Why-do list

I've always had a love-hate relationship with to-do lists. The concept is beautifully simple and they have the potential to be very effective, but they have never worked well for me in the general case. I've previously written about to-do blocks, an attempt to modify the to-do list concept to be more visual and better for project-level work. I think there are a lot of other interesting ways to modify to-do lists, and I'd like to start with the why-do list.

A why-do list is essentially the same as a to-do list, except that after each task you write why you want to do it. One failure mode of regular to-do lists is that they get clogged up with tasks you don't really want to do. It's easy to think of all the stuff you have been putting off and make that into a list, as if it will motivate you, but it usually doesn't. However, if you use such a list as a way to focus on and remind yourself of the motivation behind the task, it could be made into something useful.

Obviously there are a lot of things that could be classed as a "why", from "because it benefits my long-term goals" all the way to "because it causes a biochemical reaction in my brain that I perceive as pleasure". My instinct on that subject is to write the why that would be most appealing to you at the moment you'd be deciding whether to do it. The very abstract long-term goals may not be very motivating at the time, so reframing them as short-term feely benefits like "feeling responsible and organised" or "satisfaction at having completed it" would be more likely to work.

I've also been keeping the entries positive, rather than using whys like "so I don't starve to death alone and unloved". Those may be very motivating, but I think they would be just as likely to motivate you not to look at the list. I haven't experimented with doing any kind of conditional rewards like "if I finish this project I'll buy myself an ice cream", but those might work well in conjunction for the more motivationally challenging tasks.

Anyway, that's the why-do list. I think it might be particularly useful as a place to dump those tasks that really give you trouble, or to parlay negative, obligation-laden shouldy motivations into positive ones that help you actually want to do the things on your list.