Interesting how polarizing Jeff Atwoods views about to-do lists are.
I believe that to-do lists are just a symptom of a different problem:
Working on something you do not really care about. (sadly, most people have to do this)
If you cared about the product or whatever you are creating, and the communication between you and your customer/boss/team is good, your goals would be aligned (in most cases), thus making it very hard to miss a really important task.
Probably it would have been better for Jeff to give the advice to try working on stuff you really care about.
> If you cared about the product or whatever you are creating, and the communication between you and your customer/boss/team is good, your goals would be aligned (in most cases), thus making it very hard to miss a really important task.
Ugh, this irks me to no end. What if you really care about your product, but there are so many exciting things for you to work on that you simply can't keep track of them all? It's like he's got blinders on to people who don't have the best memory.
I believe that to-do lists are just a symptom of a different problem:
Working on something you do not really care about. (sadly, most people have to do this)
If you cared about the product or whatever you are creating, and the communication between you and your customer/boss/team is good, your goals would be aligned (in most cases), thus making it very hard to miss a really important task.
Probably it would have been better for Jeff to give the advice to try working on stuff you really care about.