My to-do list is a brain dump typically. I then have an area at the top of my todo list for stuff that has to get done - like jobs for clients or server maintenance, etc.
I also use a Notepad window on my desktop that I don't save that lists the things that I HAVE To get done TODAY. One of those items may say "Finish ONE item at the top of your todo list" and the others may mention various projects that have to get SOME attention at some point during the day - if even 5 minutes.
Every day that changes.
There's no realistic way to put my todos in a calendar. I'd spend half my day moving shit from one day to another. My first entry each day would be to update the calendar, and if I finish that task in time, do the stuff for that day.
I have to agree with a lot of his points about how Todo lists don't work, but I live by the fact that if I don't write it down, it WILL get forgotten, so if it's in a big todo list, so be it, at least I have a record of everything with notes attached to each item.
My method is like yours, basically. I use Notepad and good-old paper.
I'm leary about the idea of ever having a "living calendar". You've gone from the one dimensional todo list of "what" to a more complex decision tree with another dimension of "when" in addition to "what".
I do like the concept of a "living todo.txt". Sure it is unrealistic to be able to strike off every item on your ToDo, but every day brings re-evaluation. Approach your todo like Yoda - there is "only do, or do not".
It's true that, if you want a list of "what to do next" they are not good. But if you want a list of "what I have to do", unprioritised, subject to change, there's little can beat just writing it down with a checkbox next to it. It makes it real, gets it out of your head. Gives you a place to write little related notes about it.
If you use a todo list regularly, you'll be aware of the dangers of ignoring the bigger items, or choosing the fun items. Like I said, they work if you use them as a list of things to do, not as a list of how or when to do them.
Normally I keep my "must do" list in my head. Occasionally the list gets too big and I can't remember it all, I write it all out in TextEdit and leave it open and delete lines as I finish items until the list is empty. I only do this for important items; (i.e wishing your best friend happy birthday) If items are unimportant then its not too big a deal if I miss it today (i.e add X to your website), as long as its not deadlined of course.
Reminds me of the best calendar/to-do list software I ever used and have spent years trying to re-locate on another mobile os: DateBk6 (http://www.pimlicosoftware.com/datebk6.htm)
What did it do?
1) It let you make to do items, but assign a date to them too.
2) If you didn't assign a date to them, they'd stay in your general to-do list.
3) If there was a date for the to-do, the to-do item would show up 2 days in advance, right on my daily calendar (not in a to-dolist).
4) Each day, I could promote items from my to-do list for that day, onto the calendar at a specific time.
5) MOST IMPORTANT: If I didn't finish something, scheduled for a specific time, or a date, it would carry over each day that you don't get them done.
I've never been more productive in my life than the 2 years I used this app on Palm OS. The hotkey to a calendar means I pressed two buttons and I was directly in the calendar to enter a to do.
No bullshit swiping, tapping, home screen, start an app, click a plus. It was made to capture things quicker than writing them down. I've tried Android, Windows Mobile, iOS and this Palm App still kicks everything's ass.
Just thinking about it makes me want to buy a Palm Treo PDA and start kicking butt again.
I've been working on something in my spare time that is kind of in a similar vein (it's actually automatic scheduling of tasks based on defined limitations) and it's functional enough that I'm using it for keeping track of the random crap I have to take care of that isn't directly work related. I started making it because I am probably the most absent minded person around and need more than just a list of crap to do at some point. It's currently command-line only (built with infrastructure to end up hosted, which is where the current work is). If you're interested in giving it a look, drop me an email, I'd love to get some feedback from someone else using it as well.
I agree. I had a Palm III, then a Centro. The Centro HW was crap (bits and pieces were falling off after a few months), but the OS and apps were very usable and accessible. Hardware controls may not be sexy, but I could use the phone with damp hands, something I can't say for my Android device.
By "crufty", I mean that there wasn't a lot of shine or bling. Instead, Palm's engineers realized they were working with a very limited environment and kept things both simple and easy to use.
For a while I used Hiveminder and Google Calendar to do something similar. You can email tasks like "Take out the washing [due:today]" to your Hiveminder email and then they show up in your Google Calendar for that day. It was very low-friction.
The integration is just iCal-based, so it should work with most other calendar systems.
I also had Palm m515 and DateBk in the good ol' days. If you have iOS device, try Pocket Informant. This is what I use now and I think it covers most, if not all, of your requirements and syncs with toodledo and google calendar too!
I have to admit though, I'm kind of scared, because it appears to have the same level of detail that DateBk did.
I purchased the new version of DateBk called Pimlical for Android and tried it out today. Not quite there but definitely a possibility. Since I'm on iOS I'll try it out.
If this works, I can't begin to put in words how indebted I'll be fore the reco
Tried it, not quite what I need. It's super polished and nice.
My problem is I juggle about 10 active projects for customers where I should be working on maybe 2-3 and that's been my norm for 10+ years, plus my own projects.
DateBk had the chutzpah to keep up and keep me pointed in the right direction.
This post should really be titled 'How Not To Create a To-Do List'
I'm a firm believer in the GTD (Getting Things Done) school of thought, which addresses many, if not all, of these concerns .
Paradox of choice: You should never have a choice of when to do items. Instead, pick a time every day/week to organize your to-do list and figure out when things should be done, and in what order. This should be separate from the time that you're doing tasks. So when you reference your to-do list, the choice is always simple: 'Can I do the next item on the list right now or not?'. (In practice you bend this rule slightly - but only by a little bit... a lot less than most people think).
Heterogeneous complexity: See above. Also, write down time estimates for each task and time yourself.
Heterogenous Priority: To-do list items should be on your calendar. A calendar is a to-do list, and a to-do list is a calendar. If your two are separate, you'r doing it wrong (according to GTD). And if it's on your to-do list, it should be done today or not at all. If you didn't get to it, before immediately bumping it to tomorrow, ask yourself whether it really needs to be done, and whether it actually fits with your long-term goals.
Lack of context: GTD specifically recommends partitioning tasks by context.
Lack of commitment devices: Having the list pre-sorted (ie, sorted at a time separate from when you're actually 'doing work') addresses this somewhat. It's not a cure-all, but honestly, if you're having trouble committing yourself to do the tasks as you prioritized them last night, I can't see how you'd be any better off with no structured list guiding you.
As for that last element: Yes, you do need to learn how to say 'no', but if you say 'no' based on a careful, logical evaluation of your to-do list at a time when you're not doing work, you'll be making a much wiser judgement than if you say 'no' because you're feeling overwhelmed by all the things that you're keeping in your head.
"A calendar is a to-do list, and a to-do list is a calendar." Well, no, a calendar is an absolutely-have-to-do-at-that-specific-time list. I don't see how you could've gotten that idea from GTD, because David Allen recommends not using your calendar for todos that you'd like to have done today, but don't need to have done today. Conflating calendar and to do list will quickly lead to what dkarl calls the "Do this now or you're a bad person" phenomenon, and lead you to stop using todo lists altogether because they're so depressing.
The biggest win of todo lists for me (I use the GTD-esque Things) has been that it gives me some assurance that I've got everything that I have to do or want to do (even someday/maybe projects) written down and in one place, so it doesn't soak up cognitive energy throughout the day that would be better spent just doing things.
To-do lists do work. What the author lacks is a today list.
The purpose of the to-do list is to keep track of everything you have to do for the rest of your life. You should not be working off of it everyday or, as the author notes, it will overwhelm/paralyze you.
The purpose of the today list is to focus on one day at a time. A today list is a subset of the to-do list, the items you need to think about that day.
This simple distinction goes a long way. With a today list, you can actually get through your day, and feel good when the list is done.
I have tried several different software solutions, including writing my own web apps, but I always give them up.
This is the only solution that has worked in the long run for me: a simple text file. Each day I start a new list of items by putting today's date at the top of the file. Only things I can finish that day are added. The next day, if I didn't finish something and still consider it important, it's copied to that day.
I can relate to your problem very much. I've also tried multiple software and finally I have come back to use notepad on Windows. I have done a small setup to make my todo list simple and accessible:
1. Press f5 to get date time stamp
2. List down all your task without numbers one below the other in the beginning of the day or as the tasks get assigned to you.
3. As you complete each task write DONE in front of it.
4. At the end of the day group all the tasks with DONE if front of them below the date you completed, pushing the rest of task below
5. Come back next day to your task list and add an empty line. The tasks without DONE are still pending, follow from step 1.
How to make your todo list accessible on a Windows machine:
1. Created a "TODO" directory and add a text file call it todo.txt
2. Create a shortcut of the file, rename it to "todo" and cut-copy-paste the shortcut to C:\windows\system32
3. Now press "Windows key + R" and type "todo" in the command window. This will open your list.
I have been using the list for over 6 months now and this is how it looks:
9:39 AM 1/16/2012
DONE ESA Request retrieve the lost records
DONE Update the email notification when esa request status changes
9:04 AM 1/17/2012
DONE Follow up with CA about MS Project installation.
10:23 AM 1/19/2012
DONE Site Usage Report 1. Change Column order 2. Sort By 3. Relative Path
You can assign a unique shortcut key directly within a shortcut's 'Properties' if desired (either this or just hit the Windows key and start typing to let Windows Vista+ search for it); in an everything's-working-perfectly world the text file and/or the shortcut can be anywhere. Anything unnecessary in the system folders tends to be bad news.
I have a 'shortcuts' directory under my personal directory, and have added it to my PATH variable. I put various things in there - links to apps, documents, even the shortcut directory itself.
One trick with autocomplete - if you edit the Internet Explorer options -> Use Inline Autocomplete it'll auto-complete on Win-R, so you'll usually just type (using your example) 'to' and [enter] (after it's linked the shortcut to the text the first time).
Similar. I generally use a notepad (hardcopy) and some sort of textfile or email based system.
Notepad: date at the top of the page, things to do transferred from yesterday plus new items as they go.
Text files: I've created a number of systems which operate based on timestamped files living in a directory which I scan regularly. And email folder can also be used (the metadata's useful, but not entirely appropriate). Otherwise, inserting the date/time via a script and opening the file is pretty straightforward. Doing this one a daily basis (date +%Y%m%d), and including yesterday or most-recent file as "old todo") might be a reasonable way of working. Ultimately it's a highly flexibly, lightly structured system.
Agreed, I usually have a text file open with Need to get done & Would like to get done's for the day. The list is filled with very everyday tasks that need to get done.
1. Tierney is a journalist. (Neither Wikipedia nor his nytimes.com bio seem to specify what his degree is in.)
2. Though this was not its intent, Markovitz's article can be taken as a warning about particular failure modes of to-do lists rather than an unequivocal critique of them.
I agree with your point, though.
(Edit: Maybe you were thinking of Dianne M. Tice.)
I forget where I heard this routine (Lifestyle Business Podcast maybe?), but I've found it very helpful. It goes something like this:
-Write to-do items on a post-it note
-Scratch them off as you accomplish them
-When the majority of the post-it is scratched, start a new note, beginning with the few items that did not get finished from the last post-it
-Evaluate the items that you didn't accomplish from the last post-it. How many times have you copied them from one post-it to another? If more than twice, it is either not important or you are seriously procrastinating. Do it, outsource it or just delete it and move on.
I can agree with Markovitz's point that todo lists are not the best productivity boosters available, but I don't really agree with his conclusion that putting everything in your calendar is an improvement.
Some points:
1. A todo list is better than nothing. It may not make you a productivity god, but it will keep you conscious of what you have to do for the given period (day, week, month, whatever).
2. Your calendar likely isn't set up to function as comprehensive task-management software. I use outlook at my office, and sure it has some task-list features, but they're woefully lacking in features. I posit that doing your todo list in outlook is of no benefit over doing your todo list in notepad. To use the language of the article, there's still the problems of "heterogeneous complexity", "lack of context", and no "commitment device". Sure it gives you a better idea of priority (e.g. my calendar says I have to do this right now) and how much time a task MIGHT take, but I can ignore outlook popups just as easily as I can my notepad todo list. And trust me, I have.
Using a calendar to schedule your work doesn't solve the underlying problems that cause most people's productivity to suffer: motivation and distraction. If my motivation to complete a task is low, having it on a todo list vs a calendar (or even in comprehensive task-management software) makes no difference--I still don't want to do it, and I can and will still be distracted by crises, email, and the internet in general.
I actually have given thought to writing an app that works along the same lines. A shared planner that someones and their groups can use. Take for example a household, everyone in the household can enter tasks, either their own or group tasks. When they do, they place a priority on them and a estimated time to complete. Tasks can have subtasks, this way a group of tasks can be rolled up into a task project. As well, scheduled tasks can be entered into it, that have very specific time requirements. Such as go to the doctor at X time/date. From there they system can generate a calendar of tasks that are to be completed. The user can then mark a task as completed or not, if it is not then the task list is recalculated based on priority and schedule tasks. I saw the same issue as the author, tasks have to transfer to the calendar, if they don't they get skipped. The thing that a system like this would do is show the aging of a task is being procrastinated on.
The other idea that I had was to have a checkbox on every task that asked if someone could be hired to do a task. If the answer is yes and at a certain aging point, the app would ask if they want to solicit bids on the task, the app would then place the task in a market place where people could bid to perform the work of the task. This way people could hire to complete the task once they realize that it has languished in their queue.
I posted a comment there, but I thought I'd bring it here as well.
His title should be "To-do-lists-without-context-and-forced-prioritization don't work"? It's clear it's not living by the calendar that solves everything, it's the proper elimination of unnecessary tasks and doing the things that are important first. I think the best part is the one sentence that said "whether or not you can or should (say yes) to a project". That's the hard part. That's the part I think we all need to learn, and doing that first is a priority over changing how you manage your lists.
I've seen too many managers at big companies who live by the calendar. It's obvious. They always say, "let me check my calendar first". Is this how you should be managing your priority and time? Shouldn't your decision to do anything be on the importance and urgency of your tasks? (You can always delay the less important tasks).
I think this is a failure in most time management strategy. Anyways, I'm a developer of Priority Matrix (www.appfluence.com), which is about managing priority, rather than time, and I'm bias against the calendar as a pure way to manage anything. I think it's a hard problem to solve, and I do spend half by time writing lists, and half my time determining what's critical.
I created http://goalstacker.com to address this problem. It's not the list that kills you, its the list you can never finish that kills you. In order to be productive each day, its nice to have a small set of obtainable goals that you can actually finish. This list need to take into account how much time you have and how much time it takes to complete these tasks.
I think the author's method is pretty close, the only problem with a calendar is that if you don't finish the task then one of two things usually happen:
1. You forget about it and it fades away never to be completed.
2. You have to keep moving it to a different day until you complete it.
I agree, to-do lists don't work, and the proposed agenda thing won't work either (not for me at least). I am hooked with GTD (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Getting_Things_Done) and use http://activeinboxhq.com/ with gmail. It sounds like an advertisement, but this method really works for me and gives me control over my workflow (100s of emails per day).
I think what the author is trying to say is two things:
1) It's a bad idea to have a "Do this now or you're a bad person" list. I have to admit I've tried that many times, and it never had the effect I hoped for. It's also bad to keep an "ARRRRGH I WILL DO THIS I ABSOLUTELY WILL I COMMIT MY LIFE TO THIS" list, because at some point you fail to live up to the title, and then you just feel silly. I learned that through bitter experience.
2) TODO lists don't solve all the problems that might prevent you from doing the things on your list. To me, saying TODO lists don't "work" for this reason is a little bit like saying that taking a GPS and a first aid kit when you go backpacking doesn't "work" at preventing you from dying in the woods. I mean, how much can you expect? The Chinese general Han Xin used geography as a commitment device: he positioned his soldiers with their backs to a river so they couldn't run away from the enemy. Oh, wow, I guess you can expect a lot. Hmmm... maybe Perl has a command for threatening the user with death. Actually, I'd be amazed if it didn't. It's probably one of those default behaviors I'm always suppressing. I'll have to work out the details, but some kind of cron job approach seems promising.
Personally, I find that TODO lists work well as a small tool in the UNIX environment of life. It works well with other simple tools. For example, when I get in the car leaving work, I need to combine sex different kinds of information. There may be a seventh, but I can't remember what it was, so I'll just keep things moving.
1. I need to know how tired I am -- I basically just ask myself. If I'm too tired to answer, I take a nap in the parking lot and ask again when I wake up.
2. I need to know if I have any plans for the evening -- my calendar tells me that.
3. I need to know how good a case I can make for slacking off that evening, i.e., how much I have worked out, studied, read, and kicked ass at work that day and earlier that week -- for that I consult my memory. (I find it gives more desirable answers than other devices.)
4. I need to know what kind of things I can or need to get done. That's the TODO list! When I start to think my TODO list is so large and complex that it seems to need some kind of data model of its own, then that means I spend a few minutes a day reviewing it and tidying it up. It isn't wasted time. There are some things I write off and say, "Screw it, if I need to know this I'll look it up in some kind of information system." My TODO list is more important than that. I want to review what's on it on a regular basis, because that stuff needs to be in my brain. Maybe not completely and precisely, but at least a quick scan every day. When it gets too big to scan over quickly in five minutes and completely rework in twenty, then I know I'm making plans that are much too elaborate to ever correspond with reality. "Plans are useless; planning is essential." Your TODO list is a "plan" and is therefore constrained to be very modest in scope. Artifacts produced during "planning" should be immediately thrown away, since 1) they have already served their purpose, and 2) they should be recreated from scratch every time.
5. I need to know where the things on my calendar and my TODO list are so I can estimate driving distances and aggravation. For that, I use (in descending order of priority) my memory, map links in my calendar, Yelp, and Google search. I may also need to know what time various stores close (memory, Yelp, Google.)
6. I need to know what time it is. My phone tells me this.
Trying to keep all of these things in a single place seems both challenging and pointless. Also, there are also many subtleties.
For example, on some days, working out is slacking off, because I use it as a way to put off some coding I planned to do. Clearly, though, if I've been working out a lot, then I've earned the right to slack off, but not the right to slack off by working out, because that can lead to injury. This is a difficult problem to systematize. I have an elegant proof that an org mode solution exists, but constructing a concrete instance has defeated me thus far. At the moment, I'm trying to devise a solution using ruled and unruled index cards, paperclips, and color-coded rubber bands. Suggestions would be welcome.
On other days, I don't have the discipline to work out, so I'm lazy and write code instead. It even happens that I can't face the prospect of going to the gym like I planned, so I give myself the night off, and feeling freed from the boring, mundane obligations of middle class life, I find that what I really want to do is go to the gym.
(If you've followed along this far, then I hope you are starting to suspect that there is only one information processing device known to humankind that is intelligent, sophisticated, and irrational enough to model this behavior.)
Some days I just open a bottle of wine and order a pizza, and I earn this indulgence by going to bed at 10pm and getting up at six to study. That seems easy enough to plan out in a calendar, but what if my girlfriend calls me at 9:55pm and asks me what I'm doing? My calendar will be invalidated, and I will be too distracted to correct it. This situation also raises the question of what kind of list or other device I should use to decide what to do the morning after a night of drinking, because I usually wake up at 5am with not much intelligence or physical stamina but with infinite patience, which sometimes results in me cleaning my apartment for three hours, which is, like, three month's worth of cleaning for me. What would Han Xin make of that, eh?
Seriously -- not that any of the foregoing was false, because it's actually all true, except for the part about index cards -- life is too complicated to make anything but the roughest plans. This is as much true of buying groceries as it is of personal development as it is of software development. Motivation, discipline, and all such things cannot be handled by lists and calendars. They are handled by 1) recognizing what they are and reflecting on them, and 2) if necessary stopping, closing your eyes almost all the way, and calming yourself until you are able to reflect on them. At least, that's what works for me. And if that fails, I give myself the night off. If your decision-making is still consistently wrong even after you've made a strong effort to put yourself in a calm and open frame of mind, then it's because you're tired, sick, or mentally conflicted; tend to your physical and mental health first, and the rest will follow.
Or maybe you really, honestly, with your best heart, do not want to do what you are trying to make yourself do. „Der Mensch kann zwar tun, was er will, aber er kann nicht wollen, was er will.“ You can do what you want, but you can't want what you want. I.e., saying that you consistently fail to do what you want, even when you take care of your physical and mental health, is like saying select is broken. When you think you're having problems doing what you want, it's more likely that you don't really want what you wish you wanted. Not that you have to accept that -- I think it's overblown to say you can't want what you want. It's just another thing that requires work. And if you don't really want to want it, my advice is just to forget it, but you can go all Inception on your motivations if you want (... to want... to want....)
If it still matters, I keep three TODO lists. I have an Evernote note which contains (at the bottom) my long-term shopping and TODO list and (at the top) my daily shopping and TODO list. It's in Evernote so it's always just a few seconds away. Every day, I copy (NOT move) a few items (or none) from the long-term TODO to the daily TODO, taking into account various due dates, business hours, driving constraints, and how much time and energy I expect to have. (This is a pretty easy problem for the human brain to generate a reasonable solution for, and I defy anyone to produce a system or computer program that can do it.) Often the "daily" version of a long task says "start X" or "continue X" or "spend twenty minutes on X." If an item from the long-term list gets completed during the day, I remove it from the long-term list later. (I rarely forget to remove an item from the long-term list, and when I do, it's AWESOME.) My work TODOs are handled in org mode. They sit at the bottom of my work log, and I touch them every day, reworking and reordering them as necessary. They're much simpler to handle: I just do them in order, modulo dependencies. Yet even at work I make occasional concessions to enthusiasm or the lack thereof.
I also use a Notepad window on my desktop that I don't save that lists the things that I HAVE To get done TODAY. One of those items may say "Finish ONE item at the top of your todo list" and the others may mention various projects that have to get SOME attention at some point during the day - if even 5 minutes.
Every day that changes.
There's no realistic way to put my todos in a calendar. I'd spend half my day moving shit from one day to another. My first entry each day would be to update the calendar, and if I finish that task in time, do the stuff for that day.
I have to agree with a lot of his points about how Todo lists don't work, but I live by the fact that if I don't write it down, it WILL get forgotten, so if it's in a big todo list, so be it, at least I have a record of everything with notes attached to each item.