Should you schedule all actionable items?

Mr Brownlee (MKBHD) himself said that he always sets a date in the episode about productivity apps waveform podcast. This way he doesn’t have to review all his todos.

Personally, I feel a robust review system of unscheduled tasks is better. This is because it means that you will not become overwhelmed with many overdue items you have missed because you have overscheduled. It only takes 1–2 days of not consistently doing what you eet out to feel completely overwhelmed and miserable.

I use org-ql to easily create a list of this using this bit of elisp

(setq org-agenda-custom-commands
      `(
        ("du" "Unscheduled Tasks"
         ((org-ql-block '(and (todo "NEXT")
                              (not (scheduled t)))
                        ((org-ql-block-header "Unscheduled Tasks")
                         (org-super-agenda-groups
                          '((:name "Has Deadline"
                             :deadline t)
                            (:auto-priority t)))))))

        )
      )

In this view, I see my items with a deadline at the top and know to prioritise those first and then my remaining next items are scheduled by priority. You can go further to group these tasks by location, device, effort or whatever else to allow for you to see only the tasks that you can complete in the conditions you have right now (e.g. while on a phone on the commute, Phone Emacs Setup).

However, such a view may cause decision fatigue. Sachachua’s workflow on obtaining a random todo item may provide a way to circumnavigate this. The user can then re‑roll the task, if they’re not in the mood for the particular task by re‑running the command in question May provide a way to maintain momentum when completing tasks. .