I agree with you on all counts, and would like to elaborate a bit: I think obsession with todo lists mistake the product for the process. The goal of producing

I agree with you on all counts, and would like to elaborate a bit: I think obsession with todo lists mistake the product for the process. The goal of producing todo lists is to survey our responsibilities, rank them and break down goals and projects into chewable bits. Not to curate an ever growing list of ambitions. Tangentially, I like to break down projects and tasks by cognitive load, not by expected duration. This, in my opinion, is also a fundamental misunderstanding in Agile project management. Wrangling about story points and deadlines is a way to press people to fall in line, it is designed and operated as a stressor. It's malicious in nature and consequences. What should be done, I think, is breaking down things into bits that can be comfortably held in people's minds as a whole. Then people can attack it ergonomically for as long as necessary to get it done. Now. this creates complications because we have to accommodate for different levels of skill, experience, capacity etc. But a well composed team should have a nice combination of leadership and experience to tackle this. The problem arises from trying to push down on labor costs and pressing software enthusiasts into becoming hired hands in a production line.