Comment by paulmooreparks
1 day ago
The funny thing is, the answer to:
> Why This Actually Works
isn't anything the author lists under that heading. It's actually what he says above:
> Every night, I check tomorrow’s calendar. I dump everything into the next day’s section. Scheduled items get times in front. Sub-bullets hold notes or reminders. Finished tasks? I delete them or add what happened. Still on the list? Not done yet. That’s it.
That's why it works. He can build a simple ritual around it. The medium doesn't matter. The ritual does.
One of the biggest insights of David Allen's "Getting Things Done" is the daily review. If you're not reviewing your system isn't working. Build a habit/ritual around that and you're in great shape. Cal Newport also talks about this.
From a "one giant to-do list"-guy, I just have a bi-weekly review. This seems to work for me since I open Things 3 every day. I am considering switching to weekly reviews.
Honestly, I use Things 3 pretty much like the author uses his text-app. One single list for all to-do's. The beauty of Things 3 is that there is no feature bloat and unnecessary complexity like most to-do managers.
The important difference is automatic recurring tasks, and daily task will show up outside the app as that red bubble on its icon indicating how many things "need" to be done today, the rest is optional.
Crucially, you need to commit to it, and use it everyday - even if just a little. The authors notepad works because it's a daily simple thing, like you said.