The last two days I've been getting back into the swing of using my personal approach to digital task management which is a few parts Kanban, a little Agile kick in my biweekly cyclical intentions, a back saving dependence on pomodoro timer induced stretch breaks, and a health dose of I don't feel like doing that right now I'm going to make music instead.
Maybe 10 years ago when I first started working with all these systems, and often when I come back to them, I try to add all sorts of tasks and people and ideas and TODO to the board. After a few weeks I look at it and go UGH. Honestly, when I see more than 5 things on a TODO list of any kind, my eyes glaze over and I go for a walk. It's not that the things aren't important, but I don't know where to start.
When sitting down to a list, start by crossing off anything that isn't important. Do you need to do it? Is it actually important? No? Great, cross it off. "But it should really get done!" You say. Ok, when it becomes important, I guarantee you'll remember it again.
The most important thing I did today was deciding not to do the 5 unimportant things that would have taken most of my time.