At first when I read this I thought why not use Vimwiki or org-mode or taskwarrior, etc... but actually I really like these simple aliases.

I use the same approach for a super simple "pomodoro" timer:

  alias pomo='echo "Starting timer for 25 minutes"; sleep 1500 && zenity --info --text "Pomodoro break; 5 minutes"; sleep 300 && zenity --info --text "Pomodoro: back to work"'