[timtas]

Many years ago I built an iOS app called BetterDo that dealt with some of these issues. It broke long ago after some iOS update, and I let it slip away. But I really miss it.

1. No dates. Instead I had sublists by timeframe: Today, Tomorrow, This Week, Weekend, Next Week, Some Day. And it was easy to move an item between sublists. It was easy to move things up and down to indicate next up. Every morning I would scan the Today and Tomorrow items, and move them around to suit my plan for the day.

I don't want or expect my To Do list to stop me from procrastinating. Rather I want it to support healthier procrastination by never letting me totally forget the things I keep putting off.

2. One thing I realized is that weekend task is different than a weekday task. I'm not going to mow my lawn on a weekday. Conversely many tasks require a business to be open and cannot be done on the weekend. On weekday mornings I don't want to be staring at a list of my weekend chores.

3. When you completed an item, it was crossed out but visible until you deleted it. Delicious positive reinforcement.

One important insight is that a To Do list is not to keep track of all the things you need to do. It's to keep track of the annoying things only. You won't forget to do things you look forward to doing.