Great article. I couldn't agree more. Lists are just a way of avoiding the hard parts: finding the actual time to do it, prioritizing, and saying no. If it really needs to get done, schedule time for it on your calendar now. Which often means rescheduling or even canceling less important stuff. For people saying they have bad memories, there's nothing like an actual scheduled appointment on your calendar to jog the memory. "I need to renew my license sometime this weekend" is just a way of procrastinating. "I've set aside 2 hours at 3pm on Saturday" gets it done. Lists of things that must get done in order to complete a project? A todo list is very much the wrong software to document and manage requirements, issues, and defects, or even the steps required to complete a regular procedure. The "I maintain fighter aircraft and you better believe lists are important." comment scares the crap out of me. I sure as hell hope those lists are in a shared and backed up organizationn-wide software and / or calendar and not on someone's todo list on their iphone.