Currently using Agenda for my task management & note taking app of choice

Cool Workflows
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I’ve been in the quest for task management + note taking app that fits my use case for long. My dream workflow is actually pretty simple, I’d like to:

  • view a specific date, and see my daily journal and the work I did (or plan to do) on that day.
    • I work as a software engineer, and this feature will help me on Daily Stand-up, Sprint Retrospective and Planning meetings
  • have #tagging feature
  • aside from tagging, set a keyword as identifier, which I can click to see all notes that include the keyword
    • if I use Netflix as keyword
    • I can click on that and see all daily journals when I watch movie on that platform.
    • I can also see work related notes about insights I’ve got from the software engineers on that company.
  • set reminder with OS level notification
  • task list with more than ToDo and Done state. I want In Progress, Hold, Canceled…

At first I used Org-mode on Emacs. It is a robust and extensible system. With a plugin called Org-roam, it checks almost all of my workflow wish list. I ditched this workflow because the lack of good mobile app and notification for reminder.
Then I changed to Obsidian with 2do, with some usage of Hook to link the two. It misses the multiple state of task states, but at least I have notification. I still want dedicated iOS app though. Also I am looking for a single app workflow.

Last weekend I tried using Agenda, and it was a pleasant experience. The base features do not check my wishlist, but with some workarounds, it kinda check almost all. I continue the trial until yesterday and consider to set this as my new workflow.

The losses from Obsidian and 2do:

  • wikilink and backlink
    • previously, I use wikilink and backlink to check the ‘keyword indicator’ of my wish list. I rarely use it for anything else. With Agenda, I use @People tag
    • I never leverage the graph viewer
  • Non-siloed files
    • but Agenda has export to Markdown and PDF feature
  • Obsidian extensions
    • specifically Vim Keybinding extension
  • subitem in task list with progress bar in parent task

The gains I’ve got from Agenda:

  • macOS and iOS app
  • tight integration with Reminder and Calendar
    • allows easy future planning too
  • notes can be assigned to calendar event/specific date
    • this lets me write meeting notes, then link that to the event’s calendar invitation
    • also lets me write notes from different project folder. In the end, they will be unified on the “Timeline View”

I am quite happy with this setup, let’s see how long I will use this.

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