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Task Management in Knowledge Outliners
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Posted by Luhmann
May 2, 2021 at 02:10 PM
One of the first things I now do when someone mentions a new knowledge management app is to look at how it handles task management. A simple checklist is simply not enough for me. At the very least I want to be able to (a) schedule due dates, and (b) have an overview of uncompleted tasks across different notes, filtered by tags.
Right now Roam Research, Obsidian (supposedly, although I haven’t fully tested it), NotePlan, and HyperNotes all can do this. I’m sure there are others as well, but these are the ones I’m most familiar with.
There are some features that Todoist can do that Roam Research can’t yet handle (at least not well, or easily) like repeating tasks, but I find the benefit of having my tasks and notes tightly integrated outweighs any benefits from having a dedicated task manager. But it is also not enough to simply add checklists to a knowledge manager without adding at least some features to manage scheduling or looking at uncompleted tasks across all notes in the database. I hope we will see more and more apps working on such integration from the beginning, and not just as an afterthought.
Posted by satis
May 2, 2021 at 02:56 PM
My productivity comes from time-blocking, and putting tasks on my calendar. I don’t want to have to view two or more incompatible calendars to see my events and tasks, and I don’t want to use an app which sends tasks to my calendar but cannot reflect back subsequent task changes made in the calendar. Finally, there are so many excellent calendar apps that are better than any I’ve seen inside any task app, so I don’t want to be forced to use a task manager’s calendar even if it can subscribe and sync to my Google calendars. And I heavily rely on repeating tasks - weekly, monthly, yearly, ‘every 3rd Friday’, etc.
So it is more suitable for me to keep a firewall between knowledge/text/info management and calendar/tasks. I’d prefer to copy and share an item from a list into Todoist (or schedule something in an unscheduled Todoist list) than have to ping pong between two or more apps to schedule tasks/events, because when it comes to getting things done, for me it’s essential to have one calendar as hub
Posted by Franz Grieser
May 2, 2021 at 04:10 PM
satis wrote:
>So it is more suitable for me to keep a firewall between
>knowledge/text/info management and calendar/tasks. I’d prefer to copy
>and share an item from a list into Todoist (or schedule something in an
>unscheduled Todoist list) than have to ping pong between two or more
>apps to schedule tasks/events, because when it comes to getting things
>done, for me it’s essential to have one calendar as hub
Similar situation here: I do not see a benefit in having tasks strewn across several apps. I keep mine in one, and one only. I do not need task management in my knowledge management system.
Posted by Stephen Zeoli
May 2, 2021 at 04:50 PM
Two other apps that I am aware of that can handle tasks as you’re asking for are Amplenote and Organizedly. Amplenote tasks can be set to repeat, whereas I don’t think Organizedly has that feature yet.
Posted by Simon
May 2, 2021 at 04:57 PM
I also much prefer time-blocking. My big snag with calendars is that I haven’t found one that can handle a large list without excessive scrolling. I’m disappointed that calendars often don’t wrap text, nor provide an easy way to manage none timed items. If it were not for this I would completely ditch task managers. In the end every task must be done at some date and time and therefore a calendar would be a great place to manage this. It surprises me at just how limited most calendar apps are.
satis wrote:
My productivity comes from time-blocking, and putting tasks on my
>calendar. I don’t want to have to view two or more incompatible
>calendars to see my events and tasks, and I don’t want to use an app
>which sends tasks to my calendar but cannot reflect back subsequent task
>changes made in the calendar. Finally, there are so many excellent
>calendar apps that are better than any I’ve seen inside any task app, so
>I don’t want to be forced to use a task manager’s calendar even if it
>can subscribe and sync to my Google calendars. And I heavily rely on
>repeating tasks - weekly, monthly, yearly, ‘every 3rd Friday’, etc.
>
>So it is more suitable for me to keep a firewall between
>knowledge/text/info management and calendar/tasks. I’d prefer to copy
>and share an item from a list into Todoist (or schedule something in an
>unscheduled Todoist list) than have to ping pong between two or more
>apps to schedule tasks/events, because when it comes to getting things
>done, for me it’s essential to have one calendar as hub