TaskNote

TaskNote Notes

Kanban, focus and productivity without the fuss

Task trackers have grown too complex and cloud databases too exposed. These are our notes on the way back: plain text, a board you can take in at a glance, and data that stays on your own machine.

Try it in TaskNote
A kanban board next to your notes. Encrypted in the browser, local on Windows.
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What the notes are about

Organising knowledgeCatching thoughts, daily notes, and keeping a second brain that answers questions instead of collecting them.Productivity and focusSlow productivity, task bankruptcy, the switching tax, and staying focused without burning out.Privacy and local-firstLocal-first apps, end-to-end encryption, and keeping notes private without giving up a usable app.Kanban in practiceBoards that grow out of notes: columns that match how you work, cards made from lines of text.WorkflowsWhole setups rather than single tricks: a solo developer's stack, a writer's week, a Monday morning.

Latest notes

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  1. A TaskNote editor on a paper texture holding rough notes with abbreviations and half-finished lines
    Productivity and focus

    Handcrafted Notes | Why Messy Human Ones Beat Generated Ones

    Screenshots of raw, typo-laced Markdown are being posted as a badge of honour. What is actually true in that, what is posturing, and how to set up a desk where nothing writes for you.

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  2. A plain kanban board with a single card in the Doing column, beside a rough note full of unsorted lines
    Productivity and focus

    Low-Stimulation Computing | Dump Everything, Then Do One Card

    Task managers ask you to sort a thought before you have finished having it. Separating capture from organising, a board with one card in Doing, and what to do on the days none of it works.

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  3. A TaskNote kanban board beside a note on Windows, running from one file with no account and no monthly
    Productivity and focus

    Pay Once Software | How to Cut the Subscription Stack

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  4. A TaskNote kanban board and note side by side on Windows, running from a file on the machine with no server behind them
    Privacy and local-first

    Self-Hosted Notes | When You Need a Server and When You Don't

    A weekend of Docker, certificates and reverse proxies, so a shopping list can sync. What self-hosting is genuinely good for, and the much smaller thing most people actually wanted.

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  5. A plain TaskNote editor with a blank page and a cursor, no widgets and no decoration
    Productivity and focus

    Digital Brutalism | Stop Decorating Your Notes and Start Writing

    Setting up the workspace became the work. The case for the plain page, what it costs, and an honest account of where our own app sits.

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  6. A diagram of client side encryption: the note is encrypted in the browser before it reaches the server, so the server stores something it cannot read
    Privacy and local-first

    Is Your Notes App Training AI on Your Notes | Read the Clause, Find the Switch

    What the terms actually permit, where the opt-out is hidden, and the moment end-to-end encryption stops protecting anything.

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  7. Three steps in pixel art: files loaded from the cloud while online, saved locally with the connection off, uploaded again when it returns
    Privacy and local-first

    Vendor Lock-In in Notes Apps | Leave Without Losing Your Work

    Every notes app has an export button. Most of what comes out is unusable. A fifteen minute drill tells you which one you are in.

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  8. The TaskNote window on Windows with notebooks on the left and a list of notes on the right, open with no network connection
    Productivity and focus

    Work Offline on Purpose | Two Hours Nobody Can Interrupt

    Pulling the plug is the cheapest focus tool there is, and most of us cannot use it because our notes and tasks live in a browser tab.

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  9. A kanban board with three columns and cards, next to the list of tasks
    Kanban in practice

    Time Blocking vs Kanban | Plan the Order, Not the Hour

    Why a colour-coded calendar collapses by eleven o'clock, and how a board with a work-in-progress limit survives the day that went sideways.

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  10. The TaskNote window on Windows: notebooks on the left, the list of notes on the right, opened from a local file
    Workflows

    Native Desktop Apps | Why a To-Do List Should Not Cost a Gigabyte

    Packaged websites made simple tools heavy. What a native stack changes, what it honestly does not, and the numbers from our own Windows build.

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  11. A TaskNote window with a short list of notes and a board beside it, kept deliberately small
    Organising knowledge

    Disposable Notes | Delete Most of What You Write, Without Fear

    Most of what you write down expires in two days. A routing habit that sends the rest where it belongs and empties the inbox every Friday.

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  12. A plain TaskNote editor: a blank page and a cursor, with no assistant, no suggestions and no generate button
    Productivity and focus

    Notes App Without AI | Write Without a Robot Reading Over You

    Why people are switching to notes apps with no assistant at all: the cost of the suggestions, what writing is for, and what a quiet app looks like.

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  13. A diagram of client side encryption: the note is encrypted in the browser before it reaches the server
    Privacy and local-first

    Personal Notes on a Work Laptop | Keep Them Off the Company Network

    What your employer can see when you write personal notes at work, what a local-first app changes, and the part no app can protect you from.

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  14. The TaskNote sidebar with notebooks and a list of dated daily notes
    Organising knowledge

    Daily Notes Method | One Note a Day Instead of a Planning System

    One page per day takes the place of folders, tags and projects. How the daily note works, why memory prefers it, and how to turn it into tasks.

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  15. Three steps in pixel art: files loaded while online, saved locally with the connection off, and uploaded again when it returns
    Privacy and local-first

    Local-First Task Tracker | Keep Your Notes and Kanban Off the Cloud

    What local-first actually means, and four apps that keep your notes, boards and reminders on your own machine instead of someone's server.

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  16. The TaskNote board with three columns, To Do, In Progress and Done, and cards that came from notes
    Kanban in practice

    Kanban Board for Notes | Turn a Line You Wrote into a Card

    Notes hold the thinking, boards hold the doing, and most apps make you pick one. Here is the move that joins them, and when not to use it.

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