After realizing I was forgetting obvious next actions to work on, I implemented an autofocus style TODO list four weeks ago. Still keeping it up. The core idea is to keep a fixed size live segment of the TODO list, and only work off that. I keep the list in a squared paper notebook, with the live segment being a column of around 30 items. When the live list starts getting full, it gets closed and the remaining items get either abandoned or transferred to the next live list.
The live list keeps the system focused and prevents the list from expanding uncontrollably into a despair-inducing blob. Keeping the whole thing on paper instead of a file makes the paging structure the natural way to arrange the list instead of something that needs to be explicitly maintained.
I keep separate pages for someday/​maybe items, which are the sort of hopeless blob TODO list that just keeps growing, so that I can get ideas I come up with out of my head with no expectations of getting around to doing them in the immediate future. These can serve as ideas for stuff that can get broken down to more actionable pieces and promoted to the live list.
After realizing I was forgetting obvious next actions to work on, I implemented an autofocus style TODO list four weeks ago. Still keeping it up. The core idea is to keep a fixed size live segment of the TODO list, and only work off that. I keep the list in a squared paper notebook, with the live segment being a column of around 30 items. When the live list starts getting full, it gets closed and the remaining items get either abandoned or transferred to the next live list.
The live list keeps the system focused and prevents the list from expanding uncontrollably into a despair-inducing blob. Keeping the whole thing on paper instead of a file makes the paging structure the natural way to arrange the list instead of something that needs to be explicitly maintained.
I keep separate pages for someday/​maybe items, which are the sort of hopeless blob TODO list that just keeps growing, so that I can get ideas I come up with out of my head with no expectations of getting around to doing them in the immediate future. These can serve as ideas for stuff that can get broken down to more actionable pieces and promoted to the live list.