Todon't

“do whatever it takes to train them until you can trust them.”

You nailed it. I feel like I can’t trust my brain and forget stuff all the time. Any suggestions for how to change that?

Interesting read. I, as many others in this discussion, have been hooked up on to-do lists for years. I believe this is still valid reading even after 4 years, thank you for writing that.

Yet, I don’t agree with the point and would like to provide another perspective. I am an ever forgetting person. I agree that the brain can be trained to remember stuff better, but I don’t really want to. I am very quick in picking up tasks that I noted before in my to-do list (Todoist has worked for me best for past 4 years) and don’t want those 50-100 small things that I want to get done stuck on my mind for weeks, regardless if they are work related, personal or simple shopping list. I am fine with browsing them every morning, picking few that I can get done, and do them. It’s actually relieving for me that I can safely forget about all these individual tasks because I have them noted and will get back to them when I can. I can find them when I need them (when I am about to start working, when I arrive to grocery store, etc).

To me, it’s more a question of whether a person can stay organized (write things down, prioritize), stick to the rules (checking the list periodically) and have will strong enough to finish things off. If you cannot keep your to do list updated and/or don’t have motivation to complete things from the list, you can either switch to relying on your brain to filter only those important things (i.e. to forget unimportant tasks), or end up with a thousand tasks in the list not done. The list is not a solution, it’s a tool. It’s up to you and your will to use it well.

To summarize, my point is that using to-do lists depends on your preferences and nature - let everyone select what works best for them. I wouldn’t suggest to get rid of tool just because they don’t suit me personally.

A final thought - don’t get too stressed out from productivity tips and methods :slight_smile: Just do what’s natural for you.

PS: on “the three most important things you need to do that day” - one of the uses of my to-do list is to get me an overview in order to decide what’s most important that day. Task importance, deadlines, my workload, current dispositions and other conditions all come into consideration. To me, it’s too complex task to do just off the top of my head.