Keeping to-do lists short may make it easier to manage with pen and paper, but in the past I’ve found that when I keep the lists short, it means that they’re incomplete, and therefore not really serving their purpose. So my new approach is to put as much as possible into the software I’m using, but use its ability to focus on small subsets to keep from being overwhelmed when deciding what to do.

I was trying to figure out how I would live without my Blackberry to organize (aka shackle) my life, post-FCPS. I ended up turning in my Blackberry a month earlier than required, and went back to pen-and-paper. So far, that’s working for me. The key is to keep the to-do lists short. Well, gotta go now.

Up next is getting finances in order. I’ve already gotten a start on it, so I’m hoping to wrap that one up soon.

congrats on “meeting expectations” for the organization objective! what’s up next?

I looked briefly at The Hit List, and while it also looks nice, it seems to have the same poor syncing support as Things—Dropbox only, and you need to be sure to quit before moving to another computer. Also, there’s no iPhone app yet, so that would make it hard to capture things that I think of on the train or walking around. It looks like it has some promise, but as for what’s available right now, OmniFocus still seems like the right choice for my situation. It’s cool how many good choices have popped up recently in this space, though. The competition will surely benefit them all!

I’ve recently started using The Hit List after it was included in the most recent Macheist bundle. I haven’t used Omnifocus but can say that The Hit List is better than things. Nicer UI, great keyboard shortcuts and a system wide hot key for entering new tasks.