[codinghorror]

I did not say or advocate going calendar-less.

The trouble with to-do-ing the minor/forgettable stuff is that, over time, you end up with a big-ass Katamari ball of minor/forgettable that is kind of oppressive.

Or you become a slave to getting minor/forgettable things done, out of fear that they will inevitably overwhelm you -- which they will, since there are always a zillion minor, forgettable things you could be doing.

Which is worse? I think they're both pretty bad outcomes.

[blvr]

Okay, I'm probably making that mistake because I use Todoist as both calendar and todo list.

There is another option as well as the two you list, which is to remove items off your list as you can't/don't want to do them. Since I never have any more than half a dozen items on any of my three calendar/todo lists I never feel particularly oppressed. But I know that if I didn't have those lists there I'd be forgetting stuff all the time and letting people down - and I know because I never used to use a todo list.