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Cal Newport and Shane Parrish, in a discussion on the Knowledge Project podcast, talked unfavorably about to-do lists. They favored scheduling time to perform t

Cal Newport and Shane Parrish, in a discussion on the Knowledge Project podcast, talked unfavorably about to-do lists. They favored scheduling time to perform the needed tasks in a daily calendar. I tried that calendaring system a few times. It did not work for me. To-do lists are easy, comfortable, familiar. They may not work for millionaires. They work for me.

luckyandroid 5y ago
Setting times is fine, but my approach is I have a list of 4-5 things to do written the night before, and knowing how much time I have in the morning, midday and afternoon as well as the energy I still have left at different parts of the day I say whether they’re done before work, at lunch, or after work. I’m really not sure on the distinction people are using between to-do lists and these other approaches - they all seem like to-do lists just formatted differently because people work differently.
chansiky 5y ago
I've gotten a lot of productivity out of todo lists. I've tried Cal Newport's calendaring system as well, which is more or less a bullet journal + timeline and I thought it was somewhat helpful, but in the end it was too tedious. The thing that doesn't work for me is that If I don't finish something within a timeframe, its not worth context switching. Other times it made no sense to take on a task at a specific time. Sometimes its just better to have a simple list and wing the rest of it. Don't overcomplicate your life if you don't have to.
- ChildOfChaos 5y ago
  It's intreasting in taking on new responsibilities I heard Cal talk about how this system wasn't working for him and he had infact switched to Trello for this. So while he does still use this system, it shows that the system breaks if your work doesn't fit being scheduled that way. All in all, the take away really is that a lot of generic productivity advice, is bad if it gets really specific about the tool, because you have to find what works for you personally and for the type of work you have and i think sometimes even that is different tools at different times.
akprasad 5y ago
OP here. I agree, and I hope your take-away from my post is that extremely successful people do use to-do lists. To quote myself, "People are different enough that there is no universal system." What works for you is what works for you, and you should use it unabashedly.

luckyandroid 5y ago

Setting times is fine, but my approach is I have a list of 4-5 things to do written the night before, and knowing how much time I have in the morning, midday and afternoon as well as the energy I still have left at different parts of the day I say whether they’re done before work, at lunch, or after work. I’m really not sure on the distinction people are using between to-do lists and these other approaches - they all seem like to-do lists just formatted differently because people work differently.

chansiky 5y ago

I've gotten a lot of productivity out of todo lists. I've tried Cal Newport's calendaring system as well, which is more or less a bullet journal + timeline and I thought it was somewhat helpful, but in the end it was too tedious. The thing that doesn't work for me is that If I don't finish something within a timeframe, its not worth context switching. Other times it made no sense to take on a task at a specific time. Sometimes its just better to have a simple list and wing the rest of it. Don't overcomplicate your life if you don't have to.

ChildOfChaos 5y ago
It's intreasting in taking on new responsibilities I heard Cal talk about how this system wasn't working for him and he had infact switched to Trello for this. So while he does still use this system, it shows that the system breaks if your work doesn't fit being scheduled that way. All in all, the take away really is that a lot of generic productivity advice, is bad if it gets really specific about the tool, because you have to find what works for you personally and for the type of work you have and i think sometimes even that is different tools at different times.

akprasad 5y ago

OP here. I agree, and I hope your take-away from my post is that extremely successful people do use to-do lists. To quote myself, "People are different enough that there is no universal system." What works for you is what works for you, and you should use it unabashedly.