5268 Tasks Later
Organizing my thoughts and shifting mental load to a different medium were both part of my yearly theme. I wanted to move away from Google's Notes app because it couldn't keep up with my growing demand. My brain thinks in lists, and after trying a few apps, I ended up with probably the most popular one of them all: Todoist, which has been my faithful companion ever since.
I use it for almost everything:
- Thoughts: If something pops into my mind, I write it down. No matter how unimportant it may appear at the time. During quiet moments, I go through the inbox and triage tasks. Some are deemed worthy and moved into relevant projects, while others were just that: random thoughts.
- Calendar: Life isn't too complicated right now, and a full-blown calendar would be overkill. The calendar view in Todoist is great, but sometimes a list of tasks sorted by due date is superior for showing what's next in the pipeline.
- Notes: Todoist's biggest drawback is its note taking capability. Prepending an asterisk to the task title prevents it from being completed, and the description supports markdown. This unfortunately excludes images and tables. You can attach images to comments, but that's not the same. Nevertheless, I have a project with simple and frequently accessed notes.
I've completed 5268 tasks in the past year. That's 14 tasks per day and there is not end in sight.