The advice on this thread is generally great. Without explaining my whole process, here are some general tips from trying to do this various ways over the last

The advice on this thread is generally great. Without explaining my whole process, here are some general tips from trying to do this various ways over the last few years: - Regularly review your TODOs, and keep them up-to-date. This is way more important than the tool you pick. Pick a slot in your calendar, fight to protect that time, and stick to it. Ultimately all these systems are just a UI veneer on you regularly deciding what’s important. It’s easy to focus on tools and not sticking to a regular process. - Start small It’s very easy to barf everything you want to do into a system and then be completely overwhelmed by it. If this is a problem, use the review process so that you always have a list of what you actually expect to do in the next day, week, and month. Be realistic. - Have goals at different time horizons, and have reviews for them. The GTD system of daily, weekly, monthly and annual reviews works well for me. - Become comfortable with putting complex multidimensional things into coarse little buckets. E.g. this is a task, this is a goal; this is kinda for project A and B, but I’ll put it here; this deadline is self-imposed, this one is for a release, etc. etc. There’s no trick here apart from keep doing it, realize that these are only abstractions which are supposed to be useful to you. You’ll change them over time, but... - Aggressively separate doing your review system, and improving it. It can be easy to sit down to review what you want to do in the next week/month/year, and end up fiddling around with how your system works. Both are neccessary, but the reviews must happen, and improving your system is a separate activity which you can schedule when appropriate! Finally... - Dont sweat it. It takes work, and everyone’s system is more of a mess when you look at it vs. hear them explain it. The most important thing is regularly dedicate time to thinking about how you want to spend time.