Effective Task Management Starts With a Simple List

Start small and you'll know when your system needs more

The Author’s lists and notes, intertwined (late 2022)

You can discover more about what your productivity needs by stripping your task management system back to the barest of bare bones, than you ever could by adding complexity on top of complexity.

That way, when you need more, you’ll know it. It won’t just be a false hunger for empty productivity promises.

So start with a list—just one list. Written in pencil on a scrap of paper, if you like, or in a plain text file, or in your notebook, or on the back of your hand.

The first time this method starts to chafe, write down why that is. Make one change to your list (either the list itself, or the way you’re keeping it) and see if it fixes the problem.

Repeat.

Enjoy the freedom of a system that does what you need it to do, not what a fancy app tells you you need.

Remember that how you structure things reflects your thought processes, but the output can look very different from person to person even with the same way of thinking, the same principles.

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