recently, i have started maintaining a real “todo” list; just a continuing list of things i have to do in my personal life that i cross out when i am done. i have usually kept such a list for work purposes, but i always tried not to do so in my personal life because “if its important, i’ll remember it.” i think this is still true, but i have noticed that i am getting much many more things “done” than is normal. i suppose the question is still whether it is worth it, or if my usual carefree atittude is better. what happens with the list is i starts getting so long (as less important things don’t get done) that i recopy them (thus starting a new list), or i just say the hell with it and start with a clean slate. if its wasn’t improtant enough for me to do, why bother writing it down? do i need to have stuff hanging over my head all the time? my usual answer would be “no”.
anyways, i am still divided about keeping the todo list for personal stuff. maybe i’ll keep using it for a while. as for work, well, everything is important to someone and my time is their time, so i still use a task list (multiple ones actually). i do remember back when i was working for a startup, i looked at my scrawled notebook to write up more tasks and had about 500+ items outstanding, and i decided to recycle it. things were more out of hand then (100+ hours work weeks for months on end and the like).