[QUOTE=Quiddity Glomfuster]
My big issue is that after a while I don’t really see things. Including my lists. After looking at a list several times, I glaze over and it just doesn’t register anymore. I have created umpty-dozen and two reminder systems of all sorts for myself; automated, paper, even erasable plastic. They all work for a little while and then pfft. Don’t know what I’m going to do that will work for an extended period of time but I’ve been fighting this my whole adult life. So if anybody has a brilliant idea that might work for the likes of me, by all means pass it along.
[/QUOTE]
Don’t know how brilliant it is, but:
My system at work is that I keep a steno book for my to-do lists. (I also have other kinds of lists in other steno books, but we’ll ignore them for now.)
Each week, I write a new list. Sometimes I do this on Friday afternoon; sometimes I do it on Monday morning. Doesn’t matter.
New page, new list: “To-do, week of 1/21” (or whatever)
I start by reviewing the previous week’s list – if there’s anything not yet done, I carry it over. Sometimes things get carried over multiple times, if they’re not urgent – I’ve had “big-picture thinking on art, covers” on at least the last four lists. Sometimes I carry something over once or twice if it gets bumped down as a priority. Sometimes the carrying over makes it clear that I’m procrastinating, and it serves to shame me into doing it (that would be you, “write to Jean W.”).
After I look at the previous week’s list, and cross out the stuff I’ve done and copied onto the new list the stuff I haven’t, I put a line through the entire page.
I then leave the notebook open to that week’s list on my desk, where I can add things (if necessary) and cross them off. I don’t remember to cross off every day – so sometimes there’s a very satisfying session of “done - done - done - done - done” when I do check things off. 
The point: It’s always a one-page (or less, usually) list – an achievable amount to get done in one week. Sometimes I break out sublists (an item might be just “edit stuff for 05” or an actual list of the articles I need to make sure I do), sometimes I don’t.
And I don’t pad the list by putting on stuff I do regardless (“water plants; go to production meeting”) or things that I’ve already done, to make it look like I’m doing something (“review solicitation letter that Eric just dropped on my desk and asked me to look at” – I revise the damn thing and give it back to him and it never appears on the list at all, because it was a quick 15-minute job).
But there’s always a list, and I always get through the bulk of it, because the list is realistic.
I’ve been thinking I need to start doing this at home. I sporadically start an ongoing to-do list – but it turns out those just get long and nothing happens, and I stop looking at them. I’ve got a bunch of stuff I need to do both with housecleaning and homemaking, and other stuff IRL (“apply for a passport”).
So – I’m going to go buy a steno book for home, and make a ten-item list each week, not bother to list the stuff I don’t have a problem staying on top of (“do laundry, water the plants”) and put on the things that I do, both that I “should” be doing weekly (“vacuum”) and those that need to be done at this particular minute (“feed the houseplants, mop kitchen floor”). IOW – writing a list to cross things off doesn’t work for me as a motivator – writing a list to keep my priorities clear does.
Damn, that turned out to be three or four cents’ worth – sorry to get so long-winded… (obviously this is something I’ve been thinking about for a while).
