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The problem with to-do lists is that they get to be huge, way more than you can do in a reasonable day, and seeing a long and ever-growing list of tasks that yo

The problem with to-do lists is that they get to be huge, way more than you can do in a reasonable day, and seeing a long and ever-growing list of tasks that you can never finish creates stress and inhibits your motivation. The mind hack to avoid this problem is to consider your to-do list to be a "pantry" that contains everything you could work on. At the beginning of each day, open your pantry and choose the few items you want to get done that day. Then close the pantry and don't look at it again. Just work off the small list of items for that day. You can even write it down on paper, which makes it very satisfying to strike off each completed task. At the end of the day, return any unfinished items to the pantry, and throw the paper away.

euroderf 3y ago
I find that pulling three items from the pantry in the morning - without investing huge mental effort - seems to work.
jodrellblank 3y ago
With Spaced Repetition memory tools, people add everything they want to remember, then skip some days of reviewing, and then there are mountains of entries "the system wants me to review". The system is only reflecting the ongoing effort cost of keeping that many facts in memory. Review them, or risk forgetting them, is the choice. TODO lists have way more than you can do because you put that much in them. That doesn't sound like a problem with to-do lists, anymore than "I bought more books than I can read" is a problem with books; it sounds victim-blamey but it's not books' fault that you bought them. Avoiding a todo list lets you forget about some things and thus not do them without having to explicitly make the decision to not do them. That feels better, easier, but I'm not sure it actually is better - shouldn't making a conscious decision what to prioritise and what to forget lead to a better outcome?
- travisjungroth 3y ago
  > it sounds victim-blamey but it's not books' fault that you bought them. It sounds that way because you are putting the responsibility in the wrong place. To-do list apps advertise certain benefits. If huge swaths of people don’t actually get the benefit, that’s the to-do list failing to live up to its promise, at least for that group. If some app offered to help you organize your books and the end result was people ending up with tons of books, yeah you can kinda blame the app.
  - jodrellblank 3y ago
    The benefits they advertise are that they won't forget your to-do list, and that they offer tools to help you organise (sort, filter, tag, assign priorities) to your entries - not that they will help you do the tasks or that they will tell you what things you shouldn't be doing and help you reject them, right?
    - travisjungroth 3y ago
      No, thats not really right. Go look at some Todo app websites and you’ll see lots of examples that contradict what you’re saying. From Todoist: > Become focused, organized, and calm with Todoist. The world’s #1 task manager and to-do list app. > Reach that mental clarity you’ve been longing for. From Things: > Things is the award-winning personal task manager that helps you plan your day, manage your projects, and make real progress toward your goals. > Get Things, Get Done. Whatever it is you want to accomplish in life, Things can help you get there
      - jodrellblank 3y ago
        I don't see those as contradictions; it's a common idea to write things down so that you can get them out of your head and stop thinking about them, stop stressing about remembering all the things you have to do today; that can be the 'calm' and 'mental clarity' Todoist is advertising. Become focused, organized, plan your day, manage your projects are basic offerings of any organizing tools. It's also an idea[1] that writing down your goals crystallises them and helps you actually do them. Note that they don't say "Todoist helps you do more than you could without it", or "Things will tell you what to accomplish in life" or "Things can get there for you" or "Todoist helps reach calm by forcing you to do less overall". It's possible to 'reach mental clarity' by dropping all your todos on the floor and going to live as a monk; mental clarity doesn't mean "do everything you want to do". It would be different if they were advertising something like "By using Todoist you will do 150 todo items per day, 50% more than other todo lists, or your money back", or "Things lets you double the amount of things you can accomplish in life". > "If some app offered to help you organize your books and the end result was people ending up with tons of books, yeah you can kinda blame the app." You can't; if you have a huge pile of books, and then you start using the Dewey Decimal System to organize them, is it now the Dewey Decimal system's fault that you bought so many books before you started using it? Is it the DDS' fault if you decide that you can have more books, now they're organized, even though you already knew you had too many to read before starting to use it and you misthought the problem was organization rather than quantity? [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/markmurphy/2018/04/15/neuroscience-explains-why-you-need-to-write-down-your-goals-if-you-actually-want-to-achieve-them/?sh=37f3c6717905 https://www.forbes.com/sites/markmurphy/2018/04/15/neuroscie...
nicbou 3y ago
This has worked well for me. It’s a bit like a daily backlog. It forces me to consider what is currently important.
dgb23 3y ago
Call your "backlog" column "ideas". Move "ideas" into "todos" with intent. And by the way this: > ever-growing list of tasks that you can never finish creates stress and inhibits your motivation Is an actual thing. Our brain gets overloaded that way while it keeps track of tasks in the background, requiring energy and memory. Writing stuff down helps, but it's still _there_. You actually have to cross it out or clearly discriminate ideas and actual tasks you want to do and can do within a reasonable time frame.
- flir 3y ago
  I settled on something very similar. I split between tasks and goals, and I subdivide tasks into to-do and backlog. For example, "Implement a TSP solver in JS" is a task. "Learn JS" is a goal. I'm very ok with the backlog being where good ideas go to die, and I'm very ok with sub-tasks (indented list).
hesk 3y ago
I use this method and I want to highlight another advantage, besides shortening a huge list into a small, manageable amount. It allows you to pick the tasks for the day based on the current context. How much time do I have in the day (e.g., do I have a lot of meetings scheduled or not), what are the most important/urgent tasks at the moment, what is my energy level, and so on.
ianburrell 3y ago
I like to separate out projects from tasks. For me, project is something that requires multiple tasks to complete. I have Trello boards for tracking projects in various areas of life. I will only put tasks in todo list for projects that I'm doing. I will keep checklist of tasks that need to be done for each projects if want to work out in advance. This system is great for tracking house projects since there is always a large number of them. It is also good for planning things for the future, I have lists of plants to get in the fall. The problem I have with this system is that I have enough regular tasks that don't pick up many projects. I also don't run the process for syncing tasks frequently enough. I wish they were all in one system.

euroderf 3y ago

I find that pulling three items from the pantry in the morning - without investing huge mental effort - seems to work.

jodrellblank 3y ago

With Spaced Repetition memory tools, people add everything they want to remember, then skip some days of reviewing, and then there are mountains of entries "the system wants me to review". The system is only reflecting the ongoing effort cost of keeping that many facts in memory. Review them, or risk forgetting them, is the choice. TODO lists have way more than you can do because you put that much in them. That doesn't sound like a problem with to-do lists, anymore than "I bought more books than I can read" is a problem with books; it sounds victim-blamey but it's not books' fault that you bought them. Avoiding a todo list lets you forget about some things and thus not do them without having to explicitly make the decision to not do them. That feels better, easier, but I'm not sure it actually is better - shouldn't making a conscious decision what to prioritise and what to forget lead to a better outcome?

travisjungroth 3y ago
> it sounds victim-blamey but it's not books' fault that you bought them. It sounds that way because you are putting the responsibility in the wrong place. To-do list apps advertise certain benefits. If huge swaths of people don’t actually get the benefit, that’s the to-do list failing to live up to its promise, at least for that group. If some app offered to help you organize your books and the end result was people ending up with tons of books, yeah you can kinda blame the app.
- jodrellblank 3y ago
  The benefits they advertise are that they won't forget your to-do list, and that they offer tools to help you organise (sort, filter, tag, assign priorities) to your entries - not that they will help you do the tasks or that they will tell you what things you shouldn't be doing and help you reject them, right?
  - travisjungroth 3y ago
    No, thats not really right. Go look at some Todo app websites and you’ll see lots of examples that contradict what you’re saying. From Todoist: > Become focused, organized, and calm with Todoist. The world’s #1 task manager and to-do list app. > Reach that mental clarity you’ve been longing for. From Things: > Things is the award-winning personal task manager that helps you plan your day, manage your projects, and make real progress toward your goals. > Get Things, Get Done. Whatever it is you want to accomplish in life, Things can help you get there
    - jodrellblank 3y ago
      I don't see those as contradictions; it's a common idea to write things down so that you can get them out of your head and stop thinking about them, stop stressing about remembering all the things you have to do today; that can be the 'calm' and 'mental clarity' Todoist is advertising. Become focused, organized, plan your day, manage your projects are basic offerings of any organizing tools. It's also an idea[1] that writing down your goals crystallises them and helps you actually do them. Note that they don't say "Todoist helps you do more than you could without it", or "Things will tell you what to accomplish in life" or "Things can get there for you" or "Todoist helps reach calm by forcing you to do less overall". It's possible to 'reach mental clarity' by dropping all your todos on the floor and going to live as a monk; mental clarity doesn't mean "do everything you want to do". It would be different if they were advertising something like "By using Todoist you will do 150 todo items per day, 50% more than other todo lists, or your money back", or "Things lets you double the amount of things you can accomplish in life". > "If some app offered to help you organize your books and the end result was people ending up with tons of books, yeah you can kinda blame the app." You can't; if you have a huge pile of books, and then you start using the Dewey Decimal System to organize them, is it now the Dewey Decimal system's fault that you bought so many books before you started using it? Is it the DDS' fault if you decide that you can have more books, now they're organized, even though you already knew you had too many to read before starting to use it and you misthought the problem was organization rather than quantity? [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/markmurphy/2018/04/15/neuroscience-explains-why-you-need-to-write-down-your-goals-if-you-actually-want-to-achieve-them/?sh=37f3c6717905 https://www.forbes.com/sites/markmurphy/2018/04/15/neuroscie...

nicbou 3y ago

This has worked well for me. It’s a bit like a daily backlog. It forces me to consider what is currently important.

dgb23 3y ago

Call your "backlog" column "ideas". Move "ideas" into "todos" with intent. And by the way this: > ever-growing list of tasks that you can never finish creates stress and inhibits your motivation Is an actual thing. Our brain gets overloaded that way while it keeps track of tasks in the background, requiring energy and memory. Writing stuff down helps, but it's still _there_. You actually have to cross it out or clearly discriminate ideas and actual tasks you want to do and can do within a reasonable time frame.

flir 3y ago
I settled on something very similar. I split between tasks and goals, and I subdivide tasks into to-do and backlog. For example, "Implement a TSP solver in JS" is a task. "Learn JS" is a goal. I'm very ok with the backlog being where good ideas go to die, and I'm very ok with sub-tasks (indented list).

hesk 3y ago

I use this method and I want to highlight another advantage, besides shortening a huge list into a small, manageable amount. It allows you to pick the tasks for the day based on the current context. How much time do I have in the day (e.g., do I have a lot of meetings scheduled or not), what are the most important/urgent tasks at the moment, what is my energy level, and so on.

ianburrell 3y ago

I like to separate out projects from tasks. For me, project is something that requires multiple tasks to complete. I have Trello boards for tracking projects in various areas of life. I will only put tasks in todo list for projects that I'm doing. I will keep checklist of tasks that need to be done for each projects if want to work out in advance. This system is great for tracking house projects since there is always a large number of them. It is also good for planning things for the future, I have lists of plants to get in the fall. The problem I have with this system is that I have enough regular tasks that don't pick up many projects. I also don't run the process for syncing tasks frequently enough. I wish they were all in one system.