Welcome to yet another anecdotal internet post, wherein the author shares their personal experience as if it was generally relevant.
Having both autism and ADHD means that I find it challenging to think about time and I need a system to help me stay aware of my plans.
I’ve tried using Deck as a personal kanban app. It’s cool that you can self-host Nextcloud relatively easily (with Gandi) and I will continue using Nextcloud for its calendar support (because I’m not interested in iCloud or Google). Nextcloud Calendar supports CalDAV, which is a standard protocol. Decent CalDAV clients are readily found. On Linux, I use GNOME Calendar. On my iPhone, I use the Calendar app.
Another good thing about Deck is that has few features, which presents few distractions and doesn’t overload my senses.
Tasks and reminders, however, have much poorer interoperation between Linux and Apple ecosystems. It is possible to have Deck lists and tasks appear in Apple Reminders, but the two apps do not use the same system of organization and the results in Reminders are unexpected and unusable. I don’t know whose fault this is.
I need a tasks app that I can use on my Linux laptop and my iPhone. I haven’t found a good free software solution for this, so with reluctance I’m using TickTick, which is polished but distractingly featureful. It’s possible to hide some, but not all, of the features I don’t use. And the in-app promotions drive me to fury. But annoyances aside, it provides the basic cross-platform functionality I need.
Another reason I had gone with Deck initially is because of its collaboration support. I feel better when there is a second brain to look at my schedule. I am grateful TickTick also allows collaboration, but it wasn’t immediately obvious how to invite someone. (You have to create a list; the built-in lists cannot be shared.)
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© 2025 Karl Schultheisz