trello is exactly that: a tool aimed at actually managing tasks, not merely trying to keep track of them.
Also
> In fact the advanced solution technology lies in the hands of productivity enemies: social media apps and games.
Please let’s not. Harvesting dark patterns also has mental side effects that we are well aware of now (either you deplete your good will or you keep going on fueled by negative emotions)
I think there are solutions, but whether or not they are the same for a large enough market is hard to tell.
I use a leaky bucket metaphor in my todo lists... if a given task sits on a list for too long, then it should more or less fall off. It wasn't as important as you thought. But this is anathema to how most of these systems work.
When I read the article at first it resonated with me, but your solution solves it, just delete them. So I better add a task to my TODO to delete tasks once a month.
Different activities and different personalities require different approaches I guess. I for example do not get most of the arguments from the writing. Perhaps because I usually need to deal with few big tasks not millions of small ones. The few important ones are easy to keep in mind, need to manage only the less important externally (and strive to get rid of the marginal ones). Others live differently. I guess the task is impossible due to the diverging needs.
Yes. When task entry is a chore, and requires detailed determination of priority (and other fields), it's a deterrent. The Eisenhower Quadrants are a way to toss a new task entry into the right box without pausing for headscratching.
Maybe it's not possible if you try to mash everything together; recurring tasks are not the same as once-off tasks etc. That's why I'm okay with using multiple solutions.
Omnifocus basically solves almost all complaints people have with Todo apps. You have to spend time on it, and that's because "Todo lists" are project management, but people don't see it as such.
Some people have "weird requirements" and even those can be gotten right thanks to very good configurable searches and views. The competition is miles behind Omnifocus (I think the fact it started as a local app and not a web app helps, cuz you're not worrying about "heavy queries" or whatnot)
I've found nothing more effective than priority ranked todo lists in apple notes (linked to IMAP Notes). One for work, one for my personal life. If I see something on there too long, I either delete it, delegate it, or move it to the top. The work one gets edited more often.
The only "feature" I want really is a diff over time just to see what I've done and what I was doing at the time. I want completion/non-completion to be represented by deletions of lines/bullet points.
>3. Sense of accomplishment is important but rare in the digital world. When you mark a task as done in your TODO app, it just hides it. That’s it, no reward, no sense of accomplishment (unless you make your own). I think that’s why some people like Trello or pen-and-paper TODO list: when you get something done, you can see a card moved or a text crossed out. An artifact that proves there was a task here, and now it’s done. Now you are one step closer to your goal.
[from TFA, quoted above]
"When you mark a task as done in your TODO app, it just hides it."
Those are some big assumptions and sweeping generalizations apparently made by the author; for example, my system leverages Roam Research. In Roam, a key bit of UX is to type cmd+enter to prefix any block element (Roam's atomic unit, renderered as an HTML `<li>` list item) with a TODO checkbox, or to toggle its presence and state (TODO|DONE|nil). "DONE"
items persist in the UI wherever you created them. I take it further than leaving signs of my progress around -- I tag the more significant ones with `#FTW` ("for the win") to ensure I give myself credit and opportunity to celebrate. When I do my weekly review / planning sessions, the "DONE" items, and the wins, play a role.
I don't see how that's relevant; my comment was about the OP's assertion that completed TODOs disappear from view. In Roam, when toggling an item from TODO->DONE, the "DONE" items persist in the UI wherever you created them. (No extra decisions involved.)
I find myself using Google docs for todo lists for this reason. I can strikethrough items as I complete them and behold the ever growing list of struck through items.
I've documented my approach which is to not use an app at all, but instead a single text file that becomes a list of things done by the end of the day: https://jeffhuang.com/productivity_text_file/
The notes you take during the day, and past lists are all easily searchable in a text file.
I use a Todo app every day, starting in the morning. Almost all of my tasks are recurring, well defined, and relatively short. E.g. "triage email inbox every day", "vacuum house every week on Saturday", "upper body workout every second day", "renew passport every 10 years".
For me this works well, because:
* I don't forget to get things done
* I don't have to think about what I need to do, the app shows me a daily list
* I get a small feeling of accomplishment for every task I complete (gamificaion), and for finishing all my tasks (daily task inbox zero).
Same for me. I started very recently but it improved my productivity very sharply (not just work, also hobbies (music) and cleaning). I use habitica (no affiliation).
I use Todoist as well and like it, but I'm not sure I'd say it "works really well with recurring tasks".
If you schedule a task as "every Wednesday" then a few weeks later reschedule the task to Friday it doesn't ask "this instance or all of them?" or something. That entire task series is now scheduled for that particular Friday, and once you've ticked it off you won't get any more reminders ever.
If I'm doing something wrong, please let me know. :)
This is my experience too. In fact I stopped using todoist due to how it handled recurring tasks - which, like you, is a huge part of how I stay organized. For me, "remember the milk" does recurring correctly and is very low friction.
Ah, it seems like if you choose a date in the date picker, or from the "Today, Tomorrow, etc" list it keeps "Every Tuesday" in the text box and gives the behaviour you describe. I always schedule by typing, so I end up replacing "Every Tuesday" with "Wednesday" and then it doesn't work.
I really wish the CEO would get off his own koolaid and add start dates. I get it, you don't use them. I would find them useful. I spend a good few hours a week trying to work around the lack of start dates in Todoist haha. One day I'll pay someone to set up Omnifocus for me and switch to that.
It would be super convenient and would stop my checking out every god damn todo app that comes across my radar too
I know, break tasks down further if they need a start date, whatever. It doesn't work for me, I tried. I don't want to spend my life organising a todo app I just want to do the things in the todo app and then go lie down
Honestly I'd prefer due date be replaced with start date as far as which is more useful. Using Todoist in that way doesn't work well either, I tried.
I've found the best TODO 'app' is google calendar and a journal. I also have white board where raw idea get put down, but there id no real organization. once I decide I like the idea, task, ect I work it into my calendar and/or journal and go from there.
Same. Recurring and one-off scheduled tasks go on gcal (pay rent, go to dentist tuesday). one off things like grocery lists, notes, writing snippets go in a journal synced across devices (iA writer in a git repo).
I also use a Trello board for tracking longer term goals/personal projects.
I use iOS Reminders to track things like “Every month on the 1st Saturday run the cleaning cycle on my washing machine”. And I’ve got 23 recurring todos like this. Feel like these kinds of things would clutter my calendar.
I've found the best TODO 'app' is google calendar and a journal. I also have white board where raw idea get put down, but there id no real organization. once I decide I like the idea, task, ect I work it into my calendar and/or journal and go from there.
I’ve found the trouble with Todo lists is that you fill them up and then start ignoring them as they are overwhelming. I’ve recently found Beeminder’s GTBee todo list app a good help as it forces you to enter a due date and fines you at least $5 if you don’t complete the task on the due date. That makes me highly motivated to keep checking the list and completing tasks.
Interestingly I’ve found I haven’t done that. I try to make the tasks small enough that when it’s time to do them it’s not overwhelming and the potential fine is enough just sting to make me check the app regularly
Beminder is not for everyone. Personally it has changed my life for the better. Before I didn't have discipline, now I'm impressed with my accomplishments in several areas of my life. From shaving, pushups to 3D design, writing and losing weight. At one point I was keeping track of 21 habits with beeminder, now only 12.
I prefer to pay and still having this amazing tool than losing what I described above.
You can do the same without beeminder. The point is that having a punishment if you don't do what you said you will do is a good motivator.
I love Beeminder too (the sister app to GTBee). I’ve been trying to reorganise my habits into ones that aren’t “proxy’s” for what I want to really achieve (Eg “invoiced dollars”, rather than “did some client work”)
If I find my todo list are overwelming, then it is because:
1. A task is not worth doing - delete it. I am using the app so I don't have to remember it, I am not taking orders from it.
2. Not organized well - if I am cleaning the house I don't want to see what I should do for my personal finances; gift buying guides for Christmas and so on.
3. The item is important, but not something I can do something about now. This indicates to me that I should split it into smaller parts, until I have a GTD next step.
I personally think that a todolist isn't worth much unless you are also blocking time in your calendar to do that task - and when you do, that is the task you will be doing not worrying about anything else.
I’ve tried a number of apps but I just keep on going back to a pretty notebook and a pen. I might need something different if I had more deadlines, I dunno, I have gone to great effort to generally free my life from those.
Habitica is a gamified todo that does well enough to be around for many years. Never worked for me.
Nope, and my instant reaction to Happy Blob Friend under the first paragraph or so of copy is that I wanna punch him, not let him persuade me to do stuff.
The original "science" is hard to accept & so is the rebuttal. In cases like these I defer to anecdata and that tells me what you'd call my willpower is finite.
I like to believe that willpower is like a muscle - it takes work to build it up, and you need to maintain it. Though unlike the human body's limitations, I agree that it can be nearly unlimited.
> But while the early ego-depletion concepts appear to be flawed, experts say that self-control can wax or wane for a number of predictable reasons.
and
> Inzlicht says that no matter what a person does, willpower is going to be a fickle commodity. It’s heavily influenced by many variables, and so it really cannot be trusted. “There are easier, less-muscular ways to engage in goal-directed behavior than relying on willpower,” he says.
They show that willpower comes and goes for many reasons, but it is not a limited resource. You can't "use it up" in the morning, and thinking that way will lead you to actually having less willpower in the evenings even though you could have plenty!
I've found that "Todo apps" are generally useless for me. The list gets too big, or it has limited support for priorities or dependencies or whatever, so I built my own.
Its philosophy is built around the fact that I'm only ever going to be working on one major, todo-worthy task during a given minute. There's no reason to inundate me with dozens of things I could be working on when I'll only ever be doing one. And most of the time, I'm ambivalent to what I'm doing — if I need to consult a Todo list to remember it, clearly it's not something I'm actively working on, since I don't (yet) need help remembering those.
It's been very effective when I can use it (it needs a few tweaks so it can accept tasks from multiple sources, rather than one singular list). The core workflow is to jot down a task name and a priority in a text-based, line-delimited list file. Then, when you have time to do something, the app parses the list of tasks and selects exactly one at random, weighted by the priority. At that point, you have four options:
- Defer the task and roll for a new one (which increments a counter on the task, and does not guarantee that you'll actually get a different task!)
- Log some time on it, and optionally roll for a new task (again, not guaranteed to be different)
- Mark it done, and roll for a new task
- Exit the app
It knows about repeating tasks, start and due dates, dependency trees, and "stints", which are just a log of the time you spent on a particular task. It can filter tasks based on how much time you have to work vs. how long you estimate it will take, whether there are unsatisfied dependencies, etc. There's even an option that tries to assign you tasks that try to keep your "mood" steady. You can optionally annotate tasks with a mood tag (which is just a float), with the idea being that tasks with positive values are pleasant, and ones negative values are unpleasant. If it assigns you a mood-tagged task and you work on it, it adds the value from the tag to a global mood variable, and the default priority scheme tries to keep it around 0. In other words, when you do something pleasant, it builds up a buffer so you can handle something unpleasant. Or, if you do something unpleasant, it tries to reward you by giving you something pleasant to do.
The crown jewel is the LISP-y functional priority language that implements these dynamic tweaks to the priorities. For example, I have some rather daunting tasks that entail a lot of repetitive, monotonous work. Since it knows when I've been working on it, I can script it to de-prioritize those based on how much time I've spent on them lately.
It's technically open source (it's a TUI app written in Go), but I'm hesitant to post a link here since it's not robustly tested, the code isn't pretty, and the README is written in a sarcastic, derisive tone. I'm hoping to rewrite it after I finish up a library I'm working on to make it a bit more generally useful.
These types of articles with a list of problems and no solutions are always a bore to read. Many of them don't really appear to be a problem with lists at all.
"I bought this hammer the other day. Every time I hammer a nail in, the hammer doesn't vibrate and play a tune to give me a sense of accomplishment. What gives?"
Has anyone considered that if you're looking to external means to feel a sense of accomplishment, you're relying on meaningless short-term gratification?
> Up until the last week I thought the problem was in myself (you probably think so too). After all, David Allen seems to have figured this shit out.
It's worth pointing out that David Allen is very outspoken on his position that you should NOT use a todo list. He writes it out clearly in his book. This is probably the most common misconception about GTD. I've even heard people say they gave up on GTD because todo lists don't work for them. Okay...
I use a task manager but I don't have a todo list. The standard usage of a todo list, where you dump any task that may or may not be worth doing at some point, is at best a distraction from real project management. To get things done, you have to decide on the one or few things you should be working on at a point in time. A todo list doesn't help with that.
> To get things done, you have to decide on the one or few things you should be working on at a point in time. A todo list doesn't help with that.
If you have 100 things to do, certainly a list helps you at least not forget most of them, before you even start work.
I don't know what David Allen recommends, but if everyone is left with the impression he recommends TODO lists and he doesn't, it might be because the alternative is hazy and vaporous and poorly defined.
I scanned your answer for that alternative and it wasn't there, either.
Consider grocery shopping. You have 20 products to buy. Does a shopping list help? Uhm, heck yes. Otherwise you'd need to go to the store 10 times and not one time.
Well shopping lists, are just a TODO list in the context of a grocery store.
Issue reports on GitHub and other bugtracking systems are TODO lists in the context of software development.
Medical checklists enumerate all required steps in carrying out procedures. That's a TODO list in the context of medical practice.
I can go on forever. So, clearly, the statement "TODO lists don't work" is false. It contradicts reality. And the supposed alternative is apparently unmentionable. Odd.
Maybe we should clarify what is meant by "it works" or "doesn't work", because in general it only means "it's effective for certain uses" and it is effective for certain uses. No, a TODO list won't necessarily motivate you, unless your lack of motivation is specifically due to confusion what you're supposed to do. But I'm very suspicious that any similar "mechanical" alternative would work either.
Gamification works because it draws you into its own world. Posting comments, like mine and most of them, is low effort. Playing a game with colorful characters doing cute things is low effort. Checking for new tweets is low effort. All those are low effort things. This is why it's easy to be motivated by a system that gamifies those low effort actions.
I really doubt any game would motivate you to do an actual 9 to 5 job for years.
> I don't know what David Allen recommends, but if everyone is left with the impression he recommends TODO lists and he doesn't, it might be because the alternative is hazy and vaporous and poorly defined.
Maybe a lot of people just read the short blog posts on the internet for how to setup a tool to implement his system. A lot of the ones I’ve seen (with the notable exception of one I found showing how to implement it in Org-mode) get the methodology completely wrong. So maybe it’s just the bad examples are copied?
People should just buy and read his book. It was updated a few years ago for the modern world (but I guess even that edition is now probably dated). Also there’s even a workbook available too to help drill it in for people that prefer that way of examples.
You're talking about lists in general. His system is built on lists. The TODO list, as he's using the term, means a single list where you dump all the tasks you need to do or might want to do. Without further thought, you end up with a long list of items, no guidance about what you should be doing, and stress because there are incomplete items on your list. If you're not going beyond that, the TODO list is a terrible idea.
There's nothing about TODO lists that says you have one list per person. And "TODO lists don't work, unless you have many of them" is counterintuitive and misleading at best.
> I don't know what David Allen recommends, but if everyone is left with the impression he recommends TODO lists and he doesn't, it might be because the alternative is hazy and vaporous and poorly defined.
He actually defines a specific framework in detail. But most people can't be bothered to read the book.
> Consider grocery shopping. You have 20 products to buy. Does a shopping list help? Uhm, heck yes. Otherwise you'd need to go to the store 10 times and not one time.
A shopping list works because it very much isn't a TODO list - it's a well-scoped list of things that you are going to do in a particular place at a particular time. If you started dumping random non-shopping tasks on your shopping list, it would be a lot less effective.
He doesn’t advocate a todo list but he does advocate (at least for starting off) 10 lists (projects, agendas, calls, errands, home, office, waiting for, anywhere etc). His process basically allows you to know what you need to do at any point (i.e. it’s clear what needs to be done), and the context sorting allows you to quickly rattle through a bunch of ‘next actions’ based on your context and without having to work out the thing that needs doing. Now these next actions may seem like todos but given that teh project list always points to a next action (or is complete) and given that it is present on a context-based list means it’s already been through some processing to make it do-able. Todos lack this and is why quite often they don’t get done. You put them off as it’s not clear what the next action to progress it even is.
Also it’s not so much a system for getting things done, than it is a system for clearing the mind so that when you ARE able to do some work, you are able to just do it. Mind like water.
zooming in and focusing on something is such a killer feature! i really couldnt imagine going back any regular todo app that didnt allow you to do that
We’re working on an app that’s designed for recurring/daily todo lists, allows you to attach rewards (cash payout, gift card, crypto, …) and providing context/guidance. It already has a Zapier integration, native apps for iOS/Android and a web version which features 100% feature/ux parity. It’s 100% cloud/online-based right now though. We’re still working towards our MVP, but happy to send out invites to everyone signing up in the next few hours: https://questmate.com
It’s just bizarre that this post would warrant discussion. It should be obvious that todo apps are widely enjoyed by people as part of their way of working. This just comes off as a close minded, arbitrary view.
Desktop wiki like Zim will give you flexibility to experiment with various workflows and task representations. Once I started using Zim, it quickly replaced all TODOs, HOWTOs, bookmarks, contact lists, calendars, diaries/logs, and other memory tools. Since this is desktop wiki, there's no save button. You just jump to relevant wiki page via search and enter free-form text, usually a list item. New workflows and exceptions to existing workflows can be introduced on a whim. No need to wait for new features or adapt to somebody else's workflow like in specialized apps.
206 comments
[ 4.4 ms ] story [ 269 ms ] threadThat said, what does give me a real sense of reward is the streak tracker for daily tasks. Seeing how many days in a row I've managed to do a task _is_ rewarding to me, but as soon as that streak is broken, I lose a lot of the motivation to maintain it (which I believe is, again, a problem predicted by this article).
Also
> In fact the advanced solution technology lies in the hands of productivity enemies: social media apps and games.
Please let’s not. Harvesting dark patterns also has mental side effects that we are well aware of now (either you deplete your good will or you keep going on fueled by negative emotions)
I’m leaning towards it’s impossible, but would like to hear what others think.
I use a leaky bucket metaphor in my todo lists... if a given task sits on a list for too long, then it should more or less fall off. It wasn't as important as you thought. But this is anathema to how most of these systems work.
The key is to really address your feelings of guilt over the whole process of just forgetting about shit that was never that important to begin with.
Which I think is probably the biggest inherent problem with TODO apps (and Jira backlogs).
Some people have "weird requirements" and even those can be gotten right thanks to very good configurable searches and views. The competition is miles behind Omnifocus (I think the fact it started as a local app and not a web app helps, cuz you're not worrying about "heavy queries" or whatnot)
Something very satisfying about viewing the flat file
Motivation, tenacity, and perspective are not really within the scope of todo lists.
The only "feature" I want really is a diff over time just to see what I've done and what I was doing at the time. I want completion/non-completion to be represented by deletions of lines/bullet points.
This one is so good and true.
Those are some big assumptions and sweeping generalizations apparently made by the author; for example, my system leverages Roam Research. In Roam, a key bit of UX is to type cmd+enter to prefix any block element (Roam's atomic unit, renderered as an HTML `<li>` list item) with a TODO checkbox, or to toggle its presence and state (TODO|DONE|nil). "DONE" items persist in the UI wherever you created them. I take it further than leaving signs of my progress around -- I tag the more significant ones with `#FTW` ("for the win") to ensure I give myself credit and opportunity to celebrate. When I do my weekly review / planning sessions, the "DONE" items, and the wins, play a role.
> The amount of things one can customize is really large, but making all this decisions has a cost.
The notes you take during the day, and past lists are all easily searchable in a text file.
(localization for weekday names coming after my vacation)
For me this works well, because: * I don't forget to get things done * I don't have to think about what I need to do, the app shows me a daily list * I get a small feeling of accomplishment for every task I complete (gamificaion), and for finishing all my tasks (daily task inbox zero).
It works for me.
Keeping habits and todo/tasks list separately helps me prevent the latter from monopolizing habit time.
ps. Flat Habits is backed by org (if that's important to you), but this is purely an internal detail if you just want a simple app.
https://github.com/klaussinani/ao
If you schedule a task as "every Wednesday" then a few weeks later reschedule the task to Friday it doesn't ask "this instance or all of them?" or something. That entire task series is now scheduled for that particular Friday, and once you've ticked it off you won't get any more reminders ever.
If I'm doing something wrong, please let me know. :)
Would you mind sending a report via https://todoist.com/help?
I will do the same now (I didn't as I don't reschedule recurring tasks often)
It would be super convenient and would stop my checking out every god damn todo app that comes across my radar too
I know, break tasks down further if they need a start date, whatever. It doesn't work for me, I tried. I don't want to spend my life organising a todo app I just want to do the things in the todo app and then go lie down
Honestly I'd prefer due date be replaced with start date as far as which is more useful. Using Todoist in that way doesn't work well either, I tried.
> We keep adding things we "should get to at some point"
Maybe it's time for a completely new perspective on TODO lists.
I also use a Trello board for tracking longer term goals/personal projects.
I use iOS Reminders to track things like “Every month on the 1st Saturday run the cleaning cycle on my washing machine”. And I’ve got 23 recurring todos like this. Feel like these kinds of things would clutter my calendar.
I prefer to pay and still having this amazing tool than losing what I described above.
You can do the same without beeminder. The point is that having a punishment if you don't do what you said you will do is a good motivator.
1. A task is not worth doing - delete it. I am using the app so I don't have to remember it, I am not taking orders from it. 2. Not organized well - if I am cleaning the house I don't want to see what I should do for my personal finances; gift buying guides for Christmas and so on. 3. The item is important, but not something I can do something about now. This indicates to me that I should split it into smaller parts, until I have a GTD next step.
I personally think that a todolist isn't worth much unless you are also blocking time in your calendar to do that task - and when you do, that is the task you will be doing not worrying about anything else.
Habitica is a gamified todo that does well enough to be around for many years. Never worked for me.
https://habinator.com
[0]: https://elemental.medium.com/dont-worry-you-can-t-deplete-yo...
> But while the early ego-depletion concepts appear to be flawed, experts say that self-control can wax or wane for a number of predictable reasons.
and
> Inzlicht says that no matter what a person does, willpower is going to be a fickle commodity. It’s heavily influenced by many variables, and so it really cannot be trusted. “There are easier, less-muscular ways to engage in goal-directed behavior than relying on willpower,” he says.
Close enough for most purposes, really.
They show that willpower comes and goes for many reasons, but it is not a limited resource. You can't "use it up" in the morning, and thinking that way will lead you to actually having less willpower in the evenings even though you could have plenty!
No, but some things you do can deplete it.
Its philosophy is built around the fact that I'm only ever going to be working on one major, todo-worthy task during a given minute. There's no reason to inundate me with dozens of things I could be working on when I'll only ever be doing one. And most of the time, I'm ambivalent to what I'm doing — if I need to consult a Todo list to remember it, clearly it's not something I'm actively working on, since I don't (yet) need help remembering those.
It's been very effective when I can use it (it needs a few tweaks so it can accept tasks from multiple sources, rather than one singular list). The core workflow is to jot down a task name and a priority in a text-based, line-delimited list file. Then, when you have time to do something, the app parses the list of tasks and selects exactly one at random, weighted by the priority. At that point, you have four options: - Defer the task and roll for a new one (which increments a counter on the task, and does not guarantee that you'll actually get a different task!) - Log some time on it, and optionally roll for a new task (again, not guaranteed to be different) - Mark it done, and roll for a new task - Exit the app
It knows about repeating tasks, start and due dates, dependency trees, and "stints", which are just a log of the time you spent on a particular task. It can filter tasks based on how much time you have to work vs. how long you estimate it will take, whether there are unsatisfied dependencies, etc. There's even an option that tries to assign you tasks that try to keep your "mood" steady. You can optionally annotate tasks with a mood tag (which is just a float), with the idea being that tasks with positive values are pleasant, and ones negative values are unpleasant. If it assigns you a mood-tagged task and you work on it, it adds the value from the tag to a global mood variable, and the default priority scheme tries to keep it around 0. In other words, when you do something pleasant, it builds up a buffer so you can handle something unpleasant. Or, if you do something unpleasant, it tries to reward you by giving you something pleasant to do.
The crown jewel is the LISP-y functional priority language that implements these dynamic tweaks to the priorities. For example, I have some rather daunting tasks that entail a lot of repetitive, monotonous work. Since it knows when I've been working on it, I can script it to de-prioritize those based on how much time I've spent on them lately.
It's technically open source (it's a TUI app written in Go), but I'm hesitant to post a link here since it's not robustly tested, the code isn't pretty, and the README is written in a sarcastic, derisive tone. I'm hoping to rewrite it after I finish up a library I'm working on to make it a bit more generally useful.
"I bought this hammer the other day. Every time I hammer a nail in, the hammer doesn't vibrate and play a tune to give me a sense of accomplishment. What gives?"
Has anyone considered that if you're looking to external means to feel a sense of accomplishment, you're relying on meaningless short-term gratification?
It's worth pointing out that David Allen is very outspoken on his position that you should NOT use a todo list. He writes it out clearly in his book. This is probably the most common misconception about GTD. I've even heard people say they gave up on GTD because todo lists don't work for them. Okay...
I use a task manager but I don't have a todo list. The standard usage of a todo list, where you dump any task that may or may not be worth doing at some point, is at best a distraction from real project management. To get things done, you have to decide on the one or few things you should be working on at a point in time. A todo list doesn't help with that.
If you have 100 things to do, certainly a list helps you at least not forget most of them, before you even start work.
I don't know what David Allen recommends, but if everyone is left with the impression he recommends TODO lists and he doesn't, it might be because the alternative is hazy and vaporous and poorly defined.
I scanned your answer for that alternative and it wasn't there, either.
Consider grocery shopping. You have 20 products to buy. Does a shopping list help? Uhm, heck yes. Otherwise you'd need to go to the store 10 times and not one time.
Well shopping lists, are just a TODO list in the context of a grocery store.
Issue reports on GitHub and other bugtracking systems are TODO lists in the context of software development.
Medical checklists enumerate all required steps in carrying out procedures. That's a TODO list in the context of medical practice.
I can go on forever. So, clearly, the statement "TODO lists don't work" is false. It contradicts reality. And the supposed alternative is apparently unmentionable. Odd.
Maybe we should clarify what is meant by "it works" or "doesn't work", because in general it only means "it's effective for certain uses" and it is effective for certain uses. No, a TODO list won't necessarily motivate you, unless your lack of motivation is specifically due to confusion what you're supposed to do. But I'm very suspicious that any similar "mechanical" alternative would work either.
Gamification works because it draws you into its own world. Posting comments, like mine and most of them, is low effort. Playing a game with colorful characters doing cute things is low effort. Checking for new tweets is low effort. All those are low effort things. This is why it's easy to be motivated by a system that gamifies those low effort actions.
I really doubt any game would motivate you to do an actual 9 to 5 job for years.
Maybe a lot of people just read the short blog posts on the internet for how to setup a tool to implement his system. A lot of the ones I’ve seen (with the notable exception of one I found showing how to implement it in Org-mode) get the methodology completely wrong. So maybe it’s just the bad examples are copied?
People should just buy and read his book. It was updated a few years ago for the modern world (but I guess even that edition is now probably dated). Also there’s even a workbook available too to help drill it in for people that prefer that way of examples.
He actually defines a specific framework in detail. But most people can't be bothered to read the book.
> Consider grocery shopping. You have 20 products to buy. Does a shopping list help? Uhm, heck yes. Otherwise you'd need to go to the store 10 times and not one time.
A shopping list works because it very much isn't a TODO list - it's a well-scoped list of things that you are going to do in a particular place at a particular time. If you started dumping random non-shopping tasks on your shopping list, it would be a lot less effective.
Also it’s not so much a system for getting things done, than it is a system for clearing the mind so that when you ARE able to do some work, you are able to just do it. Mind like water.
Managing my todo list also organises my brain and lets me relax knowing I won't forget things.
Working just fine for me and I'm not sure I would want a bunch of 'smart' features being all clippy on me.