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.

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.

Agree with this so much. So many people view Getting Things Done as an infomercially, buzzwordy system when it's really just a set of "best practices" for everyday thinking. You can consider it and take away whatever works for you, and it's almost guaranteed that you'll find at least one thing that improves the way you think and work every day.

In contrast, Jeff's advice is the only way he found to work effectively and, he reasons, the only way anyone in a similar profession can work effectively. In reality, you may think that having next action lists and reviews are "productivity porn" and wasted time, while others may think that they help keep your mind clear and focused. You're going to do that work of evaluating priorities and deciding what to work on anyway, so there's no harm in being honest about it, isolating it, and minimizing the context switches. There's also no harm in going Jeff's route and doing "lazy evaluation" on that meta-work, only deciding when you need to. We all think and remember differently, so the debate will never truly end.

Personally, I'm in favor of advocating the best hacks and systems that people have found, preferably with grains of salt and low buzzword count, and letting people figure out what works best for them. As coders, we're used to the luxury of strong opinions and relatively hard evidence, but that's not something that will happen here.

> Whenever I make a todo list, I forget it and find it weeks later with some items completed and the rest have turned unimportant.

I think that's the big problem, your todo lists are too big and too long. Getting Things Done would be a good thing to research.

Here's an example. This Saturday I've got to wrap up a side project. I'm planning on making Saturday a "heavy burn" day, I've got a TON to do.

Saturday morning, from 7:30am - 8:00am I start planning (aka todo list). For the first half hour I'm going to casually wake up, sip coffee and write down everything I want to accomplish IN THAT DAY. It is going to look something like this:

      *  Complete Add/Remove Users
      *  Create permissions system
      *  Create groups-in-groups
      *  Complete external log-in
      *  Dinner w/wife
      *  Park w/daughter
      *  Read Robopocalypse, have beer, alone time
      *  Play with sprite map for game (fun-side-project)
      *  Final payment to credit card
      *  Call company about tree triming prices
      *  Talk to Frank about UI changes
      *  Call parents about Thanksgiving
      *  Dog needs to be walked

This todo list is useless after Saturday. It includes some things that are part of my larger goals (spending more time by myself without a computer and reading), some high priority items (do work) and some misc things that I know will probably interrupt my day (thanksgiving plans, dog walking). It also has rewards (Dinner w/wife and Park w/daughter). The end result is to shift this around so that I can spend more time doing the four things I WANT to do that day (park, dinner, dog, book) and as little time doing the rest.

So the first thing I'm probably going to do is re-organize this list and from 8:00-8:30 take care of all the 'under 15 minute tasks'

      *  Final payment to credit card
      *  Call company about tree triming prices
      *  Talk to Frank about UI changes
      *  Call parents about Thanksgiving

Boom. Now all my possible interruptions or 'things in the back of my mind' are done. Now I can lump together the big things.

First I do these three (from 9am-2pm)

      *  Complete Add/Remove Users
      *  Create permissions system
      *  Create groups-in-groups

Then I get to do these

      *  Park w/daughter
      *  Dog needs to be walked

Wohoo! I just gave myself a goal to reach by 2pm. After that I get this

      *  Complete external log-in
      *  Read Robopocalypse, have beer, alone time
      *  Dinner w/wife

And later that evening if I still feel up to it this

      *  Play with sprite map for game (fun-side-project)

Would I do this every day? No. However this is a great way for me to maximise the days that I plan to do a ton of work while still not feeling burnt out. It means I can say by Saturday evening that I 'spent time with my wife, daughter, dog' AND 'read a book by myself' AND 'got a shit-ton of work done'.

Of course. YMMV. I don't see the need to turn todo lists into a Tabs VS Spaces debate where one side is clearly in the wrong. That's what I feel Atwood is doing, and I don't agree with it.

How long does all of that list management take on Saturday morning?

Edit: In your first hour, you spend 45 minutes writing and rewriting task lists, then spend 15 minutes doing the first tasks on your list? Instead of spending all of that time writing and rewriting the list, why not just do those first tasks? You wouldn't have needed to write and rewrite them.

I believe todo lists give a person the sensation of accomplishment without actually requiring anything get done. It's productivity porn at its worst.

> 45 minutes writing and rewriting task lists, then spend 15 minutes ....

Meh. My post was a generalization and I don't see the benefit of spending too much time (ha) arguing over the high-level time slots I put on the EXAMPLE. Maybe it's 15 minutes, maybe it is 5 minutes... really that's not all that important.

For me they are quick to do and give me a set of goals and I finish my products faster because of it. At the same time I'm hitting my long term and family goals. It's a win for me.

They don't work for you. Don't use them.

His times were examples, not generalizations, but you spend that time anyway no matter what method you choose, even if your choice is no method at all. Inevitably you will have to think about desired outcomes, next-actions to reach those goals, and priorities. Why not externalize that thinking so you only have to do it once, and batch process it for efficiency?

When you choose “no system”, you're simply deciding to keep those things to do in your head, mentally reiterate and evaluate those lists, and reprioritize them throughout the day. It's true whether you think about it in those terms or not. How that could possibly be more efficient than using an external system (pen and paper) to capture that work is beyond me.

> "Whenever I make a todo list, I forget it and find it weeks later with some items completed and the rest have turned unimportant."

I empathize... However, with the introduction of Apple Reminders app on the Mac, and it's seamless, icloudy, automagical sync across iPhone / iPad, plus geofencing, I have found that a) my list is always "in my face" and b) it's actually proving quite effective... mostly because of "a".

This might sound like hyperbole, but I think Reminders on iOS/Mac (ok, and Evernote) is the single best thing to hit productivity in a long, long time.

Edit: I also found that having specific instructions plus context in the task item goes a long way in making lists actionable and not a chore... a la GTD.. for example: "@home - call AT&T at 555-1212 and increase broadband bandwidth" or... "@work - read rev C of PRD and send comments to Bob""

>>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.

That's like saying if you can't put every bit of information on the RAM of a computer you are doing it wrong.

The brain has programmable memory and RAM. You are talking about using that RAM like a hard disk.