[rayiner]

The thing to realize is that you are planning, you're just keeping it all in your head instead of writing it down. That can often work, but one of the things I found when I started formal planning is that getting all those tasks out of your head onto paper actually relieves stress and increases efficiency. At least for me, I found that it causes a lot of unconscious anxiety to have that stuff in your head. I realized that when I was relaxing I was actually unsettled, going through in my mind whether I was forgetting something. And when switching tasks, it takes a lot of time to sort through your mental task list to figure out what to work on next.

What made it "stick" for me was getting an Apple Watch. On one hand I can add a reminder trivially with Siri. On the other hand, I can put my tasks on my watch face so I'm constantly reminded to actually check and maintain my list. Obviously, YMMV, but for someone who has struggled with organization since I was a kid, that was a game changer.

As for the point about minor tasks: little tasks will often go away, but that doesn't meant here are no consequences. One of the things that made me get a formal task management system was my wife getting sick of me blowing off household todos. Not because I wasn't doing my fair share of the actual grunt work like cooking, etc., but because by blowing off all the little things I was by default making her do all the task management and planning.