Ask HN: What productivity tools do you use?
What tools do you use to keep track of your daily tasks, projects, and other obligations?
What do you like about these tools and what would you like to change?
What do you like about these tools and what would you like to change?
Put any code snippets, git links, lessons learned, meeting minutes or basically anything interesting in there each day.
Then to access it - you can bash script search, e.g., to find anything you wrote in 2022, you'd simple type;
grep "whatever" 2022*.txt
It works like a charm, been using it for fifteen years.
Dropbox-like tools can also ensure it gets backed up to the cloud.
Still hit the cli though and grep/ripgrep all the time, it’s just so fast.
I built dly (https://github.com/wsw70/dly) to make one line notes taking faster.
I find it easier to follow tasks if I can scroll up a bit to the previous day and see if any tasks are being left undone for a couple days. I can just drop that task if I realize it's not important, but having it right there in front of me is very useful I've found.
Also remembering to have fun and enjoy life always (surprisingly!) seems to help
(They're dead easy to DIY build, feature instant boot and infinite battery lifetime, and therefore work really nicely for ephemeral data. An anachronistic solution for non-ephemeral is to preserve data via phone snapshot ... I maintain scribing and erasing are both far easier via wax than via app, but I have thumbs from the last century; YMMV)
- Things (♥) and Reminders for todos (the latter for location based reminders or when I need to use Siri to set them), to put reminders so they are captured
- Notes end up in Dropbox Paper (for work), Mac Notes (for home, sharable within, iMessage users), Notion for specific projects
- Polymail for inbox zero, on iOS and Desktop (I'm biased, but Superhuman never stuck for me and Gmail isn't as effective, feels distracting and unintentionally designed)
- Fantastical for calendar (home, work, although I'd like to break these up more so that I can share them by project/team)
- Openphone for throwaway cell phone for orders, 2fa, etc.
- Arc for web browser
- 1Password both for work and private passwords
- News Feed Eradicator to remove/limit feed distractions on my laptop, Screen Time on iOS
- Turned off all notifications except calendar on Apple Watch
- Slack for work chat, but intentionally been spending less time here for more deep work time. Conversations seem to get more efficient if forced to happen on SMS and phone calls.
- Just bought a Remarkable, which I intend to finally use to replace carrying around paper journals for notes and journaling
- Google Suite (surprised by this, but I no longer need the MS Office Suite any more)
- Google Meet (some people make me use Zoom, but GMeet has gotten much better, no software downloads or updates, it just works and the quality is far better than it was when they launched)
- Like @ggwp99, I also plan my week either Sunday evenings or Monday mornings (I intentionally ignore email Monday mornings since people seem to volley their problems, which may not be correlated with my priorities)
- Start every day by asking the question, "what one thing would make a massive impact on my day or week or month," and start there. It's usually the thing I don't want to do.
- Workout classes 5-6 times a week, 7:30am, pick your poison... F45, Barry's whatever motivates you to leave soaked in sweat. I fought this for years since I didn't care about the superficial reasons for working out. Now I find that I am 100% energy at 9am, flushed with endorphins, and I feel better with 6 hours of sleep than I did with 9.
Everything else (TODOs, notes, etc.) becomes much easier without social media/news/etc. in the background.
[1] SelfControl -- website blocker for Mac, cannot be bypassed. https://selfcontrolapp.com/
[2] News Feed Eradicator extension -- hide social feeds when going on Twitter/Facebook/Instagram, etc., to prevent being sucked into endless scrolling when you just go there for one thing. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/news-feed-era...
I really love Todoist. It's really simple to enter tasks -- extremely low friction with browser extensions and Android widgets, etc. It has all the features I want in a tool like this -- simple tasks, sub tasks, categorization, tagging, attachments, recurring tasks, prioritization, and apps/widgets/integrations galore. And it's free, or cheap for the pro version (I do pay, like $50/year).
It also gives great flexibility with a simple query language to create custom views/filters. Like work tasks due in the next 3 days, etc.
For me, the low friction is the biggest benefit of the tool -- so many times each day I'll have a thought of something I need to do, and if I don't capture it, I will probably lose the thought. I used to keep a physical notebook with me during the work day, but in the evening, or in the early morning, or while walking to get coffee, etc, I would think of something and be without my notebook. Todoist is always with me, on my phone, computer, or voice assistant.
It is actually my business. It started as a side-project but I kept working on it and now I make a decent living from it. So I like I can keep tweaking it to adapt to my personal system and feedback I get :p
It is a work in progress!
Looks like it's exactly what I'm looking for and I love supporting tiny projects, but it's difficult for me to commit without knowing I can get my data out of it easily.
Also, you can use the API but I haven't publicly documented it! Some people use it to do their own stuff with their data :)
For work notes, a Markdown file in VS Code. I have my to-do list in Markdown format like this:
Jun 2
* [~] Task A
* [x] Task B
* [ ] Task B
This free-form (but still semi-structured) helps me add long free text notes to a task and thoughts-in-progress, which most Todo lists don't really support.
Finally, I use Logseq to record fragments in a topic area that I'm ideating or trying to learn. Logseq's bullet point as an element is reminiscent of Lisp, where everything are atoms and lists. The list is a very powerful data structure, and certainly Logseq's querying and tagging abilities have enabled me to combine the "dump it first, sort it later" workflow to the "let's try to make sense of everything I dumped" without a lot of work needed to pre-tag everything.
I've always been a fan of "dump it first, sort it later" because it doesn't presume any kind of structure (most people tend to overinvest in developing a system). With Logseq, you can pretty much freely dump without developing a system that AND STILL be able to retrieve information in a useful way. Such is the power of the list (as most Lispers already know).
I run my life pretty much entirely inside of Things (https://culturedcode.com/things/). It has just enough functionality that I can track and record things easily without getting bogged down in the meta-work; I've used it for five years without complaint or wandering eye.
Other notes:
- I follow GTD's philosophy pretty closely (next action, weekly review, that kind of thing.) The book is a little fluffy and some of the concepts are dated at this point, but worth perusing.
- Any state that has to be shared with someone other than me either goes to Apple Notes (friends and family) or Github (https://github.com/buttondown-email/roadmap/issues)
- No productivity system is going to solve all of your problems. It can make you execute better, but you are not One Perfect App away from the ideal version of yourself; when evaluating tools or systems, be sure to focus on very specific, concrete problems ("I am bad at following up with people after meetings", "I don't pace myself throughout the week", "It's hard for me to close out large projects") as opposed to nebulous ones ("I wish I had more time in the day", "I don't know which side project to work on")
I always thought it was funny that there was a non-serious quip in the universal capture segment that you could someday say:
“Computer! Yes David? I need milk! Yes David.”
If you set an Alexa’s wake word to “computer,” that joke is now basically reality.
* encode / decode strings from any encoding to any encoding
* access Jira tickets by only entering ticket numbers
* instant access to all my dot files
* HTTP status codes explanations simply by entering the status code
* list and kill any process
* Docker management
* port killer: enter port and kill the service that uses it
* timestamp converter - from any format to any format
* UUID generator
* super fast access to 100s of weblinks (repos, miros, wikis, documentations, etc.)
It has a free base version but if you want to use the good stuff you have to buy a license for £59. I cannot recommend it strong enough, I even gifted licenses to colleagues, friends and family. [0] https://www.alfredapp.com/
Another example, creating a merge request already filled out from the current branch is a few chars away.
It’s a simple bullet-points-only app/site to track things.
I follow a toned down structure of Getting Things Done by David Allen. Categories: Inbox, Today, This Week and then a few other longer term buckets.
Lastly, I use Apple Notes (between phone and mac) to note thoughts and longer form writing.
Trying to keep it simple, else the overhead gets too much and the tool starts gathering dust.
I always run my desktop with one VSCode instance open to my private note taking workspace.
Sunsama helps me proactively plan my "big rocks" for the week/day. I like that you can drag tasks to the calendar and timeblock them that way. it also tracks the time on each task which helps me calibrate how long things actually take.
2/ Inbox for Slack https://dispatch.do
I spend a TON of time in Slack. I used to feel distracted by unimportant messages and constantly worried about losing track of important messages. Dispatch helps with both issues:
i. Filtering out distraction: it's much easier to separate out the important messages from everything else. I can set rules and filters to route messages into different "Inboxes". e.g. Important, Clients, Product, Other, etc.
ii. Keeping track of messages: it treats messages much like an email inbox. Messages stay "open" until I explicitly mark them "done".
Simple and works for me.
It has all I want for a note-taking app, since it's my editor all of my shortcuts and snippets work, the notes are simple markdown that I can back up easily using git.
To start a daily note, I can write /today and it will set the correct date.
In combination with the Excalidraw extension I can create new digrams, simply by ending the files with .excalidraw.png and quickly embed them on any markdown with preview, while being editable. https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=pomdtr.e...
Linking notes and having a connection graph, like obsidian it's incredibly useful, making me go back more often to old note to remember or refine them.
One problem I have with it, though, is that the desktop app gets pretty slow on my relatively fast, high-mem, Windows 10 PC. I tried to clean up the database as they recommend online but no luck. Have you had this issue at all?
You can also turn their web page into an app with a few different Mac apps. I've used Fluid to do this but there's also Coherence and Unite.
My wife used it and I could see first-hand how productive she became very quickly.
Using pen and paper I plan a whole week ahead with this method.
I could not find a simple/nice template for time slots for the week so I made wee app[0] to make me some.
Mac-centric
Omnifocus - like Things you want a TO DO app to store everything you need to get done sone you can stop worrying you will forget stuff. Although I use Omnifocus a LOT (everything feeds into it) I use Notion to plan my day (with links back to Omni)
Devonthink - store all your papers and find them easily.
Alfred - keyboard shortcuts, custom workflows, clipboard history...
Amazon Echo Clock - the best way I've found to set pomodoro timers (so I can see them, but they don't distract me)
Tools aside though, it's important to create habits. Omnifocus can be tricky to setup in a way that works for you. It takes time to be able to use tools effectively, so only by constantly using them and tweaking processes will you get a great result.
I have adhd and it helps me to stay on the point with my weekly and daily plans. its pretty steep learning curve for first few days. One of the key features for me were:
- automatically schedule task for the day to the empty slot ( like motion or reclaim)
- weekly objectives. I later connect it with each one of my tasks and see how I moved on my goals during review session
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things3 for the inbox tasks.
notion for project notes, apple notes for quick entry
anki + chatgpt for books and courses better recollection
also gestimeter for mac or forest app to set up a quick pomodoro.
tot for mac to keep the notes which are too short term to put ot notion
pastepal to keep my copy paste history searchable
Also work out if your a folder or a search person. Daily notes work well for someone happy to use a search bar but if you immediately want to go to a folder or file called python-code-examples then your a folder person! Save yourself some headaches setting things up by working that part out early!
(Tools I'm using obsidian, todoist and google calendarb right now but when I need to work things out or have a busy week out comes pen and paper!)
I’ve been using https://akiflow.com/ for tasks for several months now (I switched from Omnifocus) and I love it.
I also use https://one-sec.app/ on my phone to add friction to opening apps I want to limit time on and try reduce distractions.
It’s like Motion/Reclaim.ai, except everything is on-device and I can use my CalDav server)
I've documented my process, plugins, etc and packaged it for others to quickly get started: https://developassion.gumroad.com/l/obsidian-starter-kit
For the longest time, I had been looking for something that offered offline support and was lightweight, my use case being limited to text content. The combination of these two has been super effective for me. In the long run, I'll probably migrate the checklists to Obsidian too, but Keep is relatively easier to quickly add stuff to.
It replaced an astonishing number of individual apps. Apart from using it as an IDE, I also have a wiki-style vault where I add ideas, useful commands, to do lists, recipes, lecture notes, etc. I integrate the text files in various bash scripts, e.g for generating notifications related to my to do list. And staying in the terminal dramatically reduces exposure to distractions and dopamine spikes. It also encourages a hands-on attitude, rather than passive consumption.
I’ve bound an AppleScript to f3 that copies a link to the currently selected email in mail.app. Being able to link to mail.app from org is pretty cool. The links still work even if the message gets archived or moved to a different mailbox.
This has allowed me to keep track of everything in org.
However if I’m really busy I just use a sheet of paper and a pen and make a plan for what I want to complete that day.
Besides that, I use Emacs org-mode pretty heavily.
I use https://crushentropy.com/ (also mine) to plan my day at high resolution.
I use GoodNotes on iPad to write down thoughts when I get my coffee.
I implemented it as a desktop software, it's available for Linux and Windows, it keeps your personal data on your local computer, no cloud communication, FLOSS.
For personal stuff, I use a combination of XMind (big picture, project structure, etc.) Markdown file (working notes, they get posted on https://taoofmac.com/space/notes weekly) and iOS Reminders (chores).
What I like the most about them is the fact that I can actually change them to suit my needs: I can poke around the source code, extend or overwrite its functions, add my own export backends and just make it do anything I can put into code.
And it synchs across all my devices, so I have access to this single todo list everywhere.
I might be a bit slower to respond and miss the occasional question I could have input on or an outage I could solve, but my ability to concentrate is so much better.
I used to have a ton of tools, aggregation methods, outliners, markdown, todo lists, calendars, etc etc etc. Now I just use a distributed git repo with org-mode. It seems that every extant and new tool just implements an org-mode feature. Often poorly.
Also use Evernote for all my notes. Works well.
For more complex tasks or long running projects e.g at work, i usually have stuff written down in Evernote. Then i won't write much in Todoist except maybe to just schedule a block of time.
phind.com for up to date code searches with an ai answer.
Codeium for gpt with context on my code, etc...
Genie sometimes as an alternative to codeium, it isn't free though. so I limit it, gpt4 eats through credits fast. it's best for quick answers when there's a linting or type issue in typescript.
notion for organizing thoughts, and I'm building a knowledge base search system, that will integrate with ides, browsers, and common code libraries and people can create agents trained on a specific area like rails, Django, laravel, nextjs, etc. Planning on having a whole marketplace, but slow going as a solo dev, hoping to find partners someday soon.
There is no worse productivity killer than change for the sake of change (looking at you Google).
Running a bootstrapped business with 4 million USD annual profit using it.
Along with all my personal stuff.
Blue light blocking glasses.
I like the endless features it has, that I can extend its features and it is not a product that will be phased out an some point.
On change requests: a more modern lisp dialect would be great