August 17, 2026

A short list is a useful list

One of the many benefits of configuring your to-do list software to only show you the things you want to be reminded of TODAY is that it filters out loads of distracting items you can’t or don’t want to work on right now.

Seeing the entire list of all your to-dos every time you open your task tracker would probably be overwhelming and lead to lots of procrastination disguised as “organizing things”.

Using myself as an example:

I have 1,398 incomplete to-dos in my task tracking software.

I have 14 incomplete to-dos on my TODAY list.

Which means that there are 1,384 to-dos that I shouldn’t even let myself see right now because they would only distract me from handling the 14 ones that matter.

The other ones will pop into view when they need to.

In the meantime, I don’t want to give them a moment’s thought.

Yours,

—J

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