To-do Lists
Is it an inescapable human behaviour to turn everything into a to-do list?
It seems like we can contort anything – digital or physical – into a parking lot for things to do. Here’s a random assortment of things that are just different variations of my to-do list:
- 23 emails in my inbox
- The 34 tabs in my web browser
- The 15 tabs in my phone’s web browser
- 12 emails in my other email inboxes (in a good example of creating a meta to-do list by using separate email accounts)
- Part of the kitchen bench that always has 4 unopened envelopes on it
- 5 unfinished WordPress blog posts
- 6 unread messages in Slack
- 2 reminders from Slackbot
- 2 unread messages in Whatsapp
- 2 bills to be paid on my desk
- That constantly nagging reminder to restart my computer
- A Spotify playlist of things that look interesting to listen to
- 3 books on my bedside table
- The 4 broken devices on the bench in the corner that will be fixed someday
… and finally the 12 items on the official to-do list in my notebook. But by this stage, tracking what’s “official” and what’s unofficial is purely an academic exercise.
It puts me in mind of Zawinski’s Law of Software Envelopment:
“Every program attempts to expand until it can read email.”
I would propose a modern update of that:
“Every product attempts to expand until it can track your to-dos.”
Cameron Adams is a co-founder and Chief Product Officer at Canva, where he leads the design & product teams and focuses on future product directions & innovative experiences. Read a bit more about him ›