One thing I’ve noticed over the last few months is how my OmniFocus has become a bit of a black hole. Over the course of a week I’ll input a bunch of tasks, but beyond moving them out of the inbox and into their relevant projects not much happens. Either I’ll completely forget to do the thing or I’ll come across the task days or weeks later, after it’s already done and I’ll check it off then.

This is clearly not a useful system.

I read this post this morning, and it got me thinking. I used to work this way too. I tried Things, OmniFocus, hipster PDAs—all sorts of task management systems. The only system that has worked for me is no system at all. Okay, no system other than putting appointments and anything that needs to happen at a specific time on my calendar. But I no longer maintain a second system devoted to reminding me what matters.

At some point, I took a long, hard look at how I worked and made a deal with myself: if something is important, I’ll get it done. If it isn’t important, I don’t need to worry about it. I know that sounds simplistic and won’t make me a perfectly optimized person, but somehow I’m more productive now than I was when I fretted over weekly reviews and tickler files.