Carmack is definitely someone who was determined -- and quick.
When Carmack was working (I think on Quake), you could follow his todo list, which he kept stored in a .plan file on his server. If you used the Unix shell command "finger johnc@idsoftware.com" command, it would send the text of that file. It was pretty amazing to watch him crank through his tasks in near real time.
The texts are archived here: https://github.com/ESWAT/john-carmack-plan-archive
He is also pretty good at poker, apparently: http://www.ntk.net/1998/02/13/?l=114#l
In How much of a genius-level move was binary space partitioning in Doom? (2019)ESWAT
john-carmack-plan-archive
Games & Emulation2015–2026
ESWAT / john-carmack-plan-archive
john-carmack-plan-archive
Collection of John Carmack’s .plan files
41Distinct people
43Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
1.4KGitHub stars
What to know before exploring
What it is
Collection of John Carmack’s .plan files
GitHub
Where it is used
No documented product use was verified in the last source check.
What people are saying
No recommendation phrase was found in the indexed comments.
No classified warning is attached to this page. Read the discussions before treating silence as approval.
Also in these discussions
No other repository is repeatedly linked in the same discussions.
This week on Hacker News
Nov 8–Nov 15 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/15/2026, 10:49:33 PM UTC.
No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.
Mentions over time
HN mentions by year43 dated mentions
Observed mentions: 2015-02-05 12:12:47 UTC to 2026-08-18 13:13:52 UTC.
* An incomplete calendar period is marked with an outlined bar. Its count is not directly comparable with a full period.
Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.
View mention counts and date ranges
| Period | Start (UTC) | End (exclusive, UTC) | Mentions | Submissions | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| 2016 | 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 4 | 1 | 3 |
| 2017 | 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2018 | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 8 | 0 | 8 |
| 2019 | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 5 | 1 | 4 |
| 2020 | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 6 | 0 | 6 |
| 2021 | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| 2022 | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 5 | 3 | 2 |
| 2023 | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 7 | 0 | 7 |
| 2024 | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| 2025 | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2026 (partial) | 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2027-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 0 | 2 |
From the project README
An excerpt from the repository, fetched Nov 13, 2026.
Read the project’s introduction
John Carmack .plan Archive
Mirror of the John Carmack .plan Archive on floodyberry.com. These are the exports of ZIP files for his .plan files, organized by day and year.
If you appreciate this archive, then I would appreciate it if you checked out NTRPD, my digital product studio, and Reorient, my digital nomad event and workation aggregator.
Read the full README on GitHubWhat Hacker News says
2 sourcesEverything old is new again:
John Carmack's .plan¹:
https://garbagecollected.org/2017/10/24/the-carmack-plan/
Archive:
https://github.com/ESWAT/john-carmack-plan-archive
¹ https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc742
In My productivity app is a never-ending .txt file (2022)