Advice needed on managing task overload

I also have a perspective like this. I couldn’t ever see the point until I tried Mark Forster’s FVP paper and pencil todo method. On paper, tasks stay in the order you write them on the list. Implicitly you know stuff at the top of the list is older and you can use that information when picking your tasks. This is often lost in a digital system and part of the reason, I think, for the feeling of overload and overwhelm. It’s so easy to arrange, slice, and dice tasks, but you lose the ability to quickly gauge relative freshness.

Task freshness is also a concept of Master Your Now. The theory is more recent tasks are more relevant and where you should focus. Tasks that slip through the cracks aren’t important and lack consequence, or you would have done them.

Yes. This is actually how I like to review. Most things older than 1 month gets put in the someday / maybe list. EVERYTHING older than 2 months gets put in someday / maybe.

Using a time-based review to expire tasks works well for me because it’s a simple criteria. You don’t have the burden of thinking through “Should I still be doing this task?” for every item because the fact that you didn’t do it for 2 months proves it wasn’t important to you and should be trashed or put on hold.

Give your best to work and have a fresh mind in working time. After that, If you have any pending work, then firstly do it on your next day and then proceed to your next task.