How Writing To-Do Lists Helps Your Brain • Hacker News Board

Re: How Writing To-Do Lists Helps Your Brain

#11

Post by tkjef » Wed, Sep 07, 2016, 4:19 AM UTC

TheDrizzle43 wrote: post #4

taeric wrote: post #2

> To-do lists get a lot of flack, > but the simple act of planning > has some psychological and > productivity benefits all > by itself. My problem is that TODO lists are not necessarily a solid basis for planning. Specifically, they are often only good for easy plans.

If I don't write tasks in a TODO list I get anxious I'll forget about it forever. Even if I don't plan on doing a task anytime soon I like to jot it down so I have the freedom to forget about it.

Exactly this. It has been written to disk, and now your mind is free to compute away and use as much memory as possible for new things.

Re: How Writing To-Do Lists Helps Your Brain

#12

Post by rasur » Wed, Sep 07, 2016, 4:21 AM UTC

ktamura wrote: post #5

Over the years, I've tried many digital to-do lists, including one I wrote myself. Today, I just use a notebook. The trick that I made work is to have two to-do lists: daily and quarterly. For daily, it's simple. I have a variation of the Bullet Journal [1], but interleaved with meeting notes, ideas, etc. But many ideas are bigger than what you can accomplish/benchmark on a daily basis. For those, I have two pages pe…

The Bullet Journal looks interesting, but to me it feels much more like it should be a tablet app, than in a physical notebook (mainly due to migration of items, but this is of course achievable with an erasable pen or pencil).

I say this as someone that is trying to use a physical notebook more & better, and looking for good organisational/notekeeping schemes.

Re: How Writing To-Do Lists Helps Your Brain

#13

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Sep 07, 2016, 5:00 AM UTC

peter303 wrote: post #7

When I was in my 20s I could hold my daily ToDo lists entirely in my memory. This was useful for tracking coding features and bugs. Somewhat older now, I do this with a legal pad.

[deleted]

Re: How Writing To-Do Lists Helps Your Brain

#14

Post by zump » Wed, Sep 07, 2016, 5:00 AM UTC

rasur wrote: post #12

ktamura wrote: post #5

Over the years, I've tried many digital to-do lists, including one I wrote myself. Today, I just use a notebook. The trick that I made work is to have two to-do lists: daily and quarterly. For daily, it's simple. I have a variation of the Bullet Journal [1], but interleaved with meeting notes, ideas, etc. But many ideas are bigger than what you can accomplish/benchmark on a daily basis. For those, I have two pages pe…

The Bullet Journal looks interesting, but to me it feels much more like it should be a tablet app, than in a physical notebook (mainly due to migration of items, but this is of course achievable with an erasable pen or pencil). I say this as someone that is trying to use a physical notebook more & better, and looking for good organisational/notekeeping schemes.

An app never works for productivity stuff.

Re: How Writing To-Do Lists Helps Your Brain

#15

Post by movedx » Wed, Sep 07, 2016, 5:49 AM UTC

zump wrote: post #14

rasur wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Bullet Journal looks interesting, but to me it feels much more like it should be a tablet app, than in a physical notebook (mainly due to migration of items, but this is of course achievable with an erasable pen or pencil). I say this as someone that is trying to use a physical notebook more & better, and looking for good organisational/notekeeping schemes.

An app never works for productivity stuff.

It would be interesting to hear your experiences on this, such as what apps you've tried and had fail for you in terms of productivity?

I would agree with what you've said to a point, but this kind of statement needs expanding.

For my wife and I, we're using Wunderlist (bought my Microsoft in 2015) and we can assign things to each other, star them as important, comment on tasks, leaves notes, set reminders, and so on. It's a... wunderful (har! har!) app and so far it's UI doesn't get in the way. I'm just waiting for the moment we hit the limitations of the free version and have to spend nearly AUD$130/user/year (USD -> AUD) to maintain its place in our household.

Re: How Writing To-Do Lists Helps Your Brain

#16

Post by WalterBright » Wed, Sep 07, 2016, 5:51 AM UTC

ktamura wrote: post #5

Over the years, I've tried many digital to-do lists, including one I wrote myself. Today, I just use a notebook. The trick that I made work is to have two to-do lists: daily and quarterly. For daily, it's simple. I have a variation of the Bullet Journal [1], but interleaved with meeting notes, ideas, etc. But many ideas are bigger than what you can accomplish/benchmark on a daily basis. For those, I have two pages pe…

I prefer taking notes on paper in a spiral notebook. When it fills up, I run it through the scanner.

Re: How Writing To-Do Lists Helps Your Brain

#17

Post by movedx » Wed, Sep 07, 2016, 5:51 AM UTC

taeric wrote: post #2

> To-do lists get a lot of flack, > but the simple act of planning > has some psychological and > productivity benefits all > by itself. My problem is that TODO lists are not necessarily a solid basis for planning. Specifically, they are often only good for easy plans.

They're primarily about visibility and accountaiblity: step 1) Do this task, 2) time passes, 3) Why didn't I do this task? 4) sigh

Re: How Writing To-Do Lists Helps Your Brain

#18

Post by wineisfine » Wed, Sep 07, 2016, 5:56 AM UTC

I noticed a certain point, experimenting with todo lists and productivity apps, became a thing of its own. Tweaking Omnifocus to perfection, for example.

I threw them all out and am using a reporters notebook (which is a good format, btw), with daily todos and this is the system that sticks.

I guess this is what it really boils down to: which system is naturally easy to stick to in the long run?

I guess it's the same for sports, diets, etc

Re: How Writing To-Do Lists Helps Your Brain

#19

Post by aprdm » Wed, Sep 07, 2016, 6:36 AM UTC

Every day before leaving work I make a todo list of what I am going to work on the next day, crossing the list as I get them done in the next day.

10 mins before leaving work I do the same.

Works really well, gives a good sense of progress, offloads thinking about work when I am home and etc.

Re: How Writing To-Do Lists Helps Your Brain

#20

Post by tdkl » Wed, Sep 07, 2016, 6:45 AM UTC

Until making To-Do lists (not to mention evaluating different software, mobile apps, techniques) is just another way to procrastinate.

The best To-Do list is the one that gets you do the thing, even if this means not ever writing/using one.