Todo's: Need Constraints

One thing I learned about todos, it’s never about the todo app, it’s about having constraints to not add anything immediately. Important things will resurface again. Urgent matters in the moment, but irrelevant tomorrow, will save us a lot of time.

Tiago Forte or Getting Things Done (GTD) are doing a triage to enter everything, and then review them and only add what’s important or needed. But that never really worked for me. Now I have even more work. Besides I gave myself lots of todos, that seemed important during that time, I also need to go back and review them? Instead, I use much more often my Second Brain to dump ideas, to store thoughts, and only really add the real todos, and things I grappled with a lot.

E.g. don’t add shop for tomorrow, that’s not a todo. You need to shop, that’s a necessity. Also don’t add things you’d like to learn or wish to do, just add a note and say: Wish to learn in 2025, and revisit whenever you have time.

I guarantee you, that very important thing, the next time you see it, you might be happy you didn’t spend lots of time on it, as it wasn’t really something important.

Use something like the Eisenhower Matrix, where you identify the tasks into different buckets (Urgent + Important, Important but Not Urgent, Urgent but Not Important, Not Urgent + Not Important), where most stuff seems urgent in the moment, but irrelevant a couple of days or weeks later.

I just went through my NirvanaHQ todos, I cleaned up so many tasks I just added either for “sometime” or as next task, that I either did already without looking at the todos, or it became irrelevant, or it was just a note, something to keep in mind that I just copied into my notes and second brain, so I can continue to add related information and potentially use in the future.

But so many tasks, and task management should have more constraint, make it harder to add a task. So that we actually wish to open the Todo Apps, not to be afraid to be greeted with 1000 tasks, instead we know that we must open it to not forget something important. Or have the confidence not to open, and we know it will remind us.

So as always, it’s a balance. But that’s why I like NirvanaHQ, it’s a bit “old-fashioned”, you can’t add images or attachments, or you can’t make it fancy looking. But everytime I consider changing, I’m reminded that these constraints make it a strength, not missing features.

Also the workflow of GTD, is just baked in. I like that I don’t rely on reminder too much, but just on projects and status of next, later, schedule, waiting or someday. It makes it really easy to see most urgent (next) or just casual browsing through someday “todos”. or just seeing it of one project, or one area (business, personal) of life. Tags is another great filter option.

I think more is not needed anyway, otherwise we spend more time massaging the todos, than working on them.

Check out Getting Things Done (GTD) by David Allen, the book is great even though it’s an older system, and NirvanaHQ, which was built on that philosophy.

I recommend having different tools for work and personal. Otherwise you will be stressed if you want to look at your personal tasks on your vacation, and then you see all your tasks that are waiting for you when you return to work.

Usually work gives you a tool anyway like JIRA, Azure DevOps or Project Management Tools, use them if you don’t have a favorite. I use Basecamp for my work, and NirvanaHQ for personal, especially long-lived todos. Not like buying this, or cleaning my room.

Involve a calendar. For scheduled tasks on a specific time or day, just put it in your calendar. This is what it is used for.

• Shape Up: Stop Running in Circles and Ship Work that Matters (internal)

Origin: Doing my todo’s today.
References: Personal Knowledge Management Workflow for a Deeper Life, PKM
Created 2025-09-18