I looked at my to do list today and realized that I only really plan to do, soon, the top three or four things. But the list is twenty or thirty items long. I need to be more honest about this.
The last time I had a "to do list" that really worked was when I had a Palm Pilot and I used it to keep track of remodeling a house. That was tidy. But in the real world of personal projects that seem important and then fade, or work projects that split and change focus, the linear to do list is messy.
It turns out that many of the tasks that have percolated downwards in my list are things I either can't do yet because of resources, or don't know how to do yet. If doing something is just a matter of my time and its priority coming together, then that's a real "to do". If something else is missing, then it doesn't belong on a "to do list".
So I think I'll calve off a "to think about" list. Then the things I can actually do won't get lost, and there's still a place for problems I haven't solved yet.
The last time I had a "to do list" that really worked was when I had a Palm Pilot and I used it to keep track of remodeling a house. That was tidy. But in the real world of personal projects that seem important and then fade, or work projects that split and change focus, the linear to do list is messy.
It turns out that many of the tasks that have percolated downwards in my list are things I either can't do yet because of resources, or don't know how to do yet. If doing something is just a matter of my time and its priority coming together, then that's a real "to do". If something else is missing, then it doesn't belong on a "to do list".
So I think I'll calve off a "to think about" list. Then the things I can actually do won't get lost, and there's still a place for problems I haven't solved yet.
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