More Brent Simmons, this time on the Goldilocks to-do system:
But it’s not around the corner. It’s really not. There’s no perfect system for anybody. All of these apps are pretty good, and you may find one fits you better than another, but you’re not ever going to make it the perfect system for you. Even if you started from scratch and wrote your own, you’re not getting the perfect system.
There are a few things to consider with to-do applications. I think first and foremost, they are, to some degree, their own entertainment industry. If you like tinkering with productivity apps, just own it and enjoy it. If you start getting obsessed, though, take a step back and reconsider this:
To-do apps are supposed to help free your mind from having to worry about what you have to do. As David Allen says, your mind is for having ideas, not holding them. A corollary to that is you shouldn’t be spending a lot of time thinking about your system–as long as you trust it.
The other thing, as Brent mentioned, is that they require constant input. You need to review what you put into them. You need to do the things on the lists, in the projects, or renegotiate. You can’t automate that. The colollaries here are:
- You need to like using the software, and,
- You need to find meanining in the things you have to do. You don’t have to love your job or your home improvement project, but there has to be a sense of purpose and mission there.
Otherwise it’s all intention and cruft.