Gina Trapani, founder of the website you are reading, has made a plain text format for task lists Already in 2006 (Please excuse all the strange formatting in this almost 20-year article). Called All.txtIt is used by many people to this day thanks to an ecosystem of applications based on format.
I recently stumbled Calendar.txtFrom author and teacher Tero Karvinen. It is a text document based on a similar philosophy-a slimmed down, only the base takes over its overloaded calendar app. It is a concept that is worth considering. We are at least a decade in the “Use of a separate app for everything” -eer, and many of these apps are quite great. I spent years to recommend software -based tools for everything from Manage tasks To Make drinksAnd I don’t intend to stop soon.
But not everyone needs a tailor -made app for everything they do. Productivity is personal and everyone has different needs. I knew several highly competent people who still use paper day planners to pursue their appointments and tasks – a simple notebook is flexible in a way that does not match any app.
A line of text per day
I see plain text tools like calendar.txt in a similar light. This special tool is roughly as easy as possible: it uses a line of text for every day. You can download a ready -made file with lines for data that extends over 2033, or you can simply make your own.
Each line begins with the date, followed by the week, followed by a name with three letters. The idea is that you write your appointments afterwards by simply writing the time, followed by the name of the event. Events are simply added to the order of the line.
For example, a line for today with an appointment/task (I cleaned the house this afternoon) would be out:
2025-03-06 w10 Thu 14 cleaning the house
There are many defects against this approach. There is no integrated tool to remind you of events on the one hand, and there is no way to invite others to your appointment. But this simple approach could work for you.
And as Todo.txt showed two decades ago, the use of plain text files have advantages. Plaintext is versatile, can be opened on any device, and your files will not disappear because some software companies decide that it wanted to change its priorities. If you are Familiar with the command lineYou can use existing tools in all possible interesting species. For example the Calendar.txt -documentation Shows how you can use GrEP, a tool for searching text documents to do today’s appointments:
grep 2025-03-06 calendar.txt
You can use the same command to search for events day by day.
Credit: Justin Pot
This approach also appears for everyone – especially if you never open the command prompt – but not every tool must be for every user. Only you can decide which tools are best suited for you.
