6 ms·

Do not under any circumstances keep to-do lists or use to-do apps. If you can't remember the most important things you need to do every day, you should wo

by columbo 14y ago

Do not under any circumstances keep to-do lists or use to-do apps. If you can't remember the most important things you need to do every day, you should work on that. And if you can't remember something you "need" to do, it's probably not worth doing in the first place. Wow. This is terrible advice. Sure it may work for some people who only have a small handful of tasks but for others who have a set of hectic projects (fix this, rewrite that, call her, email him) or even life goals (write a book, make a video game, learn to speak russian, teach daughter how to fight a bear) todo lists and goalsetting is incredibly important.

mootothemax 14y ago
Very much agreed with you, it's astoundingly bad advice. If you have a day job and work on stuff in your spare time, I don't see how you'll end up in a better place by NOT making task lists.
- stephengillie 14y ago
  Because you can work on those side projects instead of spending time managing task lists.
  - npsimons 14y ago
    If you're spending significant time managing task lists, your todo system sucks, and yeah, you're probably better off tossing it out. For some of us who have problems focusing or remembering (and would otherwise waste that time), a todo list is a life saver, and if you really need it, you find or make one that works for you, and works quickly.
  - RegEx 14y ago
    You're greatly overestimating the time it takes to interact with a good task management app.
    - stephengillie 14y ago
      Some of the other posters in this thread are spending almost an hour per day just writing and revising their todo lists before actually doing anything. That's been my experience too.
      - RegEx 14y ago
        Ah. Well perhaps the todo list at that point is just another means of procrastination; you feel productive because you're playing with productivity software. A todo list won't motivate you, but it can help keep motivated people organized.
  - kamaal 14y ago
    You will anyway, either in your brain on paper. Except that on paper you are more organized, you can see far and accomplish a lot with little stress.
    - stephengillie 14y ago
      I get too involved in the current project to focus on other projects. Anxiety used to cause a nagging feeling in the back of my head, that I'm forgetting a lot of other things I need to do. Over the years I've used OCD and depression to beat it back. I watched my dad keep lists and lose lists and forget to read lists, when I was young. He still got the important things done (make lunch for work, fix car, goto bank, etc), because he could keep that in his head, but he had piles of side projects he couldn't work on because they weren't on the latest todo list.
- smacktoward 14y ago
  Because task lists can become a task in and of themselves. It's easy to fall into the trap of constantly "optimizing" (aka bikeshedding: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_Law_of_Triviality http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_Law_of_Triviality) the way you manage your to-do list. You try all sorts of different ways to note and sort your tasks, different task list management applications, and so forth, in search of The Perfect Task List. And then later on you look up and realize you lost more time managing your task list than you saved by having it in the first place.
  - darkarmani 14y ago
    > Because task lists can become a task in and of themselves. Pre-optimization. If they become a problem, you can fix them.
pan69 14y ago
I'm turning 40 in 10 days and never in my life have I had a dairy or an a to-do list of some kind. I might scribble down a phone number once in a while on a piece of paper, but I think that's about it. I pretty much live by the same philosophy, if I can't remember it, it probably wasn't important (to me). It might be that the "to me" is the key here. :) Edit: Oh, forgot to mention, I run a pretty hectic web development business.
- npsimons 14y ago
  Good for you! But some of us mere mortals who work for other people and have ADD sometimes need a little something to help keep us on track.
  - pan69 14y ago
    Oh. I'm just saying. Some people don't need or want a to-do list. However, I fully agree, Jeff Atwood "giving advice" not to use a to-do list is stupid. It might work for him, doesn't mean it works for other people. My opinion would be that it would either come natural to use a to-do list or not.
- bbwharris 14y ago
  I agree. If you can't remember, it's not a priority for you and that's okay. I operate the same way and have "hectic" schedules too.
  - sciurus 14y ago
    It's probably not okay if that thing you don't remember is a priority for your customers and/or your boss.
  - darkarmani 14y ago
    > I agree. If you can't remember, it's not a priority for you and that's okay. Tell that to airline pilots.
- kamaal 14y ago
  >> I run a pretty hectic web development business. and >>I'm turning 40 in 10 days and never in my life have I had a dairy or an a to-do list of some kind. I really feel sad you underwent so much pain for no reason, while you could have easily avoided it. The point is pain when experienced for a long term becomes normal and doesn't feel like pain anymore. Looks like that is what happened in your case.
crazygringo 14y ago
I agree. I've gone through times in my life where I didn't have a lot of direct responsibilities, and my job was more idea-oriented. And I discovered that not having an agenda or to-do lists was incredibly liberating. But I've also gone through phases of my life where I would have been completely lost without a to-do list, because there are 12 different things to take care of tomorrow, and 8 the day after, etc., and they're non-negotiable, and my memory just isn't that good. If you find yourself in a position in life where you can get away with not having to-do lists, that's fantastic, but to present this as blanket "do not under any circumstances" advice is just... idiotic.
- stephengillie 14y ago
  If my list gets too long for me to hold it all in my head, I'm too busy. Whenever I make a todo list, I forget it and find it weeks later with some items completed and the rest have turned unimportant. How many hectic projects do you (or GP) have going at once? If you have too many to remember everything you have to do for each one, either you're too busy or they're not that urgent. If a life goal (like learning Korean or Javascript or welding) isn't important enough to re-enter your head every so often (weekly, monthly, etc), then it's not important to your life, and tracking it is just wasting your time. I used to use my inbox as my to-do list. After looking at month-old emails, I realized I didn't actually want to do/handle those things, so I archived the emails. Now, I'll write a todo list to sort everything out on paper, relax, then delete it. I'm as productive as I've ever been.
  - maaku 14y ago
    What you describe is an inefficient system. Learning Korean, Javascript, or welding are projects, not next-actions/todos. I'd keep that on a project list I review as often or inoften as I need to, but usually once a week. Looking for a Korean tutor, completing that Javascript tutorial, or checking to see if there are welding lessons at the local community college are proper next actions that could be on a todo list. I suggest looking into a quality system like Getting Things Done. You're on track with some suggestions (using pen and paper to dump tasks and clear up your mind, for example), but could use some refinement.
btilly 14y ago
See http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4614676 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4614676 for previous discussion of a blog post by Jeff on this exact topic.
- npsimons 14y ago
  A quote from that previous article I found very apt: Jeff telling me I should stop using todo lists is like an [alcoholic] telling me to stop drinking. No, you should stop drinking, I should drink however much I like because I don't have a problem with it. Different strokes for different folks. It's also funny how Atwood comes in and comments that, hey todo lists suck, but calendars with deadlines and research notebooks (catches for "someday" ideas) are okay. My next question, of course, is does he check his calendar every morning to see what to work on next ;)
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
dustincoates 14y ago
It's great advice for people who have the autonomy to set their own to-do lists. If you have other people you're working for, it's difficult to say, "I couldn't remember to do it so I don't think it was worth doing." It reminds me a lot of Mark Cuban's advice of never having a set schedule or meeting times. Great idea in theory and when you get to Atwood's or Cuban's stature it's a lot more implementable.
frou_dh 14y ago
Atwood seems to have a penchant for stating half-baked opinions very forcefully. Todo systems are not just for important things. They're also for mundane things. A few examples from my own: - Get the share of that £xxx bill from a housemate. - Every Tuesday and Friday: Move trash kerbside. - At least weekly: Process any unopened postal mail I have sitting around. - At least monthly: Check my online bank and scan for any unexpected transactions. Why on earth shouldn't things like these be stored and optionally teed up by a system?
- sadga 14y ago
  > - Every Tuesday and Friday: Move trash kerbside. Oh crap, I forgot to do this yesterday!
- jsdalton 14y ago
  The counterargument is that all of these tasks are better suited for a calendar rather than an open-ended to-do list.
  - frou_dh 14y ago
    If I'm managing tasks, I'd rather use a UI designed for managing tasks (whether they be scheduled/due or not). The point is that it's easy to dismiss the usefulness of todo systems if you characterise them as a manual-append-only-bucketlists. But unless you're Doing It Wrong, or using a terrible one, that's simply not the case.
  - kamaal 14y ago
    A calendar is basically a meta to-do list with reminders and deadlines. Most people using calendars for this purpose don't realize that they are actually using to-do lists.
- shanselman 14y ago
  "Strong opinions weakly held" he says: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2008/05/strong-opinions-weakly-held.html http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2008/05/strong-opinions-wea...
GimbalLock 14y ago
Between this and Atwood's "Don't learn to code", I can't find a redeeming characteristic of this guy. It seems like he gets his jollies by making people feel bad because they don't code like does or think like he does.
cgh 14y ago
Fully agree. Prioritised to-do lists changed my life. There's a helpful little book, "How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life" by Alan Lakein that lays it all out. Highly recommended, although it dates back to the '70s so some of the work examples used are, er, anachronistic.
prophetjohn 14y ago
As someone constantly context-switching between a job and academia, I can't imagine how I would get by without a todo list. Mine is just a plain text file that is always open in Sublime from a Dropbox folder, but without it, I wouldn't be able to keep straight when that program in operating systems is due or what I have to do for linear algebra when I've been pairing on new story development or database setup automation all day.
shanselman 14y ago
Ya, Jeff's a friend but this is insanity.
mangler 14y ago
"call her"??? Atwood never "calls her"! She calls Atwood! Hey and I don't mean in the Hollywood kind of way - Atwood Da Man!!!
donniezazen 14y ago
Will you forget to write a book if you don't have it in your todo list?
deepGem 14y ago
I think what he means to say is to fix the root cause of bad memory, as against using to-do lists. I tend to agree. According to the book - Moonwalking with Einstein, anyone's memory can be fixed. So there's that :).
PakG1 14y ago
There is a reason why pilot checklists has become an airline industry standard. In a lot of situations, checklists simply do work better than anything else. "Do not under any circumstances" is hyperbole that should not be written. Without that hyperbole, OP can at least get away with saying, "airline work and Jeff Atwood's work is an apples and oranges comparison". http://www.atchistory.org/History/checklst.htm http://www.atchistory.org/History/checklst.htm
nnq 14y ago
It's good advice if you are more of a MAKER (developer/engineer/inventor) and less of a MANAGER or LEADER (being a "software architect", "lead developer", or even just having a very complicated personal life that involves taking care of other people and solving other non-autonomous people's problems - like just having a bunch of needy kids - can turn you from a MAKER to a MANAGER even if your "job" is just to brilliantly code stuff up) I think there's a metric, some kind of sweetspot for (brain capacity e.g. working memory times "power to focus" times mental stability)/(things to manage times how unpredictable and risky the managed things can be), after which you need to use external "crutches for your mind" ...but it's entirely your choice if you choose to live in the zone where you can do everything with your mind or you need to expand beyond it (or you might just have a very chaotic mind to begin with and need the crutches for everything).
mjwalshe 14y ago
And some of us (especialy dyslexics) have poor short term memory.

by columbo 14y ago

mootothemax 14y ago

Very much agreed with you, it's astoundingly bad advice. If you have a day job and work on stuff in your spare time, I don't see how you'll end up in a better place by NOT making task lists.

stephengillie 14y ago
Because you can work on those side projects instead of spending time managing task lists.
- npsimons 14y ago
  If you're spending significant time managing task lists, your todo system sucks, and yeah, you're probably better off tossing it out. For some of us who have problems focusing or remembering (and would otherwise waste that time), a todo list is a life saver, and if you really need it, you find or make one that works for you, and works quickly.
- RegEx 14y ago
  You're greatly overestimating the time it takes to interact with a good task management app.
  - stephengillie 14y ago
    Some of the other posters in this thread are spending almost an hour per day just writing and revising their todo lists before actually doing anything. That's been my experience too.
    - RegEx 14y ago
      Ah. Well perhaps the todo list at that point is just another means of procrastination; you feel productive because you're playing with productivity software. A todo list won't motivate you, but it can help keep motivated people organized.
- kamaal 14y ago
  You will anyway, either in your brain on paper. Except that on paper you are more organized, you can see far and accomplish a lot with little stress.
  - stephengillie 14y ago
    I get too involved in the current project to focus on other projects. Anxiety used to cause a nagging feeling in the back of my head, that I'm forgetting a lot of other things I need to do. Over the years I've used OCD and depression to beat it back. I watched my dad keep lists and lose lists and forget to read lists, when I was young. He still got the important things done (make lunch for work, fix car, goto bank, etc), because he could keep that in his head, but he had piles of side projects he couldn't work on because they weren't on the latest todo list.
smacktoward 14y ago
Because task lists can become a task in and of themselves. It's easy to fall into the trap of constantly "optimizing" (aka bikeshedding: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_Law_of_Triviality http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_Law_of_Triviality) the way you manage your to-do list. You try all sorts of different ways to note and sort your tasks, different task list management applications, and so forth, in search of The Perfect Task List. And then later on you look up and realize you lost more time managing your task list than you saved by having it in the first place.
- darkarmani 14y ago
  > Because task lists can become a task in and of themselves. Pre-optimization. If they become a problem, you can fix them.

pan69 14y ago

I'm turning 40 in 10 days and never in my life have I had a dairy or an a to-do list of some kind. I might scribble down a phone number once in a while on a piece of paper, but I think that's about it. I pretty much live by the same philosophy, if I can't remember it, it probably wasn't important (to me). It might be that the "to me" is the key here. :) Edit: Oh, forgot to mention, I run a pretty hectic web development business.

npsimons 14y ago
Good for you! But some of us mere mortals who work for other people and have ADD sometimes need a little something to help keep us on track.
- pan69 14y ago
  Oh. I'm just saying. Some people don't need or want a to-do list. However, I fully agree, Jeff Atwood "giving advice" not to use a to-do list is stupid. It might work for him, doesn't mean it works for other people. My opinion would be that it would either come natural to use a to-do list or not.
bbwharris 14y ago
I agree. If you can't remember, it's not a priority for you and that's okay. I operate the same way and have "hectic" schedules too.
- sciurus 14y ago
  It's probably not okay if that thing you don't remember is a priority for your customers and/or your boss.
- darkarmani 14y ago
  > I agree. If you can't remember, it's not a priority for you and that's okay. Tell that to airline pilots.
kamaal 14y ago
>> I run a pretty hectic web development business. and >>I'm turning 40 in 10 days and never in my life have I had a dairy or an a to-do list of some kind. I really feel sad you underwent so much pain for no reason, while you could have easily avoided it. The point is pain when experienced for a long term becomes normal and doesn't feel like pain anymore. Looks like that is what happened in your case.

crazygringo 14y ago

I agree. I've gone through times in my life where I didn't have a lot of direct responsibilities, and my job was more idea-oriented. And I discovered that not having an agenda or to-do lists was incredibly liberating. But I've also gone through phases of my life where I would have been completely lost without a to-do list, because there are 12 different things to take care of tomorrow, and 8 the day after, etc., and they're non-negotiable, and my memory just isn't that good. If you find yourself in a position in life where you can get away with not having to-do lists, that's fantastic, but to present this as blanket "do not under any circumstances" advice is just... idiotic.

stephengillie 14y ago
If my list gets too long for me to hold it all in my head, I'm too busy. Whenever I make a todo list, I forget it and find it weeks later with some items completed and the rest have turned unimportant. How many hectic projects do you (or GP) have going at once? If you have too many to remember everything you have to do for each one, either you're too busy or they're not that urgent. If a life goal (like learning Korean or Javascript or welding) isn't important enough to re-enter your head every so often (weekly, monthly, etc), then it's not important to your life, and tracking it is just wasting your time. I used to use my inbox as my to-do list. After looking at month-old emails, I realized I didn't actually want to do/handle those things, so I archived the emails. Now, I'll write a todo list to sort everything out on paper, relax, then delete it. I'm as productive as I've ever been.
- maaku 14y ago
  What you describe is an inefficient system. Learning Korean, Javascript, or welding are projects, not next-actions/todos. I'd keep that on a project list I review as often or inoften as I need to, but usually once a week. Looking for a Korean tutor, completing that Javascript tutorial, or checking to see if there are welding lessons at the local community college are proper next actions that could be on a todo list. I suggest looking into a quality system like Getting Things Done. You're on track with some suggestions (using pen and paper to dump tasks and clear up your mind, for example), but could use some refinement.

btilly 14y ago

See http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4614676 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4614676 for previous discussion of a blog post by Jeff on this exact topic.

npsimons 14y ago
A quote from that previous article I found very apt: Jeff telling me I should stop using todo lists is like an [alcoholic] telling me to stop drinking. No, you should stop drinking, I should drink however much I like because I don't have a problem with it. Different strokes for different folks. It's also funny how Atwood comes in and comments that, hey todo lists suck, but calendars with deadlines and research notebooks (catches for "someday" ideas) are okay. My next question, of course, is does he check his calendar every morning to see what to work on next ;)

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

dustincoates 14y ago

It's great advice for people who have the autonomy to set their own to-do lists. If you have other people you're working for, it's difficult to say, "I couldn't remember to do it so I don't think it was worth doing." It reminds me a lot of Mark Cuban's advice of never having a set schedule or meeting times. Great idea in theory and when you get to Atwood's or Cuban's stature it's a lot more implementable.

frou_dh 14y ago

Atwood seems to have a penchant for stating half-baked opinions very forcefully. Todo systems are not just for important things. They're also for mundane things. A few examples from my own: - Get the share of that £xxx bill from a housemate. - Every Tuesday and Friday: Move trash kerbside. - At least weekly: Process any unopened postal mail I have sitting around. - At least monthly: Check my online bank and scan for any unexpected transactions. Why on earth shouldn't things like these be stored and optionally teed up by a system?

sadga 14y ago
> - Every Tuesday and Friday: Move trash kerbside. Oh crap, I forgot to do this yesterday!
jsdalton 14y ago
The counterargument is that all of these tasks are better suited for a calendar rather than an open-ended to-do list.
- frou_dh 14y ago
  If I'm managing tasks, I'd rather use a UI designed for managing tasks (whether they be scheduled/due or not). The point is that it's easy to dismiss the usefulness of todo systems if you characterise them as a manual-append-only-bucketlists. But unless you're Doing It Wrong, or using a terrible one, that's simply not the case.
- kamaal 14y ago
  A calendar is basically a meta to-do list with reminders and deadlines. Most people using calendars for this purpose don't realize that they are actually using to-do lists.
shanselman 14y ago
"Strong opinions weakly held" he says: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2008/05/strong-opinions-weakly-held.html http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2008/05/strong-opinions-wea...

GimbalLock 14y ago

Between this and Atwood's "Don't learn to code", I can't find a redeeming characteristic of this guy. It seems like he gets his jollies by making people feel bad because they don't code like does or think like he does.

cgh 14y ago

Fully agree. Prioritised to-do lists changed my life. There's a helpful little book, "How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life" by Alan Lakein that lays it all out. Highly recommended, although it dates back to the '70s so some of the work examples used are, er, anachronistic.

prophetjohn 14y ago

As someone constantly context-switching between a job and academia, I can't imagine how I would get by without a todo list. Mine is just a plain text file that is always open in Sublime from a Dropbox folder, but without it, I wouldn't be able to keep straight when that program in operating systems is due or what I have to do for linear algebra when I've been pairing on new story development or database setup automation all day.

shanselman 14y ago

Ya, Jeff's a friend but this is insanity.

mangler 14y ago

"call her"??? Atwood never "calls her"! She calls Atwood! Hey and I don't mean in the Hollywood kind of way - Atwood Da Man!!!

donniezazen 14y ago

Will you forget to write a book if you don't have it in your todo list?

deepGem 14y ago

I think what he means to say is to fix the root cause of bad memory, as against using to-do lists. I tend to agree. According to the book - Moonwalking with Einstein, anyone's memory can be fixed. So there's that :).

PakG1 14y ago

There is a reason why pilot checklists has become an airline industry standard. In a lot of situations, checklists simply do work better than anything else. "Do not under any circumstances" is hyperbole that should not be written. Without that hyperbole, OP can at least get away with saying, "airline work and Jeff Atwood's work is an apples and oranges comparison". http://www.atchistory.org/History/checklst.htm http://www.atchistory.org/History/checklst.htm

nnq 14y ago

It's good advice if you are more of a MAKER (developer/engineer/inventor) and less of a MANAGER or LEADER (being a "software architect", "lead developer", or even just having a very complicated personal life that involves taking care of other people and solving other non-autonomous people's problems - like just having a bunch of needy kids - can turn you from a MAKER to a MANAGER even if your "job" is just to brilliantly code stuff up) I think there's a metric, some kind of sweetspot for (brain capacity e.g. working memory times "power to focus" times mental stability)/(things to manage times how unpredictable and risky the managed things can be), after which you need to use external "crutches for your mind" ...but it's entirely your choice if you choose to live in the zone where you can do everything with your mind or you need to expand beyond it (or you might just have a very chaotic mind to begin with and need the crutches for everything).

mjwalshe 14y ago

And some of us (especialy dyslexics) have poor short term memory.