I Need A Dedicated "To Do" Book.

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I have had many iterations of the "to do" list, and I really hope that the next time I decide to get organized, I look up and build upon the last time I tried to get organized, instead of starting fresh. Browsing through my paper files, I run across ancient "current" folders that were never opened again. However, I hear that half the value of a university education is in learning to see which half of an impossible work load does not matter.
I have an excellent check list for shopping trips to the city so I don't worry about forgetting the shopping bags or car insurance. Overall, I do enjoy planning for individual projects too, which can involve lists.
My NT friend who has huge, branching to-do lists, and also follows them has built some very complex things, but not gone on to use them, always switching to a new inspiration.

For grocery shopping I open an online cart and just add the items as I think of them. I can check-out and confirm a delivery date whenever I'm ready. I've done this for years, even before Corona. It's easier than scraps of paper, and the same cart is visible whether I'm using my phone app or my laptop.

My shopping lists go on my iPad; and my wife is very good at reminding me about what needs to be done.

I think that is one of the issues that making such a list has.

So make the list already!

Haha.

Well. I do have a few things I need to get done and all the others are less important. So I need to write a priority list first. This will get me "In gear" so I can make some progress.

Haha.

Well. I do have a few things I need to get done and all the others are less important. So I need to write a priority list first. This will get me "In gear" so I can make some progress.

Hmm.....the throat problem seems like the kind of distraction it's best to succumb to, if you feel it needs help from health professionals. If I had an ailment that concerned me seriously, I'd leave off any other plans I'd made and focus on sorting it out, though I'd be annoyed at Murphy's Law for messing up my day.

I've still not discovered a good way of doing the task list thing. I usually get lost when I try to make one. If I write everything down I just end up with too many tasks and they'd take too long to prioritise, and probably too long to do. I went through a phase of trying to develop a clever computerised system to help me organise it all, but I just got lost in the technology of it all and it probably wasted more time than it saved. I ended up trying to figure out a unified theory of tasklistology, but eventually I got unstuck from it. It's horrible. To this day I keep finding unfinished lists that fell by the wayside. It's often felt disturbingly out of control like that. I've come to feel that I'm better off trying to rely on my memory a bit more, on the grounds that if it's important enough then I'm not that likely to forget, but there's a limit to that assumption, it can be dangerous to rely on it.

I've got somewhere by using a free program called Desktop Reminder, though it rather ties me to a computer and I do prefer bits of paper in spite of their obvious drawbacks. I try not to use it for anything except stuff I'm rightly worried about overlooking, and it's quite good for that.

I think a lot of it is hampered by the autistic executive disfunction thing, and I have trouble seeing clearly what's happening to me in terms of that - I can't watch how my thought processes happen while I'm thinking my thoughts. I get stuck on details and my brain takes me off at tangents all the time and things always seem to take a lot longer to complete than I expected them to.

It's a work in progress. Every time my thinking style frustrates me I get a bit of insight into its workings, a small chance of figuring out what goes wrong and how to cope better with it. I've got a few intuitive things going on and I hope that as time goes by I'll improve and learn to get better control over what I do and when I do it. Something to do with keeping calm and trying to learn to come up for air now and then and to take stock of things without trying to take stock of them too perfectly. Trying to keep a bit of my mind on the overview. It doesn't come easy.

Can anybody tell me why I don't get notifications of replies now?

I don't know - assuming WP are sending them out (they should be if the "notify me when a reply is posted" box just above the Submit button is checked when you post, and in my case it's always checked by default), I'd suspect your email provider is screwing up somehow.

A workaround might be to go to your user profile and click Overview > Manage, which will show a list of watched topics in reverse chronological order. Not ideal, but perhaps better than nothing.

I've learned to "press through" and do stuff, so my to do list never gets too long.
The back of an envelope has been big enough to hold everything for years.
Yesterday was a really crappy day but I got some difficult stuff crossed off my list. So it was really a good day.

That is part of the problem I have in that I usually end up spending ages and ages in making lists and get nothing done at all, as the lists become my new "Fixation" and project.

Where a list could come in handy is when I stand there with lots of things on my mind to do, but I can't decide on what needs doing first so I end up not doing any of them and lying on my bed trying to forget all the things I need or want to do! And then I feel guilty because it is another day wasted.. I have had years of another day wasted. Fair enough when I get days of stress which result in shutdown days. I can't do any thing much on those days other then de-stress and relax... Which is fair enough...
But the other days. I do need to get some of the little things done.

Yup. I've been there. Unfortunately, it's an easy trap to fall into. I have a loose system that I typically try to follow. Each task falls into a certain point in the hierarchy.

- Basic needs (eating, drinking, getting sleep).

- Mental health (taking breaks, hobbies, and going for walks).

- Short term goals (such as a daily theme made up of small tasks).

- Near future ambitions.

- Long-term goals.

When the system is working accordingly, the tasks often flow into one another. For example, I might take some photographs (photography-hobby-mental health) on one of my walks (exercise which is a basic need and can help with mental health) this feeds into my short-term task of practising how to draw a particular object or animal (short-term goals) because now I have a photo reference to draw from and so on. This practice ties into my near future ambitions and long-term goals.

One tactic that has got me somewhere with lists is to just write down the tasks that are worrying me, and to try to work on the assumption that if I can't remember it fairly readily, it's probably not that urgent. That way I end up with a fairly short list. I keep telling myself that the list was made for me and not the other way round. The list should be my servant, not my master. If it's incomplete, it's still of use and it's still an improvement on nothing. There'll always be time for me to add to it later. I'm better at that than I used to be. Although my brain wiring has trouble accepting it, I've often noticed that the world doesn't collapse if I break off before I've made my list as complete as humanly possible.

I've had that feeling that I need to evaluate task priorities, and as you say that's a long job if it's a long list, and it's more complicated than it looks - it's not just about deadlines, it's about the consequences of not doing the thing at all, and of deferring it to some other day, and of how well current circumstances suit it, and whether or not doing it is dependent on anything else being done. But it can't be perfect and it doesn't have to be. A measure of inefficiency in organising is probably better than the gross inefficiency of too much planning.

Even now I'm retired, I can't seem to shake the feeling that I must get something done every day. I even forget when I'm ill that I'm supposed to be taking it easy.

I'm very "full on" in everything I do - everything has to be a first-rate performance. When people compliment my work, my immediate gut reaction is "they must be kidding, it's third-rate, it could have been a lot better." It's usually only later when I see my work put to its intended purpose that I realise how well I've done, and I get a lot of self-confidence at such times. I just wish I could be better at knowing where to draw the lines between "good enough," "not good enough," and "wasted a bucketful of time showing off how perfect I think I am."

I have found a "To Do" books very helpful. I use different ones for different topics and levels of urgency.

1. daily agenda book with calendar pages to write down upcoming tasks/appointments and sometimes goals I have each month - top priority tasks

2. a plain notebook I write my ongoing thoughts for work I wish to get to - secondary tasks
-skills I want to improve, long term goals,
-I'm in visual arts and also use this to write down any ideas that come to mind as well as marketing ideas and trends I may want to try to promote my work

3. a daily journal with random thoughts and lists - optional
just a book to track mental health - reminder to take breaks, overview of what I accomplish in day and what is remaining, meal ideas etc...

I'm also not the best at keeping things in point form either so I buy large notebooks and try to keep the content in each one in line with the subject they are intended for. For the working notebook with ongoing ideas I don't worry about weather or not I will get to do everything in it as it might not be possible. But I use it as a guideline and I write in pencil so I can continue to revise it as things progress.

I know I probably over do it with three books, but it's what works best for me to help keep me focused and organized.

Thanks, TD. I'm glad I checked back. I don't see any <Manage> in my profile. Could a mildly outdated Firefox be the problem?