To do lists need less "simplicity" and more artifical intelligence. Imagine that you were jotting down things to do for a personal assistant to organize and cla

To do lists need less "simplicity" and more artifical intelligence. Imagine that you were jotting down things to do for a personal assistant to organize and clarify for you. * Text entry should be free form. I want to scribble a note to myself, or mumble something into my phone as it crosses my mind - I'm ADD, any step, however minute, between the thought crossing my mind and being recorded risks it being lost forever. * Repeated tasks should be noticed and auto entered (always go food shopping, and do laundry on Sunday?) * Tasks should be grouped automatically. Lots of "buy this" or "pick up that" and "meet there" can be organized pretty easily. * Things to remember are different from tasks. I have to go food shopping - that's a task. Each item in that shopping list isn't a separate task. * Tasks don't live by themselves. Phone numbers, email addresses, directions, instructions all need to be recorded, used and not lost because that tasks was marked as complete. * Some to do items are never complete: Exercise, regular checkups, eating right, going to sleep on time. Your personal assistant would remind you about these things. * Automatically breakdown to-dos into steps. You write down, "get coffee filters", your task assistant adds in "open Amazon.com, log in, search for coffee filters, hit buy now." * Reminders and alerts and other ways of getting in your face is the principal 80% of tasks. Writing it down is simple and easy. Actually remembering, then doing the tasks suck. * Done lists are great as well - don't just hide tasks once they're done, show a daily list of things accomplished. Get a seinfeldesque checkbox for completing all your tasks.