Jeff, I think you may have tripped into the pit of over-generalisation. It's a bit of an annoying habit, though I admit it's a good way to attract long discussions in comments. It is certainly true that some people are better off without to-do lists of any kind, but it's also true that some people get quite the nice benefit from them. I use an adapted GTD system myself. Rather than explain my system here, I'll just link to the write-up I did of it: http://gtdfh.branchable.com/ (titled "GTD for hackers"). Spoiler: I don't use an spesialised application for managing my system, and it also doesn't take much time to maintain it. A to-do list of any kind is a tool. If you feel guilty about not doing something on your list, the problem is probably not that you have a list. The problem might be that you didn't do something you needed to do, or that you put something on your list you didn't really need or want to do. Maybe it would have been better to have a list of things that you'll do only if you can be bothered and happen to have the time for them? I agree with Matt McElheny about how the brain works, and that it works better when it doesn't have to keep actively remembering lots of details.

Minor nitpick: "[T]housands of hits per hour" is one or just a few hits per second. That sounds like low traffic to me. (Raise the number by a couple of orders of magnitude and the discussion makes much more sense. Let's assume that.)