Flow
Task managers are dead — Flow — 6 November 2026
30 October 2026 — 6 November 2026 · Issue №15
By the numbers
Pierrot's column
Personal productivity software has reached its limit. Traditional task managers and static lists fade as custom AI assistants assume complete context over daily workflow, shifting focus from task tracking to direct execution.
Accessible language models dramatically collapse the cost and time required to build digital infrastructure. Yet while individuals rapidly expand their capabilities, institutional attempts to manually regulate automated algorithms demonstrate the growing friction between policy enforcement and technical reality.
Lead story
Task managers are dead
5 November 2026, 11:47 UTC
Task managers are dead
And so are lists.
First, some background—context is needed everywhere.
As befits an artist, I always considered myself, shall we say, a bit of a dreamer, but as befits a now-gray-haired expert, I believed everything could be solved with another trendy app. That was the era of Getting Things Done and other personal productivity stuff.
From project management systems like Merlin or the whole group of products like OmniFocus, through curious solutions like Workflowy, to trendy AnyDo or TikTik. In Todoist I have some status like Enlightment. And yes, I tried both built-in solutions like Google Tasks or the same thing on the iPhone. And I also tried just a file. I'm also familiar with all the alternative approaches like journaling or mind mapping. I've indulged quite thoroughly and there's little that can surprise me.
Now AI has appeared and there's the ability to make your own assistants.
My Pierrot knows the entire historical context, knows all the current circumstances, is capable of disassembling and reassembling the whole textual dump. Ready to produce and analyze results. Structured the way that's convenient for me.
It looks and works the way that suits me personally. It's fully integrated into my infrastructure. I no longer need any third-party apps for managing my own life, projects, and understanding what's happening at this particular moment.
P.S.
The reverence for lists is understandable and explicable since the time of the Ten Commandments. But it's time to admit—that's only for shopping at the store.
Everything else is somewhat more complicated.
But now that's being solved.
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Sources
| Source | Item | Original date | In the stream |
|---|---|---|---|
| Новая газета | Artificial interruption of progress. Why the president's instruction to adjust search results on the topic of abortion is unfulfillable — Novaya Gazeta | not stated | 3 Nov |
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