by Jason Snell
The perfect to-do system is a mirage
Here’s Brent Simmons on chasing the perfect organizational system:
Here’s what you need to know: it’s a mirage…. There’s no getting out of this fact: these apps are all going to take more constant input from you than you’d wish for. They don’t take away the need for some amount of self-discipline to use them effectively.
I’m not going to say this is true for everyone. I know a lot of people who have approaches that work for them, and I admire that. But I figured out a long time ago that any attempt I made to make myself more productive by using someone’s system or app ended up costing me more time—in setup, in fiddling around with the details, in creating tags and categories, and in remembering to use and maintain the system—than it ever saved me.
Simmons’s post isn’t just for people like me, though. It’s really addressing wherever you are on the organizational-system spectrum. You can chase perfection forever, but it doesn’t exist. Hopefully you get more out of whatever system you use than what you put into it. That’s the most important measure.