Dead Wrong

“Stop thinking about your todos, and let the app remember for you” – WRONG!

That’s one of the marketing lines for a fairly popular todo app that you could go use.

It’s dead wrong.

You should be thinking about your todos. You should be considering them, pondering them, diving deeper into them. You should think about them everyday, as you consider how best to use your time.

You should create patterns in your mind that make remembering them natural and effortless. If those patterns aren’t there, you’re just trying to get a todo app to impose patterns on your mind and life.

And it will do a piss poor job.

It will let undone tasks build up and spill across your days.

It will remind you to do them at inconvenient times and in disruptive ways.

It will mostly forget to remind you to do them.

By offloading what you’re going to do to an app, you cripple yourself.

Let’s flip that catchphrase around: “Start thinking about your todos, and tell the app what you’re going to remember.”

This is the marketing line for a planning app, not a todo app.

That app will help you think effectively and efficiently about what you want to do.

That app will help you organize your thoughts and clarify them in your mind.

That app will guide you through a process that will make it easier for you to remember and commit to your tasks – the most important things you can do.

Sure, the app can remind you at times. But those reminders are like cues during a play or an improv comedy show. They prompt your own memory and only need to happen occasionally.

At the end of the day, the app can help you think about your todos again – review, evaluate, and make a new plan to go forward the next day.

Planning your day is an important exercise, and like any exercise, doing it well will make you stronger.

Offloading it to an app, or doing it poorly, will make you weaker.

Plan your day, at cueplan.com