Do you recognize this to-do list structure?

[brooksmoses]

I am trying to figure out where I got the method for keeping a work to-do list that I find actually useful, and I am pretty sure that I got it at least 15 years ago from a programming blog post or something similar, but my web searches to try to find it again have come up completely short. (Maybe it's in a book of the era?) If anyone recognizes this, I'd be very grateful.

The gist is pretty much this:

• There are three sections in the list: "TODAY", "LANDING PAD", and ... I'm sure there was a name for it, but it's basically "THE LIST".


• Every morning, you go through THE LIST and select what you will work on that day, and move it to TODAY. Then you work on those things.


• When you think of things through the day, you note them in the LANDING PAD.
  


• At the end of the day, you take a bit of time to consider how the day went compared to the TODAY list, and whether you're expecting too much or too little. Then move whatever's left in TODAY back to THE LIST, along with whatever appeared in LANDING PAD.


• On a regular basis, clear things out of THE LIST that aren't getting done and can be jettisoned.

One key piece is that there is no overall priority for items; the effort to try to assign that "accurately" is high and the value is low because things change often. There is also the key piece (for me) that managing the list happens in specific time blocks, not whenever one thinks of something to add. And the mindfulness of the beginning-of-day and end-of-day parts I find quite useful too.

The one thing I've personally added is a DONE list, where I move things from the TODAY list when I complete them. It's useful for writing up "what I did this week" logs and such, and for general satisfaction of crossing things off. (I think the original version of this was on paper, so the TODAY items would just be crossed off but still readable.)

Anyway, I would very much like to cite the source for this, but I can't find it, so hopefully someone either recognizes it or has better search-fu than I do!

Comments

[ewt]

It seems like a very simplified version of GTD (Getting Things Done, by David Allen iirc). The "Landing Pad" is a bit like the Inbox in that system.

It sounds quite effective and I may give it a try.

[ewt]

I wonder if it's an offshoot of Leo Babauta's "Zen to Done" system. That was quite popular around the same time, though the terminology isn't quite the same.

[brooksmoses]

I found the origin (see my other comment), but the "Zen to Done" is a new one to me. I may want to look into that; thank you -- from a quick look, it looks like there's useful stuff there.

[mindways]

Huh - how I use my todo list has been slowly converging towards something in the vague neighborhood of this.

A question: given that THE LIST is unordered and items in LANDING PAD are simply moved to THE LIST at end-of-day, why not append new items directly to THE LIST?

[brooksmoses]

See my other comment for the origin (I found it!).

That's an interesting question!

In the original, I think the purpose was partly that the LANDING PAD is a physical piece of paper and THE LIST is in a computerized form. And part of it is that the author was including it as part of their review of how the day went. He doesn't say this explicitly, but I think he also considers each item and whether it should actually go on the list or be discarded.

I also find it useful to make sure that I've recorded enough of the context of the item for when I want to get to it in the future, and put it into the vague organizational structure of THE LIST. The value of that is that when writing something down during the day, I only have to write enough to communicate with myself-at-the-end-of-the-day, and can fill in any gaps myself-in-the-indeterminate-future will need later.

[brooksmoses]

Update: I also asked this on a work-internal social network, and someone quite quickly recognized this as sounding like it was from Rands in Repose. And, indeed, it's from https://randsinrepose.com/archives/the-taste-of-the-day/!

There are a few things I've mutated over the years (more than I thought, as is often the case with these things), but that's the origin.

[ewt]

Neat! Thank you, an interesting read.

[hitchhiker]

interesting! less fiddly than GTD, too

[pameladean]

That's really interesting! I recoil in horror from most schemes of this kind, but this one doesn't seem judgemental and it does seem good at keeping track of things in a way that isn't too complex.

P.

[brooksmoses]

Those are very much the reasons that I approve of it, too. The original of this is almost aggressively nonjudgemental -- the author is particularly strong about that with reviewing things at the end of the day, where he makes very clear that the point is to observe what happened but not to attach a value judgement to it.

Another thing I find particularly useful about this scheme is that it's designed to encourage removing things from the list. As he puts it, we're never going to be able to do everything that matters. Adding things to the list is easy, but a list that's too big is overwhelming, so having a scheme that stays focused on the things that matter right now is very helpful for me.