> But he goes too far when he says that you should rely only on your brain's natural scheduling and short term memory. I mean, without a list, I can't even reme

> But he goes too far when he says that you should rely only on your brain's natural scheduling and short term memory. I mean, without a list, I can't even remember all the ingredients to make a birthday cake if I go to the store and that is my one and only task there. This is mainly what I do with my to-do lists. It's the odd-ball things that need to get done, but aren't pillars for future progress in the day and are out of my normal routine. To pick a random example, dropping off a letter in the mail bin. If I don't do it, I wouldn't know for the rest of the day because I'm never going to think, "Oh, I can't submit my progress report because that letter is still in my backpack!" And I don't do it often, so I'm used to ignoring the mail drop boxes anyway. Aside from my brain either randomly remembering or pulling on a long thread and re-deriving the need to mail a letter, there's no reason it would come to mind. But if I write it down on a centralized list and I repeatedly check said list, hopefully I'll catch it in time. For me, a to-do list is a set of things that need to be done that otherwise don't really fit into the normal flow of life, but still need to be done. And I have a bad memory to boot. I forget things that aren't written down all the time.