There’s a journey every productivity enthusiast takes. It starts with a spark of hope — a new app, a revolutionary system, a promise that this time, things will be different. You spend hours migrating tasks, creating the perfect taxonomy of tags and projects, and basking in the glow of a beautifully organized life.
Then, reality hits. The subscription costs add up, the app gets acquired and ruined, or worse, you realize you’re spending more time managing your productivity system than actually being productive.
This story was captured perfectly in a recent post by a user who, after trying everything from Notion to OmniFocus, landed back where he started: a single todo.txt file. The story resonated, sparking a massive discussion among developers and tech workers.
- The Cycle of Tools: We endlessly cycle between complex, feature-rich applications and spartan, simple systems.
- The Search for Control: This journey isn’t just about finding an app; it’s a search for a system to manage the chaos of modern work and life.
- The Human Element: The perfect tool remains elusive because we are trying to solve a fundamentally human problem — the conflict between our need for simplicity and the reality of our complex lives.
“Your mind is for having ideas, not holding them.” — David Allen, Getting Things Done.
That debate revealed a deep, unresolved tension in how we approach work, tools, and our own minds. The endless search for the perfect to-do list isn’t a search for an app; it’s a search for a system that can resolve the core conflict between simplicity and complexity, between control and anxiety.
The perfect tool doesn’t exist because we haven’t figured out how to build for the messy, contradictory nature of the human brain.
The Gospel of Simplicity
The appeal of a plain text file is primal. In a world of over-engineered software, choosing todo.txt feels like an act of rebellion. Its proponents champion a system built on a foundation of unshakeable strengths. It’s completely yours; no company can discontinue it or lock you out. It’s future-proof and brutally honest.
Many who have tried elaborate “second brain” methodologies come to the same conclusion: they already possess a perfectly functional “first brain,” and the best tool is the one that gets out of the way.
This philosophy of prioritizing the essential and eliminating the superfluous is a timeless principle of good design and effective work.
For those who return to the text file, the experience is one of liberation. It’s about stripping away everything that isn’t the work itself, ensuring that effort is spent on the task, not the tool.
The Myth of the Simple Text File
But here is where the simple narrative breaks down. The pure .txt file is often a myth. As the discussion immediately highlighted, for many, it’s merely a starting point for building a highly customized, or “snowflake,” piece of software.
People who flee the complexity of commercial apps often end up rebuilding the very features they abandoned, writing custom scripts and cron jobs to handle common needs. These often include:
- Notifications and alerts
- Tagging and filtering systems
- Recurring tasks
- Calendar integration
- Custom prioritization views
This isn’t hypocrisy. It’s the practical application of a powerful design principle articulated by computer pioneer Alan Kay.
Users start with a blank slate and only add the complexity they absolutely need, when they need it. It’s the ultimate form of personal toolsmithing, ensuring the system bends to their will rather than imposing its own.
This follows the wisdom of systems design, where the most robust solutions are rarely designed in their final, complex state.
“A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked.” — John Gall
This approach proves that the need for advanced features is real, but the desire for personal control over how those features are implemented is just as strong.
Procrastination vs. The Craft of Tool-Smithing
This impulse to build and tweak raises an uncomfortable question: is perfecting your system just a sophisticated form of procrastination? Many believe so, seeing it as “craftsmanship cosplaying” — a way to feel productive without producing results. Stories abound of coworkers so obsessed with perfecting their workflow that they fail to complete their actual assignments.
But to dismiss it all as procrastination is to miss a deeper motivation. For many developers and creators, building the system is part of the work. It’s a creative act, a way to craft an environment that perfectly matches one’s unique cognitive model.
It’s not about avoiding tasks; it’s about the joy of the craft and the search for a better way to think — a search that is, for some, the most important work of all.
The Backlog Paradox: Control vs. Anxiety
Perhaps the most profound conflict revealed in the discussion is psychological. For every person who finds peace in a simple list, there is another who requires a fortress of complexity to manage their life.
Some users maintain systems with over 100 daily recurring tasks, managing everything from special needs care to investments across multiple countries. For them, a simple text file would be an act of surrender to chaos. The complex system isn’t a burden; it’s the source of control.
Yet for others, that very same complexity is a source of immense anxiety. The discussion was filled with references to the “backlog paradox,” where a to-do list becomes a graveyard of stale tasks and broken promises, generating more stress than it relieves. This “backlog anxiety” is a paralyzing force, and it highlights a fundamental flaw in how we design these tools.
“The problem with the designs of most engineers is that they are too logical. We have to accept human behavior the way it is, not the way we would wish it to be.” — Don Norman
The friction of a physical notebook — where you must manually migrate tasks — forces you to constantly ask: Is this still worth doing? It provides a mechanism for forgetting, which is just as important as remembering. Most digital tools, in their quest for perfect memory, have forgotten this essential human need.
The Unsolved Problem: The App as Life Coach
The core of the issue is that no single tool has solved these contradictions. A system that’s perfect for a developer on a maker’s schedule is useless for a parent managing a family’s complex life. A tool that provides control for one person creates anxiety for another.
Ultimately, many argued that what people want isn’t just a list, but guidance. They want a life coach in their pocket, something that helps them decide what the best next thing to do is at any given moment.
The perfect to-do system, the one that doesn’t exist yet, would need to be less of a static database and more of an intelligent partner. It would have to embody these seemingly impossible traits:
- The Foundation of Plain Text: The data must be yours, portable, and permanent.
- Frictionless, Multi-Modal Input: It should accept a scribbled photo, a forwarded email, or a quick voice note and intelligently extract the core task.
- Optional, Intelligent Layers: Features like scheduling and reminders should be available as enhancements, not a cluttered dashboard you have to fight through.
- Adaptive UX: It should understand that a list of household chores and a complex software project require different views and workflows.
- A Solution for Backlog Anxiety: It would need a graceful way to manage a growing backlog, helping you decide what to let go of without guilt.
Until that tool exists, we will continue our search. We’ll cycle between the spartan honesty of a blank text file and the seductive power of feature-rich apps, forever seeking the system that finally lets us stop organizing and start doing.
“Focus on being productive instead of busy.” — Tim Ferriss, Author of The 4-Hour Workweek.
Resources
- I Tried Every Todo App and Ended Up With a .txt File, Alireza Bashiri, — https://www.al3rez.com/todo-txt-journey
- Hacker News: https://hn.premii.com/#/comments/44864134
Tools
- Todoist (Doist) — https://todoist.com
- Microsoft To Do— https://todo.microsoft.com
- Things 3 (Cultured Code) — https://culturedcode.com/things/
- TickTick (Appest) — https://ticktick.com
- OmniFocus — https://www.omnigroup.com/omnifocus/
- Asana — https://asana.com
- Trello (Atlassian) — https://trello.com
- Any.do — https://www.any.do
Final Word 🪅
