I read this recently, in a (rather interesting) interview/discussion between the economist Tyler Cowen and media wunderkind Ezra Klein [0]:
"COWEN: What’s your best time management tip?
KLEIN: To-do listing. The thing that honestly decides whether or not I have a good, effective day, where I feel like I got things, or whether I just wasted a bunch of time, was whether in the morning, I wrote down what I thought I had to get done that day, and throughout the day, was rigorous about putting the little tasks that come up onto that same list and then checking them off.
I keep that list going, and I keep it updated, and I keep referring back to it, I am able to be pretty efficient. If I don’t, I get lost and overwhelmed and anxious. I don’t find the big tasks to be the hard thing there. The thing that is really hard to do is the tasks that take between 3 and 15 or 20 minutes. You keep in your head, when you probably have 30 minutes where you can knock out a couple of them. They don’t feel like a big enough deal. You don’t remember them. You didn’t write them down in a clear place.
They just sit there causing you, or at least me, endless anxiety. When I actually have them in front of me, I will stay on top of them. Actually staying on top of them is more important, certainly, than I gave it credit for a year ago.
"
"COWEN: What’s your best time management tip?
KLEIN: To-do listing. The thing that honestly decides whether or not I have a good, effective day, where I feel like I got things, or whether I just wasted a bunch of time, was whether in the morning, I wrote down what I thought I had to get done that day, and throughout the day, was rigorous about putting the little tasks that come up onto that same list and then checking them off.
I keep that list going, and I keep it updated, and I keep referring back to it, I am able to be pretty efficient. If I don’t, I get lost and overwhelmed and anxious. I don’t find the big tasks to be the hard thing there. The thing that is really hard to do is the tasks that take between 3 and 15 or 20 minutes. You keep in your head, when you probably have 30 minutes where you can knock out a couple of them. They don’t feel like a big enough deal. You don’t remember them. You didn’t write them down in a clear place.
They just sit there causing you, or at least me, endless anxiety. When I actually have them in front of me, I will stay on top of them. Actually staying on top of them is more important, certainly, than I gave it credit for a year ago. "
[0]: https://medium.com/conversations-with-tyler/ezra-klein-tyler...