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!