The only todo list I’ve ever been able to use is the one built in to GMail. It works because I can’t forget it exists (like most todo apps) but it’s also not ever-present.
Plus I only use it for long term tasks, so it’s more of a “to remember” list than a todo list.
To-do list is just a list of reminders. If you rely on it to be or to stay productive, then you should ask yourself why you had one to begin with. You’re taking your to-do list way too seriously lol.
I really like the budget analogy above - when money is tight, smart people budget, to ensure the important things get bought. When time is tight, you need to manage that too. I started todo-listing about eight months ago, and it has made a substantial improvement to how well I spend my time, and how much stress I feel. I get more stuff done, with less guilt about what I don’t get done. I’m working full time, raising three kids with my partner who also works full time, and studying for a PhD part-time. That doesn’t leave many hours in the day to play around with, so the ones I have I want to budget wisely.
The most important thing (for me) with my list is that it tells me when I can feel satisfied that I’ve done enough for the day, and I can sit down and read a novel or watch some TV without guilt. A good todo list will allow you to set a date something needs to be done (which makes them similar to the “three things today” lists, except you can start planning tomorrow, the day after, etc.), and priority. It’ll let you track priorities, and it’ll let you track repeating events - a “vacuum the house” every four weeks means I get it done more often than I used to; a “remind Fred to do that thing” repeated daily means my projects are less likely to fall over because Fred doesn’t consider them a priority.
I’ve got 42 things on my lists, spread across the next 8 weeks or so. That’s 42 things I no longer have to keep in short-term storage in my brain, freeing it up for other more important things, like actually doing all that stuff. If a to-do list is giving you stress, you’re not doing it right.
Automate, automate, automate.
Nothing frees up your mind to do life’s important tasks like automation. I don’t have a budget, my money gets automatically pushed into savings accounts - if there is no money in my checking account or short term savings (aka cushion account) then I can’t spend any money. All my bills, except the mortgage are paid automatically - I never miss paying a bill. All of my financial transactions are auto-magically tracked. Every month I can login and see if I spent to much money on something and make a mental note to cut back. Turns out money is one of those mind numbing tasks that can and should be automated as much as possible.
My thermostat is programmed so I don’t have to remember to adjust the A/C before I leave the house. One of these days I’ll get around to programming all the lights in my house. I have a robot that cleans my floors for me, I love him. I’ll be getting automatic cat feeders too, I can’t wait for that day, cause boy are my cats annoying between the hours of 4 PM and 6 PM.
I keep a calendar that has certain items on it as a reminder of when they need to be done. That is it. Otherwise, if I can’t remember to do it, not important.
I like the simplicity and lack of organization and it lets me keep track of things exactly the way I want to so it’s not really a list at all.
I’ve recently started using Dave Lee’s week chart ( http://heydave.org/post/24857123736/introducing-the-week-chart ) for work. It seems to be working better than a traditional ToDo list so far.
The problem I have with lists is that other people need them to have any idea of what I’m doing on any given day, or even month. We use Trello. On my list of task management applications, Trello sucks the least. But it still sucks for the reasons you state above.
I found something interesting while using it, however; the comments under each list, or lists of lists if you’re unfortunate. The little input box looked a lot like Twitter, and when I pushed the send button it behaved a lot like Twitter, so I began using it like Twitter. Instead of focusing on checking items off of my list, I committed to just deliver its purpose instead - keeping people up to date with what I’m doing with the added value of being able to go back to see what I was thinking two weeks ago.
They now not only know what I’m doing, but what I’m thinking. Every hour or two I fire off a rapid succession of five to fifteen comments. Soliloquy by soliloquy, they get what they want and generally don’t bother me for formal updates or meetings. I tested to see if anyone actually read the stuff that I wrote several times and it turns out, yes - those interested in my project do in fact read every single comment almost faithfully. There are times that I become engrossed and don’t update it so much, but that’s expected when you’re wrapping your head around something not knowing how big it might be.
I found thinking out loud in this way to be an excellent companion for my rubber duck. He doesn’t have buttons to push, he just sits there and stares at me and squeaks loudly when I smash him and blame him for everything.
tl;dr - Productivity apps can not suck, but lists of (anything), even groceries are evil little things. Ever feel guilty for not following a grocery list, or forgetting to put things on it?
I dont keep a todo list… I just add stuff to my calendar for when it deadlines and remove it as I get it done. I have far too many things that are far too important and completely outside of work to not do this. Things I miss the date on get thrown out. Nothing is ever extended, that is how these lists work and become effective. It has left me with a lot of unfinished sw projects, but its ok, I obviously took the idea as far as I could with the time I had. I try and do a month of important stuff in advance in a day and then I have free time to do whatever I want, including the projects I deadline (quite generously) myself. If the list is stressing you out, then you are not prioritising correctly.
Sorry Jeff, but this might be good advice for people without much to do or with photographic memories, but I find this to be generally really bad advice for most people.
Now, I’m not a TODO app snob or a productivity evangelist - I’ll just say this - your wetware is good at a lot of things, but keeping track of lots of small details and future deadlines isn’t one of them. One of the best things I ever did was read David Allen’s book, Getting Things Done, but not for the reasons you might think. The main thing I remember from that book is the simple advice to have a “Trusted System” - one place to put all the things that are rattling around in your brain so they stop rattling around in there. If you hold on to stuff that you can’t or aren’t doing but need to remember, then it causes you stress. If you have a place where you always put those things then you don’t have to keep remembering to do them. You just input them into your “trusted system”, and that’s it. Then, decide what you’re going to do and know that anything else that comes up can go there until it’s time to do it. I understand the notion of rejecting faddy, gimmicky apps that claim to solve all your problems, but the truth is that the brain isn’t good at some things which is why it’s worth taking some time and investing in a tool that relieves your stress. If your TODO list causes you stress, you’re doing it wrong. But don’t through out the baby with the bath water. Your TODO list is supposed to be a pensieve (thank you JK Rowling!), not a conscience.
Productivity tip #1 - use tldr.io
Productivity tip #2 - use noprocast in HN
Productivity tip #3 - don’t read productivity tips and get back to work!
Hey Jeff,
This part of your post really caught my eye:
“And the collective psychic weight of all these minor undone tasks were caught up in my ever-growing to-do katamari ball, where they continually weighed on me, day after day”
I don’t follow the whole GTD system, but I did take away some important lessons from it. One of the the most important aspects to your to-do lists is what David Allen calls the Weekly Review.
All that means is this: at least once a week, you review and prune your lists. GTD suggests being pretty ruthless about it, because Allen recognizes exactly what you describe: the psychic weight and clutter of an ever-growing action list. That will definitely stress you out and weigh you down.
Whichever way you go, best of luck. Thank you for all the great articles you’ve written and your contributions to StackExchange.
The best to-do list I have ever found was a text file. It’s literally a list of things that I want to do if I ever have billable hours but nothing to do. If it’s actually important, it doesn’t go on the list.
Jeff,
The problem of most todo apps is that they focus on productivity (do as much as possible) rather than effectiveness (do the right thing).
Try an app that helps you keep your goals in mind in your everyday workflow.
http://weekplan.net is inspired by the “Put First Things First” methodology from Covey, and it works for many.
I’m sure you didn’t mean for this to be a slap in the face for people with learning disabilities, but you didn’t think about the fact that we exist when you wrote it, and it shows.
Lists aren’t a good solution for you, and that’s ok. Telling other people that lists can be counter-productive for some people is ok, too. It might be helpful for some people. Not everybody’s brain is the same as yours, though.
I have ADHD, and I can’t trust my brain to keep track of the things yours keeps track of. There’s no exercise I can do or medical procedure I can get to “fix” that. This is how my brain works, and this is how it will work for the rest of my life. All I can do is use the tools that are available to me, such as medication, alarms, and lists.
Yes, it takes some time to make lists. It takes a lot longer to try to do the dishes when I keep finding myself in a different room and can’t remember why I’m there or what I was doing. I can save a lot of time by making lists, especially when you consider that without them, I forget to get my prescriptions and end up doing things like taking ten minutes to dial a phone number because I keep messing it up.
I found your advice marginalising and hurtful. Like many people with learning disabilities, I’ve been fighting certain messages for most of my life. One of those is that I have to do things without help, the way normal people do them, or else I must not really care. It’s an intensely harmful way of thinking for people with learning disabilities, and I’m very disappointed to see it on this blog.
For me, the point of the lists is to get all that stuff out of your brain, so that you can focus on the important things - otherwise, you just keep mentally context-switching and get nothing done. Whether you do all everything on the lists is another decision.
I love the term “to-do bankruptcy”. It’s brilliant. It’s an ongoing process, though - you need to declare it every day. Or at least every couple of weeks, when the next list has crept up on a piece of paper. Or in Notepad. Or in your Inbox.
Another blogger I follow wrote about a very similar topic yesterday - claiming that there is the need for capitulation, an acknowledgement that there is always more stuff we need to do than we will ever be able to do, at any given time. She wrote, paraphrasing from German: “Say ‘I didn’t get around to doing that’ aloud. Make it your mantra. Repeat it until you don’t feel even the slighest trace of discomfort or guilt any more when saying it.”
I’m still working on that, and don’t feel like I’m there yet.
Jeff you should not use your todo list to do the weekly review. Weekly review is the only thing that will tell your if you have done progress through days and weeks.
If you show you weekly review (it can be a ‘list’) and your todo list to someone they will say it is of two different people which means, You do lot different then what you want.
Ideally have a buddy to do your weekly review. Don’t do it alone with a tech gadget.
Todo list is natural for us, even if we use tools for it or not.
For example, My mom thinks of things to have before making turkey preparation in form of list, she might not write but it’s in her head.
If I loose my drivers licence which I do a lot, then I know I have pre-defined list.
There is no running from the list; and things will not be auto-solved if you stop using the todo list or app.
Totally agree with your post, except for one item list: My grocery shopping list. Without that I’d die of starvation or malnourishment.
Man, you do need to read Checklist Manifesto.
Jeff, I think you may have tripped into the pit of over-generalisation. It’s a bit of an annoying habit, though I admit it’s a good way to attract long discussions in comments.
It is certainly true that some people are better off without to-do lists of any kind, but it’s also true that some people get quite the nice benefit from them.
I use an adapted GTD system myself. Rather than explain my system here, I’ll just link to the write-up I did of it:
http://gtdfh.branchable.com/ (titled “GTD for hackers”). Spoiler: I don’t use an spesialised application for managing my system, and it also doesn’t take much time to maintain it.
A to-do list of any kind is a tool. If you feel guilty about not doing something on your list, the problem is probably not that you have a list. The problem might be that you didn’t do something you needed to do, or that you put something on your list you didn’t really need or want to do. Maybe it would have been better to have a list of things that you’ll do only if you can be bothered and happen to have the time for them?
I agree with Matt McElheny about how the brain works, and that it works better when it doesn’t have to keep actively remembering lots of details.