This is the first part of a new slow series where I review existing productivity systems and try to highlight their strengths and weaknesses.
As I am in research mode for my book, I am currently immersed in all kinds of productivity systems that have been proposed over the years and have gained at least some traction. Do It Tomorrow (DIT) by Mark Forster1 certainly qualifies as a solution that has gained some popularity, especially among people who found GTD cumbersome and complicated.
Do It Tomorrow presents an elegantly simple approach to smart task management. It's a minimalist approach that emphasizes daily planning and "closed lists" to help individuals prioritize tasks and avoid overwhelming themselves.
Here's a brief overview of how the system works:
Task Diary: You maintain a task diary, essentially a task artifact manager that allows you to assign task dates.
Task Classification: New tasks are categorized as
INSTANT
,SOMETIME TODAY
, orTOMORROW
, with a high preference, if feasible, for always scheduling tasks for the latter (hence, the system's name).Closed Lists: Each day, you work from a closed list—a set of tasks that cannot be modified—generated at least the day before.
Daily Goal: To complete all tasks on your daily list. Success earns you a point, while failure results in a point deduction.
Single-Tasking: Focus on completing one task at a time before moving on to the next—emphasizing single-tasking over multitasking.
Efficiency Benchmark: The system encourages you to assess whether you can complete a day's worth of incoming work within the day. If not, it may indicate either overcommitment or inefficiency, and you need to address that first.
Task Rollover: While rare, there may be occasions when tasks need to be carried over to the next day or scheduled well in advance—for instance, for next Tuesday. However, such instances should be exceptions rather than the norm.
Adhering to these principles, Do It Tomorrow offers a straightforward yet effective framework for managing tasks and boosting productivity. It's a refreshing departure from more complex systems yet still covers a wide enough ground to be considered a full-fledged productivity system.
Strengths & Drawbacks
DIT's extreme simplicity and quick setup / low barrier to entry appeal to novices and users seeking efficiency. It also covers valuable concepts that can enhance organization and focus. For me, three key pieces of advice stand out:
The Concept of "Closed Lists": Forster emphasizes the effectiveness of “freezing” daily task lists by drawing a line at the bottom. After the line is drawn, the list is considered “closed” for modification, preventing further additions. This sharply contrasts with what most other systems propose: open lists, where continuous addition to daily tasks is allowed or encouraged. Forster claims that working with a closed list leads to clarity, certainty, and a more manageable workload. If your to-do list is guaranteed to not change during the day, you can better plan and act upon it. An open list demands action while constantly receiving new items, potentially leading to overwhelm and inefficiency.
The Current Initiative: Forster suggests beginning each workday with a ritual to prepare oneself for success by removing obstacles and friction. One should do this before doing anything else, like checking emails or reviewing to-do lists. As he calls it, the current initiative is reserved exclusively for tasks crucial for future success. Tasks falling under this priority include clearing backlogs, optimizing systems to reduce friction, and initiating complex projects without necessarily delving into their execution. I use something similar, called my “Golden Morning”, although I rarely use it for maintenance work like Forster suggests. Instead, I work on a high-value project to guarantee moving the needle forward with that project every single day.
Imposing Constraints Upon Yourself: Forster explores and underscores the importance of setting constraints for oneself. Research has shown that limiting one’s options can raise one’s creativity. If you limit your options in any decision, you can fight perfectionism and analysis paralysis and reduce anxiety and FOMO. Forster’s “closed list” - and making cut-offs in general – is just one example of how you can constrain yourself. There are many other ways to do so.
However, DIT also has drawbacks. One significant flaw is its devaluation of task prioritization. Oddly enough, Forster asserts that prioritization offers no benefits on the level of tasks. Only on the level of projects is it valuable. I wholeheartedly disagree with this as our lives have become more fluid than ever, and agility is becoming one of the core skills. Another tightly coupled but highly questionable aspect of the system is that it posits that one should be able to handle a day's worth of incoming tasks and complete the daily to-do list almost every day. This expectation is unrealistic and may not align with individual preferences or workloads. While this approach may deliberately slow down your life, it is akin to driving with the handbrakes on—a method I wouldn't endorse.
Furthermore, the system suggests deliberate "mini-bankruptcies" by archiving overwhelmed tasks into backlogs. This approach, while attempting to regain control, raises a red flag. No productivity system should incorporate scheduled or expected bankruptcies as its core strategy.
In summary, while Do It Tomorrow offers simplicity and broad coverage, its downplaying of task prioritization and unrealistic expectations regarding daily task completion raise concerns about its effectiveness and adaptability to real-world scenarios.
My Classification & Evaluation
In my classification system for productivity systems, DIT qualifies as a niche, wide, comprehensive, time-based productivity solution.
While the system was more popular at the beginning of the millennium, it seems to have slowly faded from people’s memories. That’s why nowadays, one encounters it rarely, turning it into a niche solution. Unfortunately, that is, as it certainly contains valuable concepts.
I classified the system as wide (instead of holistic or narrow) because it does attempt to manage one's whole life but fails to encompass the someday/maybe side of things, and overall, it is not sophisticated enough to achieve that.
I classified it as comprehensive as it attempts to capture most of the incoming stuff but ultimately draws the line and drops everything that does not fit into a "day's worth of work.”
Lastly, I qualified it as a time-based solution as it mostly disregards projects or views and organizes tasks into
NOW
,LATER TODAY
, orTOMORROW
.
Regarding flawed assumptions underlying DIT, I've concluded the following:
It views productivity as a narrow, objective concept: Forster acknowledges that tasks stem from commitments and advocates reducing the number of commitments when overwhelmed. He, in a way, also tells you that tasks without backing commitments should be avoided to make meaningful progress. Besides, the system is not very restrictive and allows you to schedule any required work. This view of productivity, while acceptable, is incomplete. It does not tell you where commitments come from or how to manage them. It does not complete the full productiveness spectrum.
It follows a strict “Work Is to Be Completed” mantra: DIT is heavy on daily cut-offs. With DIT, you commit to completing the day’s work every day. It even encourages you to keep streaks. The daily (closed) to-do lists thus become a sacred pact. It misses the point when the best thing to do is nothing and instead nudges us towards pitfalls like the "commitment fallacy" and the "sunk cost fallacy," making us stick with something even when it's time to call it quits or try a new direction. My point is that a system should not yield commitments on a daily basis; on the level of day-to-day work. Instead, it should always embrace discernment over blind commitment, understanding the need for rethinking, pivoting, or gracefully bowing out. DIT, in my opinion, thus sets the wrong cut-offs.
It deems “work unit scoping” a trivial problem: While DIT acknowledges the relativity within sizing and scoping work items, it lacks practical advice on scoping work, breaking down larger projects, or determining the granularity of work units. This is not a fault of DIT alone; none of the productivity systems I have met truly does this justice. So, while DIT at least scratches the surface of work scoping, it does not offer concrete solutions, leaving users to navigate these complexities independently.
A Work Item Is a Physical Artifact: DIT also acknowledges that tasks have no "physical presence," which, in my opinion, was way ahead of its time. Forster writes, "Unlike email or paper, tasks have no physical presence. They are just concepts until they are carried out. To give them physical form, they need to be written down. A page-a-day diary is the ideal place to write down tasks. Whenever you are given a task to do or think of one, all you have to do is write it down under tomorrow’s date in the diary. At the end of the day, draw a line under the list to show it is complete. Then, the next day, you have a closed list of tasks to complete as one batch". This is one important step towards the task as a mental concept. Unfortunately, Forster doesn't venture any further and leaves it at that. After writing down, he does not distinguish between the task and the task artifact (a mere representation of the task), leaving alone indicating the source of the truth principle. My point is that a productivity solution should spotlight the real underlying mental constructs rather than fixating on the physical or digital representation. This fosters an understanding of the mental aspects that drive productivity, encouraging a shift from merely managing “task artifacts” to cultivating productivity. DIT, like all other systems I know of, fails here.
Conclusion
I think DIT is quite a decent system, and it’s a shame that few of us remember it. It can work perfectly well for people with less sophisticated use cases. People who don’t want and don’t need truly holistic solutions, especially those who have just started to set sail into personal productivity, may also find merit in it. I can even see myself using such a system to get out of a rut or recover from a whole system breakdown.
However, DIT certainly does not cover the whole range of vertical task management; it disregards prioritization, makes cut-offs at the wrong level, doesn't offer work-scoping guidance, and doesn't fully acknowledge the task as a mental construct. So, I believe it won't carry you far into the future. For that, we need something else.
As I continue to explore and analyze various productivity systems in future posts, I invite you to join the discussion: Have you tried DIT or encountered similar productivity systems? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
You can still find Forster’s blog here: Get Everything Done, although it’s outdated and seemingly abandoned long ago. His Do It Tomorrow system is outlined in his book Do It Tomorrow and Other Secrets of Time Management.