Interesting article. Ironically, while reading it I started to think about how I didn't have this problem when I was younger. I could hyperfocus on a book or video game for 12 hours straight, while today I can barely read a chapter without thinking about what I have to do the next day. Makes me wonder if it's a fact of age, bad memory, the depression I went through at the time or just fewer responsibilities.
David Allen, the inventor of the popular Getting Things Done (GTD) task/time management system, stressed the importance of a "trusted system" in keeping one able to relax and focus on one thing at a time, even as a grown-up with lots of responsibilities.
If you keep your task management system absolutely up to date, i.e., it stores everything you plan to do eventually, then you really can trust it and relax in the knowledge that you don't need to track TODOs in your head. It becomes an extension of your brain, leaving your primary brain free to relax and focus on whatever you're currently doing, even if -- especially if -- you're not doing anything in the present moment. But this doesn't happen if the system is leaky, i.e. you slip up and start tracking some TODOs in your head.
Maybe I should read that book, but my experience with tracking TODOs just made me even less productive because after a certain point I could feel my fight-or-flight response kicking in when I looked at my TODO list. But I guess that's a different problem :p
That was my experience with every todo system I have ever implemented.
I finally found a todo system which worked for me, namely writing up every todo in a list. On Sundays I distribute the tasks to different days of my next week day.
If I don't get the task done for a weekday, it's completely fine. I just move it back into the long list, so it gets distributed next sunday.
If I notice a task has been cycled like that a few times, then I delete it, it wasn't important enough for me to overcome the guilt associated with the task.
I'm not sure if the system I came up with was what actually fixed my todo anxiety, but in case it was I figured I would share it.
I agree, I always feel like tracking every single TODO takes more time and effort than actually doing some of them. It was a bit too rigid for me - that sort of system is designed for a computer, except I was the computer doing the task.
What works for me now is writing my most important TODOs on a whiteboard and not erasing it until I complete it. The limited space forces me to prioritize. It's also obvious which items have been there the longest, either indicating lower priority or mental blockages. It helps that the ink is harder to erase the longer it sits there too :)
FWIW I highly recommend reading the GTD book. I implemented it regliously for a couple of years and loved it. I don't stick to it as much now, but the principles/framework are still helpful to me.
Identifying which "projects" you have lying around in your to-do list (to-do items that will require more than one atomic task to complete), and the weekly review process were particularly valuable takeaways.
I struggle with this. For me, computer is the issue. There's always something to do on the computer, and the reward always comes faster than for any other task. There's no such thing as doing a single thing with it, then moving on. There's always an email, a notification, a feed.
My computer-free days feel a lot like the old days.
Same with me. I’ve had my computer prominently in my living space for my whole adult life. Try doing a prolonged activity that makes computing impossible. I went bike touring for a month a few years ago and felt like I had reconnected with a missing sense of thoughtfulness in the absence of constant interneting. The feeling lasted for a while afterwards. I just wasn’t as enticed by the box of lights with words on it. It’s about time for me to do it again.
Not a fixed day, but it's usually after I feel like I've wasted the whole day on the computer. I'll spend that evening finding a place to ride my bicycle or a museum I'd like to see, and generally make it easier to go right out the door.
