This is misleading advice. Most linters can be configured to fail upon detecting a 'TODO'.

I make liberal use of TODOs when developing, typically for reminding myself to e.g. localize a string I've hardcoded during prototyping or to refactor kludgy code.

A pre commit git hook gets triggered to run the linter when I attempt to commit which helps avoid the possibility of adding code containing 'TODOs'. Obviously I can just add the '-n' flag to not trigger hooks, but this requires intention.

In short, using TODOs appropriately is a massive boost to productivity and the alternative is either to just do those random tasks that pop into your head during the course of writing code or to just hope that you remember to do it later.