This is a variant of David Allen's Getting Things Done (GTD) methodology. Instead of three items, he recommends always knowing what the most important task is for any project, and doing that.
The biggest part of GTD which has really helped keep me organized and achieving my goals, is recognizing your memory can be fairly terrible at remembering things when it is important to remember them. So everything I need todo gets written down. Then I will stop stressing about my todo list and forcing myself to remember. He calls it "mind like water".
With this technique + kanban for my personal life (todos, open source projects, baby books, etc) my wife is 1000% happier.
With this technique + kanban for my personal life (todos, open source projects, baby books, etc) my wife is 1000% happier.