Later On

This post outlines quite a clever approach to the To-Do list, always a vexing problem. Here’s what the post will show you:

. . . While you can manage that to-do list from the text file yourself, editing your to-do list in a flat text file using an editor like Notepad.exe or TextEdit isn’t the fastest or most ideal way to do so. As such, a number of excellent to-do programs have cropped up that work with plain text to-do files, including (but not limited to) TaskPaper/TodoPaper, Org-Mode, and our very own Gina Trapani’s Todo.txt. Today, we’ll show you how to get started with Todo.txt (our favorite plain-text to-do program) and show you all the things you can do with the resulting text file—like display it on your desktop, add it as a widget to your phone, and even synced to all my other computers via Dropbox.

Note that Todo.txt is truly a geek’s to-do list. You manage it from the command line and have to deal with editing config files to get it all set up. However, while there is a bit more work up front, it does actually make it faster and easier to manage your tasks if all you need to do is type a quick command and hit enter—there’s no clicking, dragging, opening files, other other nonsense. However, if you prefer the mouse and want something with a GUI, you can use the same system with previously mentioned Todotxt.net, which is a bit more graphics-driven (but still takes advantage of all that plain text has to offer). And, no matter what system you’re using, any plain text file can take advantage of our other plain text tricks, so take a gander at the last section of this article either way. . .