[tobr]

I was thinking recently that it’s such a terrible idea to put todos in a list. A todo tends to be something that gives you a tiny bit of worry: guilt that you should have finished it already, stress that you might not be able to, etc.

By putting a dozen todos together in a list, your level of worry about that list as a whole is going to rise to the most worrisome todo. It’s poisoning the well. Now you don’t want to look at the todo list at all, because it becomes a source of anxiety, even if most of the items on the list are trivial or even enjoyable.

[lmm]

It can work both ways. You can make the list something you don't mind, even enjoy, looking at, because there's probably going to be something that you can accomplish on it. And you can avoid stressing about the worst issue because it's on the list and you'll get to it eventually.

(I put off suing my old landlord for about a year this way. On the one hand, I probably should've done it sooner; on the other hand, I might well have spent months just stressing about that, whereas instead I channelled that avoidance into dealing with a bunch of other tasks)

[HPsquared]

The way I see it, putting the todo in a list gets it out of my head - I don't have a need to keep remembering it, so I don't worry about it as much - I have confidence I won't forget to to it, because it's on the list.

[euroderf]

That is the essence of GTD - your head is for doing, not for storing, so get it out of yer head and into a "trusted system".