I know that the Filofax/Franklin/Day Runner organize-your-work-and-life industry actually has a number of long-term adherents who actually maintain lists of tasks on paper forms, marking them with priorities and dumping C lists in the trash in order to take care of A list tasks, etc. Some folks have been doing this for years and I know quite a few of them, especially at work.
But I’m not aware of anyone doing this over the long term using an electronic to-do list manager. It seems like a natural improvement, saving one the trouble of rewriting the list as you move it forward from day to day. I’ve tried to implement this myself many times but never keep it up. I have no trouble maintaining an electronic calendar and address book, but for some reason the to-do list function just doesn’t stick for me.
I’ve even attempted to get a workgroup to use the Tasks function in MS Outlook as a way to automate the burdensome process of generating weekly activity reports. But we keep finding that the task of tracking our lists is the most onerous task of all.
Even when I carried a PDA for addresses and calendar functions and synched it with my desktop system every time I sat down, I could never be bothered with the to-do lists. Yet, I struggle with other means of remembering things to do.
Have any of you been using an electronic to-do list regularly over a long period of time? What do you think the secret of success is?