[bachmeier]

> Up until the last week I thought the problem was in myself (you probably think so too). After all, David Allen seems to have figured this shit out.

It's worth pointing out that David Allen is very outspoken on his position that you should NOT use a todo list. He writes it out clearly in his book. This is probably the most common misconception about GTD. I've even heard people say they gave up on GTD because todo lists don't work for them. Okay...

I use a task manager but I don't have a todo list. The standard usage of a todo list, where you dump any task that may or may not be worth doing at some point, is at best a distraction from real project management. To get things done, you have to decide on the one or few things you should be working on at a point in time. A todo list doesn't help with that.

[yourenotsmart]

> To get things done, you have to decide on the one or few things you should be working on at a point in time. A todo list doesn't help with that.

If you have 100 things to do, certainly a list helps you at least not forget most of them, before you even start work.

I don't know what David Allen recommends, but if everyone is left with the impression he recommends TODO lists and he doesn't, it might be because the alternative is hazy and vaporous and poorly defined.

I scanned your answer for that alternative and it wasn't there, either.

Consider grocery shopping. You have 20 products to buy. Does a shopping list help? Uhm, heck yes. Otherwise you'd need to go to the store 10 times and not one time.

Well shopping lists, are just a TODO list in the context of a grocery store.

Issue reports on GitHub and other bugtracking systems are TODO lists in the context of software development.

Medical checklists enumerate all required steps in carrying out procedures. That's a TODO list in the context of medical practice.

I can go on forever. So, clearly, the statement "TODO lists don't work" is false. It contradicts reality. And the supposed alternative is apparently unmentionable. Odd.

Maybe we should clarify what is meant by "it works" or "doesn't work", because in general it only means "it's effective for certain uses" and it is effective for certain uses. No, a TODO list won't necessarily motivate you, unless your lack of motivation is specifically due to confusion what you're supposed to do. But I'm very suspicious that any similar "mechanical" alternative would work either.

Gamification works because it draws you into its own world. Posting comments, like mine and most of them, is low effort. Playing a game with colorful characters doing cute things is low effort. Checking for new tweets is low effort. All those are low effort things. This is why it's easy to be motivated by a system that gamifies those low effort actions.

I really doubt any game would motivate you to do an actual 9 to 5 job for years.

[lmm]

> I don't know what David Allen recommends, but if everyone is left with the impression he recommends TODO lists and he doesn't, it might be because the alternative is hazy and vaporous and poorly defined.

He actually defines a specific framework in detail. But most people can't be bothered to read the book.

> Consider grocery shopping. You have 20 products to buy. Does a shopping list help? Uhm, heck yes. Otherwise you'd need to go to the store 10 times and not one time.

A shopping list works because it very much isn't a TODO list - it's a well-scoped list of things that you are going to do in a particular place at a particular time. If you started dumping random non-shopping tasks on your shopping list, it would be a lot less effective.

[beermonster]

> I don't know what David Allen recommends, but if everyone is left with the impression he recommends TODO lists and he doesn't, it might be because the alternative is hazy and vaporous and poorly defined.

Maybe a lot of people just read the short blog posts on the internet for how to setup a tool to implement his system. A lot of the ones I’ve seen (with the notable exception of one I found showing how to implement it in Org-mode) get the methodology completely wrong. So maybe it’s just the bad examples are copied?

People should just buy and read his book. It was updated a few years ago for the modern world (but I guess even that edition is now probably dated). Also there’s even a workbook available too to help drill it in for people that prefer that way of examples.

[bachmeier]

You're talking about lists in general. His system is built on lists. The TODO list, as he's using the term, means a single list where you dump all the tasks you need to do or might want to do. Without further thought, you end up with a long list of items, no guidance about what you should be doing, and stress because there are incomplete items on your list. If you're not going beyond that, the TODO list is a terrible idea.

[yourenotsmart]

There's nothing about TODO lists that says you have one list per person. And "TODO lists don't work, unless you have many of them" is counterintuitive and misleading at best.

[1123581321]

You should just read the book instead of guessing at the ideas in it.

[beermonster]

He doesn’t advocate a todo list but he does advocate (at least for starting off) 10 lists (projects, agendas, calls, errands, home, office, waiting for, anywhere etc). His process basically allows you to know what you need to do at any point (i.e. it’s clear what needs to be done), and the context sorting allows you to quickly rattle through a bunch of ‘next actions’ based on your context and without having to work out the thing that needs doing. Now these next actions may seem like todos but given that teh project list always points to a next action (or is complete) and given that it is present on a context-based list means it’s already been through some processing to make it do-able. Todos lack this and is why quite often they don’t get done. You put them off as it’s not clear what the next action to progress it even is.

Also it’s not so much a system for getting things done, than it is a system for clearing the mind so that when you ARE able to do some work, you are able to just do it. Mind like water.