Zap the Forgetfulness: Command Line Cronjobs and Self-Hosted Apps Are Replacing Todoist for Home Maintenance
The community is actively moving past standard calendar alerts for tracking recurring home maintenance and asset management. Multiple contributors are advocating for deeply integrated, self-hosted platforms to handle task logic, viewing off-the-shelf solutions as inadequate for complex recurrence needs.
The debate pits powerful, technical, self-hosted systems—like Vikunja and Grocy—against mainstream familiarity. Users are split between the low-friction appeal of Todoist versus the perceived rigor of tools like taskwarrior or Ha-chore-helper. An outlier take suggests using system cronjobs to send scheduled, automated email reminders, offering a brute-force, highly reliable fallback.
The weight of opinion favors local control and deep integration. While the struggle with ADHD-related forgetfulness demands immediate alerts, the practical consensus favors powerful, programmable tools that calculate recurrence based on actual completion dates rather than fixed intervals.
Key Points
Self-hosting robust, custom task managers is favored over commercial off-the-shelf solutions.
The community favors tools like Vikunja and Grocy because they handle task recurrence relative to completion, a feature often lacking in standard calendar apps.
Command-line interfaces offer unparalleled, specific control for scheduling.
The use of taskwarrior with specific recurrence syntax (`recur:monthly`) and 'cronjobs' for emails was cited as a highly reliable, low-tech solution.
Familiar cross-platform tools are seen as deficient in complex scheduling logic.
The controversy centers on established tools like Todoist and Jira potentially lacking the precise recurrence logic needed for true home maintenance tracking.
Specialized workflows are required for different asset classes.
k4j8 suggested a combination of tools: Lubelogger for cars, paperless-ngx for documents, and Grocy for general household inventory.
Source Discussions (3)
This report was synthesized from the following Lemmy discussions, ranked by community score.