I have been reflecting, as a confirmed and obsessive CRIMPer, on the nature of task management.

What a cornucopia of wonderful apps there are out there. So. Many. Ways. To. Manage. Your. Life!

And I've tried and continue to try so many of them, not least out of sheer fascination at the ingenuity – and often, sheer beauty – of the approaches taken by so many very clever minds.

But I am gradually coming to a really important conclusion.

Just as when managing tasks with a pen and paper, what you really want is a minimum-touch approach. But one that allows you to highlight the tasks that are really, really important (for whatever reason), or which you can't do unless someone else first does something critical first (dependencies). And that allows you to add quick but clear notes if you really, really need to.

I've been looking at all the task management apps I've used most recently: TickTick (does pretty much everything you could possibly want, and as a result allows you to follow more or less any approach you could possibly want). Things 3 and Pagico (both very impressive in very different ways). Todoist. NotePlan. Noteship (my favourite, but still confined to macOS only). Notebooks. So many others I've tried and abandoned.

Like most of you, I have a lot of stuff to keep track of. I mean, a lot. My basic task list of things I really need to do over the next week or so is rarely less than 30, with dozens more lined up in the equivalent of "Next" silos. It's depressing, even frustrating, not least because even the most colourful task list can't easily prevent this matrix of tasks from looking very dull and uniform. Like, well, a boring list. It IS a boring list! SEVERAL boring lists!

How, then, to make task management exciting? Perhaps using outliners! After all, they're effectively a kind of rich-text writing tool, so you can highlight things, embolden things, and above all, tuck things away (as notes, attachments etc., depending on the outliner). And there are some really good ones out there! Workflowy, Dynalist, Zavala, Outlinely, OutlineEdit, not to mention others like NoteTaker, Tidy Mind (Pro), Dashword, SpringNotes, Cloud Outliner (Pro) etc. etc. etc. Todoist is a very capable outliner, for that matter. TickTick's three-pane structure and subtasks means it, too, can be used as an outliner.

And yes, they're pretty good. Folding has some significant advantages if you want to keep your list tight, but also need to keep copious notes (very typical of my lists). But there are complications. I like to keep an archive of completed tasks immediately to hand, because I must so often review them for specific reasons. This isn't something task managers are generally very good at. Outliners are somewhat better at it. Task managers that are also outliners are perhaps best of all – as are notetaking apps that feature an "Archive" function (such as Bear, for example).

After having a particularly egregious fight with TickTick that left me feeling very depressed, in desperation I started using Apple Notes as a simple, fast way to keep my most urgent tasks right there under my eyes. Only to fall, in a very short time, prey to that most invidious of multi-app syndromes: decoupling. My new Notes task list swiftly began to look totally different from my TickTick task list. Not good.

How to solve this? In short: no idea.

But a couple of things have become very clear to me. The user should be able to write tasks down and embellish them as freely as possible. Not using specific, clever keystroke combinations or "smart syntax". Not using multiple fiddly fields to enter start/due dates. Not using clever templates to manage project details (templates are a weakness of mine, but invariably end up looking like a hedgehog with alopecia). Fie upon kanban! Fie upon GANTT charts! Fie upon cunningly contrived tabular layouts!

But with some way to add detailed notes at the very least.

What have I resolved? Well, at the moment I'm using Craft to manage my tasks, because it has both an outlining mode but also a nesting mode (even better than folding for very lengthy notes). And does all kinds of highlighting etc. etc., while also being very keyboard-friendly. But is this the endpoint of my search? I very much doubt it! Not least because I haven't even started transferring the majority of my tasks from TickTick to Craft, and may never get around to doing so.

But for the frustrated, overburdened Person Who Does, I increasingly feel that freeform text is the best way to go (hence can see the attraction of TaskPaper, which is unfortunately a little too minimalist for me). Extras can be added – but must be added with a delicate, super-light touch! A due date here – perhaps. A tagging option there – possibly. Or maybe I'm just having a spring CRIMPing crisis, like all the twittering feathered characters rushing about out there clutching bits of grass and straw in a sudden access of befuddled industry...

Or maybe I'll end up going back to NotePlan after all.

Time, as ever, will tell.

Cheers,
Bill

I feel your pain, Bill. I have had more system failures over the years than I care to count. Of late, two things have been keeping me somewhat sane - Clickup and pieces of scrap paper. I have found that since the pandemic hit and I am sitting in front of my home desktop PC w/two monitors, that Clickup can generally live on the second monitor under normal circumstances. It is configured exactly how I think, and it is quite easy to create useful views, so I am reasonably happy. Granted, their mobile app is not that useful, but I am currently okay with that since I am at my desk most of the time and most of my tasks involve using a PC. I am not saying you should use Clickup, but you should find the program that has the least friction and does what you want how you want. Not many programs in the past have been fully successful, but Clickup and I suspect a few others of late are up to the job.

When I am stressed, I turn to small pieces of scrap paper. There I will pull a handful of the most important and/or urgent tasks and just list them. All of the details reside in Clickup or in my work's Outlook Inbox so I do not need the details. I just need something to remind me what is most important. I then will put half of an X mark when I start the task, and will fully check it off and cross it out when I have accomplished what I need. Yes, I could do that in Clickup, and I do, but sometimes I like paper when I am feeling stressed.

The other thing that I am learning, again, is that using a tool routinely makes it much more useful, if it is a good tool. I probably only use about 40% of what Clickup offers, but if I use those same features every day, I find them to have less friction, and I can start to see what I need to see, often at a glance.

Hang in there. And try some Pomodoro's if you really need a bit of structure to your time. I find a few help remind me that I can be disciplined when I am not feeling stressed. You would think that is obvious, but there are days when I have my doubts, especially when I have to suffer fools at work who can make your life miserable without even knowing it and/or without a care.

Good luck,

--Ken

Hi Bill,
You could give Amazing Marvin a try. It doesn't do grids or tables, which I also find off-putting. Tags, dates, notes, dependencies, all are toggle-able on or off, so it can be as clean as you want. You can make smart lists (to do today versus waiting for response) and switch between them with one click. It's very flexible.
Regards,
Cyganet

Hi, Bill,

You might want to take a look at Legend, if you have not already. It feels to me like it provides a "plain text" document approach, but with the advantage that you can set up multiple views into your same document, so you could have a window with your open tasks and a window with your closed tasks.

I am not really recommending Legend, because I think it is an acquired taste. And there is a learning curve. But feels to me as if there is a bunch of potential with Legend.

If you haven't looked Legend over before, this short video from the creator gives you a sense of it:

https://youtu.be/EpHN8CYLLvs

Hope you'll keep us up to date with how this search goes.

Steve

For heaven's sake. Do we/you really think another app is the solution for Bill's woes?

I think it may be time to repossess your CRIMP secret decoder ring.

Franz Grieser wrote:

For heaven's sake. Do we/you really think another app is the solution
for Bill's woes?

How, then, to make task management exciting?

I don't want exciting. I actually *want* a list of tasks, with reminders of when I should be giving attention to specific items.

A good Mac/iOS outliner with alerts and nicely implemented repeating tasks that also has 2-way sync with my calendar would be grand, but for me Todoist has been sufficient for the last few years. Most of my task entry is on the go (often literally, while walking and remembering I need to do something) so quick-entry in iOS is a must, and no outliner really has that.

Now, Todoist is not strong on notes and subtasks, so I use other apps for lists and notetaking, but if they relate to tasks I just add a Todoist task and make note in the task where any associated files are.

It's efficient, just not all-in-one.

Franz Grieser wrote:

For heaven's sake. Do we/you really think another app is the solution
for Bill's woes?

In all seriousness - no. But, finding a way to get in the groove can happen in many forms. I'll use photography for my analogy. A new camera is not, for the most part, going to make you a better photographer if you are still learning and/or struggling. But, a new camera may be better suited to how you like to photograph, and if you can reduce the friction, then you are making some progress. Then there is the follow-up philosophy of OCOLOY - one camera, one lens, one year of shooting with nothing else. A challenging approach to mastering your skills, but both have valid roles, especially in that order.

I only mentioned Clickup as it was well suited to my needs and I am finding that I use it more often and that has made it easier to use. What I was hoping Bill would do is find what works for him with as little friction as possible and try to stick with it for some time. Given the power and customization options on many of the newer programs, it is much easier to find a program that can be tailored to work exactly as you like than even five years ago. To go back to my analogy, I have found a camera that feels right in my hand (Clickup), and now I just need to take a lot of pictures with it and nothing else (use it every day as my main task manager).

Contrary to popular opinion on the forum and our never ending curiosity about new software, it is possible to find a piece of software that functions as we would like. One can be loyal to a program and still CRIMP for fun and learning. And Bill's tool of choice could be as simple as a piece of paper or as complex as as selecting multiple programs. It seems that one of the challenges is that Bill is not happy with his tools right now, and only he knows what will solve this sticking point - a change in perspective and/or a change in tools for example. I see our role as to help Bill find out how to address the sticking point(s) in a way that works for him.

Please do remind me of this post if/when I complain about abandoning Clickup at some point in the future without a viable replacement already lined up. But please don't say anything to my beloved when I finally buy that new full frame mirrorless camera that I have been wanting for the past few years. ;)

--Ken

Thank you all for your supportive posts! It's very much appreciated.

The angst, as you've all clearly realised, is very real. Finding precisely the right combination of low-friction characteristics – low-friction is a term I like very much – plus portability (because as someone remarked, entering stuff on the hoof is also a sine qua non) is clearly the whole point of CRIMPing. And as Ken suggests, my first reaction is to cast around for an Even More Appropriate app!

But somewhere along the line I did realise that actually, all the apps I already have are immensely customisable, and really what I need to do is totally clear my own headspace and decide, once and for all, what kind of structure I want to follow. Increasingly, and to my own amusement, I find myself drawn back to the GTD-style approach. The simple prioritisation involved is clear and nachvollziehbar (as the Germans say) – in this sense, while I hastily scampered away from Amazing Marvin, which is far too vast an app to do anything but muddy my headspace again, I did very much like their "master list" concept, which is where I guess I'm heading.

At the moment I'm using Craft as a simple way of clearing my headspace down. No, it doesn't have reminders (yet), but I don't really depend on reminders to prompt me to do stuff (nor does my extremely well-organised and entirely paper-based wife!). But Craft does have three major abilities: dividing stuff into sections (fundamental to GTD); folding (a convenient way to manage sections); and nesting (a very convenient way to add notes to an otherwise simple list of tasks without cluttering up the list). And of course you can turn any task into a major project if you so wish, again thanks to embedding (and document linking).

This is something Todoist can do as an outliner, incidentally. While Todoist's note-taking ability isn't great, you can use a Todoist task as a note instead, simply by prefixing the text description with a period + space. This causes the task checkbox to disappear and turns the task into a markdown-compatible note. It's a really useful little tip. And of course Todoist has accepted attachments for some time now.

I was also experimenting with Zavala for this, but found a way to totally bork the latter by (foolishly) copying tasks directly over from Notes – somehow this has caused the file I was using to store my todos to collapse completely, to the extent that Zavala crashes every time it restarts (an embedded code, no doubt). Fortunately it's not difficult to mess about with the Zavala library, so I'll do that at some point.

Just to reassure people using Zavala – I was able to blow away the file that was causing the crash by nuking it in the Library. I could probably have corrected it in a text editor (by removing the offending embedded code that was inadvertently transferred from the Notes rich-text item), but in this case, didn't bother.

Zavala's files are, by default, in ~/Library/Group Containers/group.io.vincode.Zavala/Accounts/cloudKit

Each outline is its own .plist file.

Like all good butterfly-minded CRIMPers, my attention was briefly caught by an app mentioned mid-2021 by various people: Clover (https://cloverapp.co Looks very nice, but I hastily scampered away again and resumed my "disciplined" re-evaluation of my existing apps (would that Noteship had iOS versions! I'll have to harass the long-suffering developer again ;-)). Just so you know, Clover is now out of beta and running as a commercial app, available for various platforms.

Version 2.0.7 of Zavala (just released yesterday) fixes a crash that can happen with scrolling and rendering some complicated outlines. This may have resolved the issue you were seeing with that particular outline.

Thanks, Maurice! I assumed it was me copying and pasting Notes items directly into Zavala (I usually go through a text filter, but was being lazy!)

I've installed the update and Zavala's working very well at the mo'

Maurice Parker wrote:

Version 2.0.7 of Zavala (just released yesterday) fixes a crash that can
happen with scrolling and rendering some complicated outlines. This may
have resolved the issue you were seeing with that particular outline.

I'm very happy with Logseq, especially now that the (still in alpha) iOS app is finally somewhat usable. It really meets most of my needs, except for collaboration for which I use Todoist.

I haven't had time to really assess it in depth, but it does look nice, I must say.

Luhmann wrote:

I'm very happy with Logseq, especially now that the (still in alpha) iOS
app is finally somewhat usable. It really meets most of my needs, except
for collaboration for which I use Todoist.

Wow, just been playing with LogSeq for a couple of minutes – already rather impressed by the handling of backlinks ("linked and unlinked references").

It would be nice if it used folders, too, but I realise that's not part of the concept!