Every productivity app makes the same promise: capture a thought before it escapes. Then it hands you a mouse.
Think about what actually happens when a task occurs to you mid-work. You reach for the trackpad, click a plus button, click into a text field, type, click a date picker, click a priority dropdown, click save. Six context switches to record one sentence. The thought you were protecting is gone — spent on the ceremony of writing it down.
Vim solved this problem for text in the seventies: separate the doing from the typing. In normal mode every key is a command. In insert mode every key is text. You always know which one you are in, and your hands never leave the home row to switch.
TodoMode applies that idea to task management, all the way down.
The keys you already know
If you use vim, you already know how to use TodoMode:
j/kmove through your tasksoopens a new task below the cursor, straight into insert modeSpacecompletes,dd-style deletion works the way you fear it does/searches everything as you type:opens a command line —:sort,:share,:kanban,:colorscheme
That last one is real, by the way. :colorscheme terminal turns the whole
app into a CRT-green phosphor terminal, square corners and all. New accounts
start there — it is the honest look for a tool like this. (light and dark
exist for the days you have to share your screen.)
Metadata without dialogs
The other half of the speed is that a task’s metadata is part of the sentence, not a form to fill in afterwards:
Ship the release notes due:fri !high #launch @weekly
One line, parsed as you type: a due date in words, a priority, a tag, and a recurrence that reschedules itself when you complete it. No date picker has been harmed — or clicked.
A status bar that tells the truth
At the bottom of the screen there is a vim-style status bar: the current mode, a hint for the keys that matter right now, and how far through your list you are. It is a small thing, but it means the interface never lies to you about what a keypress will do. That is the whole philosophy, really: predictability is speed.
TodoMode is built by vim users, for vim users who refuse to compromise. There is a 7-day free trial, no card required — or start at todomode.com to see it move.