When I talked about my perception of To-Do lists, it was more or less how I wished things would be. This post talks more about the reality of it all.

Here's my current dilemma with To-Do lists:

Sometimes a task is vague. There is no due date (yet), and you're not sure of it's importance. Yet you know it needs to get done eventually, perhaps when other things come to light, or when you get more information.

Should these tasks clutter up your main list of more important tasks that have due dates and importance? I would think No. So it could be useful to save the task, but remove it from your main stream of tasks. Kind of like writing down a note on a piece of paper, but then putting it in a drawer.

But simply moving it to some other list/realm (the drawer) doesn't keep it in front of your attention. Once you "archive" it, it moves out of your mind. It's essentially forgotten, unless you happen upon it again in your mind.

So, really what you're doing is writing things down for the sake of writing them down. Then you're shoving the written notes into a drawer which you never look at again. Eventually the drawer is so full of written notes, many of them repeats (since you forgot you've already written a certain task down once before), and that in itself becomes an unproductive mess - exactly what a To-Do list is supposed to solve.

So really what's needed is some sort of innate intelligence on the part of your To-Do list. It has to know when to bring a certain task to your attention. It has to know when you've already written down a specific task in the past. It has to have a mind of it's own. Because, it's seemingly impossible to play the role, and direct it at the same time. In other words, actually doing the tasks on your To-Do list is independent of managing the tasks on your To-Do list. You can't do both at once.

Consider this scenario. You're in the grocery store, and you pass the aisle that has batteries. You need batteries for your flashlight, but do you know you need batteries? Probably not, unless you previously noticed that you needed batteries, wrote it down, and had that written note commanding your attention at the moment you pass the aisle with batteries. With any luck and discipline, you'll happen upon your written note sometime in the vacinity of passing the battery aisle, or being in the store still.

But, as you can see, your own mind can't both oversee your To-Do list, and at the same time - alert and inform you of a possible opportunity to achieve tasks on your To-Do list, either by letting you know you have the right resources, or time to complete a certain task.

It's almost like your mind needs a mind of it's own.

So, I'm stuck in this rut, where I have the discipline to use a To-Do list for just about everything, but lack the proper management that would allow me to be most effective with my time.

Eventually my list gets so large, filled with tasks that aren't "life or death," so they get put off due to laziness or lack of time. I then start to organize To-Do's by similarity using multiple lists, tags - or any systematic convention possible. But then those individual collections also start to get too large, and I need yet a further way to classify and organize.

It's a constant circle of frustration and wasted energy. I'm starting to wonder if keeping a To-Do list is effective at all.