A Meditation on Todo Systems

I am often caught up in the method and not the purpose of getting things done. I will oscillate between written systems and digital systems to keep track of general todo’s and also identify what are my most important tasks for the day. Ultimately, none of it matters. What matters is if you are making progress on the things that are important to you. Putting your focus on the how and not the why is not a useful place to be. For me, I can become obsessive with the how and completely forget the why. I find I will be avoiding something and fall back into the idea that if I just tweak or change up my system, it will somehow materialize the motivation I need to get started - and it does, but for a short time. The result of change is I feel everything is out of place and further time is wasted trying to get back to todo list equilibrium. The more your todo system is unstructured and the more it can be aimed at the essential few things that matter, the better your outcomes will be. I am at a stage in my life where I pick the top three things I must do for the day to move the important things forward. Everything else is friction to that. For the record, more times than not, I am using my Field Notes as my guide to get through the month. There is no magic to it, but writing things down tends to help solidify what is important in my brain. It does not matter though - it is the outcome that matters.