Bit Literacy - Mark Hurst [18]
The Bit-Literate Todo List: GooTodo
The four components of a bit-literate todo list are examined below. Each is illustrated by an example from Gootodo, a Web-based todo list I developed some time ago, available at Gootodo.com. (The name is short for “Good Experience todo list.”) Someday, when bit literacy is better known, there will be many todo lists that offer these features, but for now the discussion must be restricted to Gootodo, since it’s the only todo list that includes all four components and a simple interface.
1. Each todo is associated with a particular day.
A todo list should distinguish between active todos (those we have to work on today) and inactive todos (those we can ignore today because they become relevant in the future). The todo list should focus users on today’s todos only; those waiting in the future should stay there and not be distractions. Therefore, Gootodo includes a calendar that allows different todos to sit on different days. Today’s todos are thus kept separate from inactive todos, which are stored on their future activation dates.
A calendar may seem like a small addition, but it’s essential in allowing users to “let the bits go” by ignoring future todos, so as to focus only on what they need to work on now. When a user logs in to Gootodo, he sees a list of today’s todos only. There is no other indication of future todos, just a calendar that shows the current month and day. If the user wants to explore future days, he can click a future day in the calendar, and that day’s list will appear. But that requires active effort by the user; by default, Gootodo focuses the user only on what he needs to get done today.
Shown below is today’s list, assuming today is January 9, and it contains only one item. There may be many other todos waiting on future days, but they’re not displayed here. The user would have to click a future day in the calendar, on the right side of the page, to see them; otherwise, irrelevant todos remain hidden from view.
In addition to being assigned to a day, every todo is accompanied by a “redate” link. Clicking this, a user can send the todo into the future—to tomorrow’s list, or next week, or any time in the next year. This makes the todo inactive and resets the activation date into the future. It also removes the todo from today’s list. Conversely, a user can activate an inactive link by redating a future todo back to today. This gives the user full control of time: he can send today’s todos into the future, and he can send future todos back to today. (Past days can only hold completed todos.)
Clicking the “redate” link in the example above brings up a popup calendar:
Clicking a future date in the popup sends the todo to that day and removes it from today’s list.
Bit-literate users should use the redate feature liberally, because it helps them procrastinate—which is a good thing. It’s often useful to move a todo as far into the future as possible, to the last date on which it would still be appropriate to begin working on it. This “letting go” minimizes the length of today’s list, which has three major benefits:
Users are less distracted and can focus only on what they need to get done today.
Users set themselves up for success; the shorter the todo list, the greater chance they’ll finish it.
Once all of today’s todos are complete, users can feel a sense of relief knowing they’re done.
Of course, if users finish everything on today’s list with time to spare, they can look at future days and begin completing those todos as well. (In practice, that rarely happens; it’s enough just to try to get today’s work done.) If today’s list isn’t all done, then at midnight,