TaskWarrior is all you need to be productive

Nowadays there is an ocean of different productivity tools, systems and methodologies. The secret is - you only need one!

The problem

I always wanted to come up with a standartized system to manage my life. I bet you too!

TickTick

I’ve tried different approaches and tools and finally ended up with TickTick (and even bought a premium subscription).

It provided me with many features, including:

Calendar - this was a must-have to me, I wanted to be able to see top-down view of my week and be able to do “time blocking”
Disctinction between tasks and notes - that was important because back then I already wanted to start accumulating my knowledge somewhere
Markdown support - plaintext is good, but Markdown is just so much better for notetaking
Arbitrary folder hierarchy - allowed me to have full control over the structure
Tags and complex filtering system

It has even more cool stuff, like reminding you about tasks when you arrive at their location, voice input and excellent UI/UX.

So why did I switch?

TickTick covered all my use-cases (and even more), so why did I switch?

Well, there are a couple reasons for that:

They have all your data. Ideally I want my management system to be private and available offline.
Keeping notes there just felt like it’s too much. The question is: how is it different from writing in plaintext Markdown files on mobile phone or laptop?

Discovering Vimwiki

At this point I was already using Vim a lot and when I learned about vimwiki I immediately migrated all my notes into the local folder on my computer. It provides you with much broader functionality than just keeping notes - well, this website is build using vimwiki, but I won’t go into details here, because I plan to do a separate article about it.

Also, vimwiki provides you with folder hierarchy for free! Why overuse any other software when your filesystem has it covered?

Discovering TaskWarrior

After using TickTick for two years, I finally discovered TaskWarrior:

Terminal application (but it has frontends if you can’t live without it)
Deadly simple
Data is stored locally
Scriptable and hackable
Methodology-agnostic
Focused on doing one thing

When I saw it first time - I knew that was it. You see, since I was already not keeping notes in TickTick, I was only using it only to keep track of my tasks. And TaskWarrior actually does a better job in managing tasks - it’s the software that follows Unix philosophy - it does one thing and does it well.

I won’t do a guide about TaskWarrior here, because they have an amazing documentation on their website. I suggest you go ahead and learn this powerful tool in 30 seconds!

Choosing methodology

Having TaskWarrior ready, you may get stunned by the amount of choice you have in managing your tasks. It’s time to choose a methodology and stick to it. I prefer Getting Things Done (or GTD) - it has a very precise set of rules that you have to follow and they acutally make sense.

GTD is focused, well, on getting things done. It’s a general approach to organizing tasks and projects. I’d say it’s an interface which can have multiple implementations (like in TickTick, Google Calendar, TaskWarrior etc.). It’s aim is to make you have 100% trust in a system for collecting tasks, ideas, and projects.

Main advantage of GTD is that it only works with actionable visible items. E.g. you don’t keep a task Get a driver lisence - it’s stupid from such point of view. “Do I get it right now or what?” Instead you create a project driver-lisence with following tasks:

Ask Michael to recommend a driving course
Assign to driving course
Pass rules exam
Pass driving exam
Pass final exam

Hopefully you get the point. Learn more about GTD here.

Putting it all together

TaskWarrior + vimwiki is an ultimate replacement for TickTick or any other productivity tool you can imagine. GTD eliminates the problem with calendar - according to GTD, you only assign deadlines to the tasks that actually have them. With that considered, TaskWarrior’s built-in calendar works perfectly.

And the good thing is: you don’t need be using vimwiki for it to work - you can write your notes any way you like (I actually suggest pen & paper). The same for methodology - if you don’t like GTD - choose any system that fits you (or adapt already existing one). The point is: TaskWarrior will play nicely with everything. It’s an ultimate tool that you only have to learn once in your life.

PS

There’s also TimeWarrior, but I recommend getting familliar with TaskWarrior first. The main difference - TaskWarrior focuses on the tasks you have to do in future, while TimeWarrior analyzes the past.

I will do an artcile focused specifically on my productivity workflow later, stay tuned!