Comment by JohnBooty

    and then they become a separate problem all of their own 

I struggle with it too.

There are an infinite number of possible todo systems and different systems will work for different individuals at different times. But, I do feel there are two immutable truths w.r.t. successful todo list tasking.

1. You have to aggressively prioritize and prune them.

2. You should have separate daily/weekly/monthly/"someday" lists. Or some variation on this them. Maybe you do weekly/monthly/someday. Or today/tomorrow/someday. Whatever.

Point is it can't be a single infinitely expanding list or multiple infinitely expanding lists. Otherwise it's just a giant guilt pile that is 50% full of crap you don't even care about any more.

I still struggle but I think embracing those two principles is table stakes