Last 12 months, I introduced you 19 days of latest (to you) productiveness instruments for 2019. This 12 months, I am taking a distinct method: constructing an atmosphere that can let you be extra productive within the new 12 months, utilizing instruments you might or could not already be utilizing.
Track your duties with todo
Tasks and to-do lists are very close to and pricey to my coronary heart. I am an enormous fan of productiveness (a lot in order that I do a podcast about it) and check out all types of various functions. I’ve even given presentations and written articles about them. So it solely is smart that, once I speak about being productive, process and to-do listing instruments are sure to return up.
In all honesty, for being easy, cross-platform, and simply synchronized, you can’t go flawed with todo.txt. It is likely one of the two to-do listing and process administration apps that I maintain coming again to again and again (the opposite is Org mode). And what retains me coming again is that it’s easy, moveable, comprehensible, and has many nice add-ons that do not break it if one machine has them and the others do not. And since it’s a Bash shell script, I’ve by no means discovered a system that can’t help it.
Set up todo.txt
First issues first, you should set up the bottom shell script and replica the default configuration file to the ~/.todo listing:
git clone https://github.com/todotxt/todo.txt-cli.git
cd todo.txt-cli
make
sudo make set up
mkdir ~/.todo
cp todo.cfg ~/.todo/config
Next, arrange the configuration file. I prefer to uncomment the colour settings at this level, however the one factor that should be arrange straight away is the TODO_DIR variable:
export TODO_DIR="$HOME/.todo"Add to-do’s
To add your first to-do merchandise, merely kind todo.sh add <NewTodo>, and will probably be added. This can even create three recordsdata in $HOME/.todo/: todo.txt, executed.txt, and experiences.txt.
After including a couple of gadgets, run todo.sh ls to see your to-do listing.
Manage your duties
You can enhance it slightly by prioritizing the gadgets. To add a precedence to an merchandise, run todo.sh pri # A. The quantity is the variety of the duty on the listing, and the letter “A” is the precedence. You can set the precedence as something from A to Z since that is the way it will get sorted.
To full a process, run todo.sh do # to mark the merchandise executed and transfer the merchandise to executed.txt. Running todo.sh report will write a depend of executed and never executed gadgets to experiences.txt.
The file format used for all three recordsdata is effectively documented, so you can also make adjustments together with your textual content editor of selection. The primary format of todo.txt is:
(Priority) YYYY-MM-DD TaskThe date signifies the due date of a process, if one is about. When enhancing the file manually, simply put an “x” in entrance of the duty to mark it as executed. Running todo.sh archive will transfer these things to executed.txt, and you may work in that textual content file and archive the executed gadgets when you’ve time.
Set up recurring duties
I’ve a number of recurring duties that I must schedule daily/week/month.
This is the place todo.txt’s flexibility is available in. By utilizing add-ons in ~/.todo.actions.d/, you may add instructions and lengthen the performance of the bottom todo.sh. The add-ons are principally scripts that implement particular instructions. For recurring duties, the plugin ice_recur ought to match the invoice. By following the directions on the web page, you may arrange duties to recur in a really versatile method.
There are a number of add-ons within the listing, together with syncing to some cloud companies. There are additionally hyperlinks to desktop and cell apps, so you may maintain your to-do listing with you on the go.
I’ve solely scratched the floor of todo’s performance, so take a while to dig in and see how highly effective this device is! It actually helps me carry on process daily.