|||
In part 2 of Using todo.txt in Obsidian (Or Wherever You Like), I cover using the todo.txt format in apps both in and outside of Obsidian. Click here for part 1.
Seven years ago, my alter-ego (OphélieD) left a long, glowing review on the Apple App Store for Michael Descy’s SwiftoDo Desktop app.
SwiftoDo is wonderfully simple, and the sort and filter options are really useful. …SwiftoDo for iOS is every bit as easy to use, and syncing through DropBox has so far been seamless between the two.
This was just a couple of years into my plain text journey, pre-Obsidian. The feature requests I mentioned in the review have since been addressed.
From 2017 to 2022 my plain text task management system gradually gained a bucketload of complexity. But oddly enough, more complexity led to less motivation! It wasn’t until simplifying right down that I was able to consistently focus on the work to be done, rather than the system for organising it.
FYI SwiftoDo was last updated three years ago, not a good sign.
Even if the app has been abandoned, the beauty of the todo.txt format is that it’s open source, meaning that you’ll never be trapped into one app and there are other options to choose from. VS Code, for example, has a nice todo.txt extension. Change the file extension from Obsidian’s .md to .txt, and the coloured syntax is ready to go.[^1]
SwifttoDo has a good feature set on Mac, however, and it also has a mobile app. See last week’s post for how to filter todo.txt tasks into usable subsets in Obsidian, using Bookmarks.
I had some syncing issues between SwiftoDo and Obsidian, so be careful if working with the same file in multiple apps! I noticed that a task deleted in the SwiftoDo iPhone app disappeared from the same file in Obsidian after a second or two, but a task added in Obsidian didn’t immediately appear in the SwiftoDo iPhone app. Sometimes the tasks I’d added in Obsidian on my Mac disappeared once the SwiftoDo iOS app finally got itself together! Nothing was lost as Obsidian created a conflicted file copy, but it’s not a great result.
Until I figure out what’s going on I’ll avoid issues by waiting a couple of minutes or so after editing on my Mac before editing again via the SwiftoDo app on my phone, force closing the latter beforehand. Your mileage may vary, but this works for me. If any of this sounds too complicated or too risky, I suggest sticking with either SwiftoDo or Obsidian on both Mac and iPhone.
Sleek on the Mac appears to be just as capable as SwiftoDo, and sync has so far been okay. It’s a bit too eye-candy for my taste, but I’m sure I could get used to it.
As nice as pretty todo.txt apps like SwiftoDo and Sleek are, I also like using VS Code for working with tasks on my Mac. Being in that app multiple times a day with my plain text accounting records means that it’s both convenient and familiar. While I prefer the plainer options, it’s nice to have the choice. More than nice!
So should you give todo.txt a go?
Only if you are still calmly curious to see if it will work for you after reading this comment from Steven Lowe (written in 2008, valid as ever today). I’ve substituted his word “because” with “if” in the first sentence, to make it apply more generally.
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but a “simple and effective todo application” is so hard to find [if] you are using the tool as a substitute for self-discipline and commitment. Statements like ‘I’ve read parts of this and tried that and that and that but minor interface issues cause me to drop it in a few days’ imply that you are looking for magic bullets and excuses.
- Minor issues with the tools are a poor excuse to abandon the effort.
- Pick a system and a tool and stick with it
- No tool will give you the self-discipline and commitment necessary to change your habits
- personal time-management is about changing your viewpoint and habits, not finding the “right” tool
- caveat: some systems are more suitable than others for your personal work requirements. If you’re a developer, a calendar-based system like Franklin Planner is probably not going to work, while a list-based system like GTD probably will.
Suggestion: google and review the various systems, pick one, and commit to it for at least a month. Try GTD and pen-and-paper, for example, then get fancy once the system is a habit. Once you know how you need to work the system and are committed to it, look for the perfect tool. In the meantime, the perfect tool is the enemy of the good practice, to mangle a quote ;-)
[^1] Note that the Obsidian plugin that makes .txt files editable in Obsidian doesn’t allow you to use Bookmarks, so it’s useless in this case. You could keep your todo.txt (not .md) file in Obsidian, because a) it’s editable on mobile devices via the open-as-md plugin and b) sync and version control via however you’re syncing your Obsidian vault. Changing the extension back to .md only takes a second and immediately restores the bookmarks. I’m currently using a todo.txt.md file stored in my Obsidian vault, and editing it in SwiftoDo and VS Code on the Mac (or in whichever editor feels like fun on any given day).
💬 I love to hear from readers! Comment via
If you get value from my work I invite you to share this post with someone you think will like it, or contribute to my support jar. Every gift helps to keep me an independent creator and is greatly appreciated. You may also like to check out the pay-what-you-want-even-if-it’s-nothing resources on my productivity themed Gumroad store.
Follow my RSS feed, or sign up to receive posts in your inbox
