Show HN: Tet – A todo app that deletes your tasks at the end of the day

That explains Windows Vista.

That's an interesting idea. I picked up this book, Principles of Product Development Flow, based on some recommendations I think I came across here on HN:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6278270-the-principles-o...

Reinertsen really helps you appreciate the costs associated with queues (of which the TODO list would be a common form) and this seems consistent with the principles he advocates.

One key quote related to this that I am still trying to wrap my head around:

Few product developers are aware of the causal links between high capacity-utilization, queues, and poor economic performance. Instead, developers assume that their cycle times will be faster when resources are fully utilized. In reality, as we shall see later, high levels of capacity utilization are actually a primary cause of long cycle time.

That is interesting one.

Backing up - and looking at it years later gives you a perspective on your thinking process in the past years Delete - leaves lean set of Todos to focus on, without blogging down by laundry list of old things.

> I once read a statement attributed to Steve Ballmer that every six months, he tears his todo list in half and throws the bottom half away. If anything far down that list was actually a priority, it will naturally get re-added (by thinking of it again, in response to a customer, etc.).

At a previous job we practiced aggressive, automated ticket de-prioritization. Every N days of inactivity, a ticket would drop one priority point (and I think higher priority tickets were de-prioritized at a higher rate). The theory was that anything that was truly high priority would have been done. In other words, things that we left on the queue were actually lower priority than marked. Given our extremely limited developer-hours, it was important to stay focused on the things that actually mattered.

I'm in the same boat with you. I just write trivial stuff in the todos and for important things I add reminders. Once in a while I go over them and remove what was done. We don't need an app to delete our todos xD

I like the idea of this as a complement to a more rigorous todo system. Maybe I'm just bad at it but it's easy for my lists to get overwhelming, a system like this demands that more care is put into making choices over what is and isn't achievable in a day.

Guessing it's http://jrnl.sh ? Seems to written in Python though, while you say shellscript.

Sounds like a useful script, care to share it here?

As someone who's been trying to pick up a consistent task tracking system, I have a question: Do you just always have a notepad with you? I tried something similar to this with a pocket-size notepad, but it was annoying and didn't fit very well with a pen.

So far the closest I've gotten is having a Google Doc, but it doesn't have the same flexibility that a hand-written notepad does (e.g. symbols, indexes, ease of writing/ access).

That was the first thing that came to my mind, too.

It might well be - the Vietnamese like to clean their house before Tết to start fresh into the new year.

Did you mean "psychology"?

Sometimes my to do list is the only record of a given task I need to complete (e.g. someone says something verbally, I add it to the list, and there's no text or email regarding it). If it's getting deleted at the end of the day no matter what it's going to force me to complete those tasks lest I forget about them entirely.

But more importantly, why are you asking what the benefit is of a self-described "dumb thing"?

it would make you stress more about getting your things done before it deletes them and you loose the record of what you were responsible for doing.

because more stress in my day job is exactly what i want. ... SO not.

It’s impossible for a task backlog to start forming. Every day is a clean slate. It also makes the end of the day a stronger finish line than if it only marked tasks overdue.

Does it make a difference if you were asking it dishonestly?

Thoughts in no particular order...

- creates pressure to actually do the things on the list

- often things that end up on TODO lists shouldn't have been there. Natural pruning saves wasted time later

- add items to TODO lists is sometimes just a form of procrastinating - better just do the things than put them on a list. This is a nice middle ground for keeping track on a busy day

- long term goals aside, there's a lot of value in starting a day with "what do I want to get done today" and this would be a nice aide

I could see how it could be beneficial for some types of tasks in that:

- you avoid clutter, tasks like "fix the squeaking door" which would otherwise stay at the bottom of your list forever are purged

- it forces you to prioritize tasks

- at the start of each day it forces you to consciously plan what you really need done, which is something one may want to be doing anyways to be more deliberate about what you spend your time on

That said, I would probably only use this for non-critical personal stuff rather than in place of trello or tracker.

Also it looks like the mailto is missing an @email-domain.

I spotted this and actually imagined that it was on the todo list to fix... (was being the operative word)