We all have a daily list of things we should do. I like to keep it in the same place I evaluate the rest of my use of time. I had been trying to manage to-dos using a project perspective but found this insufficiently nimble as it was generally literally a list. While migrating my notes from FAKRA to VACAR, I realized that both the effort and project perspectives overlooked this important aspect of daily life - ‘to-dos.‘

To begin with, let’s characterize/differentiate efforts, projects and to dos. Nick Milo introduced ‘Efforts’ in his Ideaverse which can be investigated here

ProjectEffort
a set of defined tasksloosely defined exertion
task sequenceoften its the exertion not the order
deadlinesonly loosely defined
a defined endpointnot always sure what the end looks like

Sometimes my to-dos were a list of places I needed to go while I was out. Other times it was something that needed to be done by the end of the month (renew a subscription. Sometimes a calendar reminder was sufficient, other times there needed to be some thought and planning captured. However I always wanted a list of them with me. I tried to understand how to-dos related to projects and efforts:

ProjectEffortTo-Do
a set of defined tasksloosely defined exertiona single task
task sequenceoften its the exertion not the orderjust do it
deadlinesonly loosely definedloose deadlines, sometimes
a defined endpointnot always sure what the end looks likea definable enpoint

So I now have three sub-types of ‘Activities’: Projects, Efforts and To-Dos.

  • Efforts help me convert ideas in knowledge or content
  • Project help me manage activities with a number of steps that must be coordinated (tasks)
  • To Dos allow me to manage one-off actions

I believe the technology will support managing to-dos like efforts so I am giving it a try. This is an upgrade (or at least a change) to my previous attempt captured here.

(2023-11-20)