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A frustrated user's thoughts on efficient task management for Apple users (and others)
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Posted by Stephen Zeoli
Mar 28, 2022 at 10:03 PM
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?
Posted by satis
Mar 28, 2022 at 10:05 PM
> 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.
Posted by Ken
Mar 29, 2022 at 12:21 AM
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
Posted by MadaboutDana
Mar 29, 2022 at 08:44 AM
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.
Posted by MadaboutDana
Mar 29, 2022 at 11:13 AM
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.