Because task lists can become a task in and of themselves. It's easy to fall into the trap of constantly "optimizing" (aka bikeshedding: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_Law_of_Triviality) the way you manage your to-do list. You try all sorts of different ways to note and sort your tasks, different task list management applications, and so forth, in search of The Perfect Task List. And then later on you look up and realize you lost more time managing your task list than you saved by having it in the first place.

> Because task lists can become a task in and of themselves.

Pre-optimization. If they become a problem, you can fix them.

Because you can work on those side projects instead of spending time managing task lists.

If you're spending significant time managing task lists, your todo system sucks, and yeah, you're probably better off tossing it out. For some of us who have problems focusing or remembering (and would otherwise waste that time), a todo list is a life saver, and if you really need it, you find or make one that works for you, and works quickly.

You're greatly overestimating the time it takes to interact with a good task management app.

Some of the other posters in this thread are spending almost an hour per day just writing and revising their todo lists before actually doing anything. That's been my experience too.

Ah. Well perhaps the todo list at that point is just another means of procrastination; you feel productive because you're playing with productivity software. A todo list won't motivate you, but it can help keep motivated people organized.

You will anyway, either in your brain on paper. Except that on paper you are more organized, you can see far and accomplish a lot with little stress.

I get too involved in the current project to focus on other projects. Anxiety used to cause a nagging feeling in the back of my head, that I'm forgetting a lot of other things I need to do. Over the years I've used OCD and depression to beat it back.

I watched my dad keep lists and lose lists and forget to read lists, when I was young. He still got the important things done (make lunch for work, fix car, goto bank, etc), because he could keep that in his head, but he had piles of side projects he couldn't work on because they weren't on the latest todo list.