A word on todo lists

I have always felt that if If I remember to do things, it must be really important. But sometime, after juggling a profession, home, hobbies and still remaining sane, I think lists are the perfect companions to the improvements in our life. 

Their most important use in in saving time and having order in life. When we juggle 3-4 different things and all have almost the same priority, it becomes difficult to remember things.

So how do I maintain lists? One. I list things out to do in locations. Two. I list tasks under people. Why? Because it is relevant. Contexts, relevance has been almost shot out of the sky when it comes to todo lists.

So I make lists by places or people, whichever would be better for me. This works perfectly. For me. Now. Before I clearly remember that striking things off the list made me feel powerful, so I used to make lists, do all the things in them one by one, and then strike then off. This could be the use of the list. Even now, if I cannot find inspiration, I use lists and strike them off, this gives me an idea of how I am proceeding in my work.

Still, it does not answer the important questions of why we need a todo list. You see, as coding horror says, the problem is that people cannot remember things on their own, but that people need to remember things that may be crucial, but not relevant to the system now.

In one project, I Made lists and struck them off one by one. I had numbered them and made lists and sublists. I knew exactly where I was in the project and this helped me complete the project saving at least a week.  I made changes in this and was able to manage times better.

People lead complex lives. They are one body, one identity, but have complex identities, so relevance is important. A todo list is then a helper, a bridge between those personalities, a way to ensure that the show goes on unperturbed, even a way to maintain sanity.

There are other uses to todo lists too. ,my aunt, aged, needs to have medicines thru out the day, it becomes a problem for her to remember what medicines have been taken and which are yet not taken. Recurring to dos. But writing it down everyday is a pain. A todo list program should solve this problem too.

Todos are important, but not designed well and above all, misunderstood. A todo list should have contexts, relevance optionally attached to every todo, and a simple, intuitive way of doing it. The nature of a todo list is to remind, provide the satisfaction of striking off and then keep out of your way.

Context, relevance what does it truly mean? For a todo list, of course. Relevance means that a good todo list would remind you of any place, person that one of your tasks are associated with. It is equally important to tell your maid not to come in today as it is to wish your friend a happy birthday.  But maybe here we are applying a calender's job to a todo list.  Or maybe we are not.

So listing a todo application's task, we have

1. It should add To a list

2. Relevance is important

3. Gps facilities needed

4. Relevance is in tags.

5. Tasks could be shown just for tags or places.

I'll keep adding to this as and when i feel this post needs refinement.