Are todo lists ruining our lives?

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When I was a kid growing up in the 80s — before digital everything — I was introduced to the concept that certain personality types were “list makers.” Those people made to-do lists, packing lists, lists of their favorite songs, probably bucket lists, lists, lists, and more lists. I took solace in this discovery because, and I confess here with the solemnity of someone in a 12-step program, I am a list maker. I have lists of and for everything.

Long before digital planners came into being, and probably before acquiring my first Day Timer, I would get up in the morning and make a list of things that I had to do, wanted to do, and would like to do. For me, it helped bring peace and order. Rather than having a day of infinite possibilities, I had made specific decisions of what I was going invest my time doing. Mostly, I stuck to working on the things on those lists.

Todo lists don’t ruin our lives. For some of us, they help make life better and more manageable. I could more easily stop breathing air than I could stop making lists. Come to my office on some random day of the week and you may find scraps of notes. I bet 90% of those notes are lists of various types. Look through my Apple Notes and surely you will find a ton of lists. Shoot, even the notes in my Bible (print and software) are frequently lists.

Digital todo lists, for me, are just a better tool to manage my lists (sometimes paper or 3x5 cards have an edge and I use them).

I don’t know if lists are for everybody. But, as for me, lists are not ruining my life. They are a vital part of what brings order, peace, accomplishment, and joy.

P.S. Doubtless, to-do lists can get out of control if you’re not careful, and there are numerous best practices to employ to make sure you use them effectively.

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I do use lists, to do and otherwise all the time.

But I am also haunted by the spector of my late father, who made edndliess lists, but rarely moved beyond the list. He was ensnared by the action of making the list.

My older brother is very like him; I suspect that both are actually undiagnosed ADHD, and what should be a tool has actually not been implemented in a helpful way.

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I do both analogue and digital but I have a tendency to find written to-dos more memorable. I also tend to look at the far more often and mark them when I’m done.

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Probably clear from my previous comment that I am no fan of to-do lists. However, I am a fan of checklists especially those discussed in Atul Gwanda’s book The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right with the two prime exemplars being operating theatres and airline cockpits. Although over-dependence on checklists in the latter has been the cause of fatal accidents.

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This thread reminds me of the scene where Liam Neeson is sitting in Ricky Gervais office with Stephen Merchant. They’re trying to crack jokes with him and lighten the atmosphere but Liam remains dead serious throughout. He says he was hired to play Oskar Schindler because he “likes to make lists”. Stephen and Ricky erupt with laughter thinking it’s a joke but it’s anything but funny to Liam.

Seeing a bunch of “I like to make lists” posts must have jogged my memory. :laughing:

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Is that in Extras?

20 Characters

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I believe this is the clip.

“Let’s do some…improvisational comedy…now”.

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As with so many issues, there are so many opportunities to compare apples and oranges. I started using online todo list about 10 years ago (right around the time i (partially) retired, ironically). Before that it was mostly ad hoc on paper.

It changed my life. I don’t BIG things on the todo list (like “write a book”). That’s a completely different thing. But ALL of the little things are out of my head. For example I run a committee with a once a month meeting. One week before the meeting I have to send out a reminder. Four days before the meeting I have to send out a prelim agenda and the day of I have to send out the final agenda. These are all things that need to be done for a future event. I would go crazy trying to remember to do those things. I would continually be saying “when is the next meeting—do i need to send something out?”. But instead I put those three things into Todoist immediately when we set the next meeting date. The only time I have screwed up is when I forgot to put them into Todoist.

There are a million things like that. Download credit card statements. Clean filters in whatever. Send weekly status report to my client. And on.

All of these are out of my head letting worry about the real stuff like “write a book (which, alas, i am no doing).

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Without a todo list, I would get (and do get) nothing done. Literally nothing. I fall into a sort of depressive state where everything is meaningless and I have no clarity on what to do with our time.

Now clearly something is wrong with me, and I’m not saying I’m normal — but the todo list certainly isn’t ruining my life! :rofl:

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There must be a reason that, on glancing across the forum, my eye still nearly corrects:

ruining our lives
running our lives

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reads the thread title
clicks into thread just to type “YES”
exits thread

:joy: More seriously though, lists are great, I am from a family of list makers. It’s the tasks on the lists that are the problem.

I’ve not read the articles - they’ve gone on to my list of articles to read…

What I’ve realised, as a British-educated millennial (other generations/countries may have different experiences), is that school really didn’t prepare me for adulthood. I went to an academically demanding school, but we had a maximum limit on how much homework we could be given each day (no more than 3 hours). This meant lists worked, since unless you got stuck the tasks fit the available time. Real life isn’t like that. My work task list would take weeks to complete, and new tasks would still come in during that time. And that’s before you consider how much admin life seems to require :joy: Speaking of which, I best remember to look at my list later and put my bin out tonight…

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https://www.wired.com/story/to-do-apps-failed-productivity-tools/

Wired magazine has an interesting article about the friction between human nature and to do lists.

Painful.

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From the Wired article:

People were lousy at finishing their to-dos.

I keep to-do lists, not to get every task done that occurs to me, but to no longer feel that I’ve forgotten something. I’m not a slave to my to-do list.

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This is a key point and reflects how I use to-do lists as well. For example I’d forget to take out the composting & trash every week if it wasn’t a recurring task in reminders.

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Interesting article and a good reminder that we only have so many “time blocks” left to schedule in our lifetime… and I’m happy to know I’m not alone experiencing existential dread when my latest to-do app turns into a “List of Shame” LOL - thanks for sharing!

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STOP THAT! Just repeat quietly to yourself, There is nothing shameful about ignoring or crossing off an uncompleted to-do item. :slightly_smiling_face:

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You can append the todo item with a short remark, why you marked it as done, e.g. “canceled, the idea isn’t that great”, “canceled, the costs are higher than I thought”, “finished half of it, that’s enough” etc etc pp

That way you differentiate between “done” and “done” and get closure.

After all, there are two types of people, those that crave closure and those…

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A key part of any productivity task is acknowledging that there is only so much you can do, also that just because you write something down, it doesn’t mean you have to do it.

If it’s no longer applicable, strike it through and move on.

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Any World Cup cricket fans here? No? Okay … :wink:

I find Mark Forster’s approach to Time Management and lists quite refreshing. He has a number here. What I specifically like is his annual “Lenten Challenge” where you pick a format and stick with it for 40 days. For me it achieves two things:

  1. commit to a specific process
  2. while committing, things tend to stay in “control” (loose term)

I have a couple of his books and find them enabling because he discusses process more than app and there is way less structure (which some may not like) and just getting on with things.

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Love this.

I have gone from complex task management systems to effectively a self managed list.

I decide what I’m going to do each day - not an algorithm although - of course - external factors
can affect MY priorities. … It’s amazing how often something seemed important two weeks ago and is now low priority or even irrelevant.

I used to be at the beck and call of a task management system which auto allocated tasks based on priorities, due dates and workload. I hated it, and it didn’t get the best out of me, failing to take into account my other responsibilities on a day and my energy levels.

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