I have been experimenting with Giles’s method recently — the tagging allows for some complex filtering and manipulation on the CLI that you just don’t get otherwise. However, one of the key points of this plaintext idea is that you can use whatever text tool you want, i.e. vim, TextWrangler, TextEdit, whatever.

This has fit in quite well with my effort lately to do what I’m calling Reducing Friction — smoothing the process of getting items into the todo queue, worked on, and into the done list as much as possible. This includes reducing distractions in the working environment, visual and otherwise.

I’ve written up an article here about it, expanding the thought. Thanks to Giles for the inspiration.