Personally, I use Journler to keep my “stuff” in order. I usually have one entry for the month’s actions, and then copy and paste per context in individual entries and “project” entries. But the other half of that coin, if you will, is to take time daily to refresh my memory (as we lawyers like to say) as to the “big picture” and the “most important tasks” (MITs) for the day’s work ahead.

Do what works best for you.

For myself, I find that adding a bunch of ideas at once to a text file is much easier than creating a bunch of blog posts at once … there’s more of a time commitment to creating a blog post draft, even if it’s only 20 seconds … that’s 15 seconds longer (or 4x as long) as just writing an idea on a list. And that makes a big difference, for me, when I have a bunch of ideas at once. If there is too much friction in writing your ideas down, it could cause you to eventually not use the system, but each person has his own threshold for such friction.

o Blog posts: Instead of writing “create post on __”, it’s create a new draft in the blog too’s draft list (possibly capturing some content). It’s used when it’s time to post – select one from the list of candidates (drafts), finish, and post.

o Download a file: Instead of “download __”, it’s download the file and move it to the downloaded files list. It’s used when it’s time to explore/test/evaluate a program – select one from the list of candidates (download folder), install, etc.

I do the same thing with articles and posts to read: If they’re too long to read quickly, I add them to my list of “files to print.” Then, when my Read/Review folder is then I print a batch.

It’s still just lists, though, and there are some strong arguments in favor of having a centralized list, e.g., only one place to look (-> easier)… ?

When the task doesn’t require scheduling and has become more of a habit (like reading/writing mails or blogs), we no longer need it on the list. These days before adding a task on the list, I stop to think if it really belongs there, what i am going to do with this item when I finally get to it..