In defense of the To Do list....

[llong]

While I do appreciate the high-tech gadgets, software, and techniques for personal/professional development, it seems to me that there's still a lot of benefit from the old, back-of-the-envelope, penciled-in, cross-out-when-done To Do List.

You need not turn on the computer, Palm Pilot, or PDA to create these. In fact, sitting on the subway, on the couch, or on the toilet, one can map out a highly effective day. (I recommend keeping a couple post-its and a shortened pencil in one's wallet and writing these up when commuting.)

The only short-coming I've found to these is that To Do Lists tend to emphasize the chores of life, rather than "higher-level" multi-stage projects. Thus we see these lists full of "do laundry", "pay bills", and "clean car", but relatively few "hire Bob", "analyze 401k investments", etc.

[starlet]

*cheers* I have a notebook that I write my to-do lists in. I never structure it, or insist to myself when each item needs to get done, I go with the flow. But it is very useful when, as usual, I forget what I was doing next!

[pinkhighlighter]

I love, love, love, love...adooore to-do lists. I always do them onpaper.
This year I got myself a 2007 dayplanner and it's great. Each night I make up my to-do list for the next day. This is how I get things done.

[Dani]

I balance the best of both worlds.

I have a PDA and several books/notepads/sheets of paper taped to various walls desks etc.

Oh and a whiteboard above my PC too!

[Sunnybayes]

I think that daily chores are the ones that go on the to do list because those are the kinds of actions that you've already experienced doing before and so that you know specifically how to do them. And well they are small enough that you can actually get them done in a day. Because how to hire bill is something that is not totally obvious and might take more than a couple of days to do. Maybe if you wrote down the "next action" (as from the book Getting Things Done) that is actually doable in one fell swoop, then you could also include higher level goals. Like the next step for hire bill might be to phone someone up.

And something like analyze stocks, seems like that is a never ending thing. Maybe you could fit that in by putting a specific amount of time, like "analyze stocks for 10 minutes"