BenCrowder.net

I used to be a man of many todo lists. They were a badge of honor, a kind of nerd street cred that I took silly pride in. They were also out of control.

See, the whole point of a todo list is (a) getting it written down so it’s out of your head (freeing up mental RAM) and (b) reviewing the list so you actually do the stuff on it. With my twenty-plus lists, I was nailing the first part — oh, man, I was (and still am) so good at writing todo items down — but doing a spectacularly bad job at reviewing those lists. Things fell through the cracks. A growing sense of guilt would perch on my shoulders as I watched my piles of post-its and index cards grow, waiting for me to go through them.

And yes, there were piles. Post-its on my desks both at home and at work, index cards stashed in my Field Notes, and items all over the place on my computer — text files, Simplenote, Things, my Glider wiki, Todoist, you name it.

Then I learned a simple lesson: having a bazillion systems is almost as bad as not having any system at all.

And so I decided to consolidate (one system to rule them all, one system to find them, one system to bring them all and in the darkness bind them, that sort of thing). I took a hard look at what I needed out of a todo list and came up with this list:

• Quick item entry
• Available everywhere
• Sortable into projects
• A daily prioritized “I need to do this soon” list

I almost started writing my own system, then realized that Things for the iPhone already did everything on my list, and it had the advantage of already being written. :) So I committed. I gave up post-its cold turkey and abandoned all my other todo list stashes.

And it worked.

So, whenever I realize I need to do something, I add it to Things. Each day I decide what I want to do that day and put those items on the “today” list, placing them in the order I’d like to do them in. And then I do them. It’s that simple.

What I’ve learned: keep the “today” list short, and only let concrete verbs in as items (next actions, basically). When I follow those two simple rules, things don’t get out of control. When I don’t, I end up ignoring the list and it’s as good as useless.

So now I have a single home for my todo items, a warm, cozy place where I can actually give them the attention they deserve. Because there’s only one place to check, I remember to check it daily (usually many times a day). And todo items don’t fall through the cracks anymore. I’m happy.

(Postscript: I keep my work todo items completely separate, in Things for Mac. It’s nice, but I still much prefer Things for iPhone, though.)