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ciphergoth comments on Open Thread, April 1-15, 2012 - Less Wrong Discussion
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I somehow completely missed this when it was discussed earlier. Looks really interesting. My problem with TODO lists is that they rot into uselessness when I neglect them, and then the batch of weeks-old items makes me not bother with the whole thing. Autofocus seems to be built around the TODO list as a mental scratch space instead of a list of things that actually need to get accomplished at some point, and has garbage collection of uninteresting items built in to the algorithm, so having a spell of low productivity will end up with nothing done and an empty TODO list with a lot of dismissed items in the history instead of nothing done and a depressing list full of items whose context you've forgotten.
It really helps to word todo items properly, as complete sentences. For example, instead of "Widget!!!!", you should use "Decide which Widget to buy." I often add more context or next actions as I process the task, so it may gradually evolve into "Decide which Widget to buy. Red ones seem to be better. Bob may know more - call him."
It's more about forgetting why it was supposed to be so important to buy a Widget to begin with, given that the item has sat inactive in the todo list for weeks with no widgetlessness-related catastrophes ensuing.
Then it's a perfect candidate for garbage collection. I just drop items like this, or, if an item has accumulated too much contextual info I don't want to lose, I postpone it for a month or so and decide later, or move it to non-actionable notes.