To-Do: Improve To-Do

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Recently I finally convinced meself to use calendar and maintain an agenda, so I introduced a To-Do list.
One of my entries is to "Improve to-do list", because for now it's a single text file of unorganized mess on one of my phones

My root problem is that I don't have any idea how I'm supposed to organize my tasks. By their difficulty, criticality? By how much satisfaction they gonna make me once I'm done with them? Should I do something like "tasks for this day" or maybe day-independent "active tasks" or shouldn't divide them "for now and later" at all and just take them as time goes, when I feel like it?

Also I'm still thinking over medium as maintaining a raw text file on a touch screen is cumbersome for me and as I run two phones (I get too bored using the same phone for longer than literally few days), that means maintaining two unsynchronized copies.
The latter is up to me though because I'd prefer digital medium (I handwrite slowly and with poor effects) and only I know my specifics

I have two methods I (typically) use to organize and prioritize my To-Do's.

1. My computer has an electronic calendar that I can schedule tasks on. And, it gives me the option of delaying the reminder if now-is-not-a-good-time.

2. My desk has room for small notes (e.g., Post-Its) on which I have written reminders of things-to-be-done. The notes can be discarded when I've completed the task.

Some To-Do's, however, can remind me themselves.
- My prescription pills are kept at a different place on my dresser after I've taken them; in the evening they get moved back to the not-yet-taken spot.
- I prefer to still be cautious about COVID. I keep the mask at a visible spot near the front door, to remind me to put it on when I go out the door.
- etc.

^ You do any particular prioritization of tasks (like these notes on desk) by something or just take them up "randomly", I mean when you want so?

Now I think about it, it'd be great maybe to add deadlines to my tasks. So far nothing I got to do has a factual deadline, but imposing even a "fictional" deadline would make it a bit more motivating perhaps?

Self-reminding stuff works for me, I've just tried it with my toaster netbook (That since does for a server access terminal, it reminds me to sit down to the long suffering from procastrination website. I still somewhat struggle but from months-worth breaks between sessions I reduced it to few days of break)

The two main ways I work with task prioritization are ranking them by how important of a task it is, and how soon it needs to be done.

Things like doing laundry, refilling medications, shopping for or preparing food, have somewhat finite time restrictions. These are things that it is possible to do "too late" - doing laundry after you have no clothes to wear, deciding to cook after the food has sat too long and gone bad, going shopping for food after you've run out rather than before - these are inconvenient, and best done before it becomes a problem.

From there, it's a matter of decisions like "I have one more day of clothes, but 3 more days of food, so today I should do laundry, and tomorrow I should go food shopping".

Less important tasks, and tasks with less time sensitivity, get lower priority.

Once you know what tasks need to be done and when, you can group them together.
Tasks to be done TODAY.
Tasks to be done THIS WEEK
Tasks to be done THIS MONTH
Tasks that can be done whenever

You can then take down TODAY tasks as you do them, as well as move THIS WEEK tasks to TODAY tasks, and THIS MONTH tasks to THIS WEEK tasks. If you have no pressing tasks, you can always pull from the "whenever" group to fill in the gaps.

Tasks that don't have a deadline never get done. If you can do it any time, it always gets done "later".

Focusing on tasks that make you "feel good" for completing them is a trap. You'll end up spending all your time doing the tasks that "feel good", rather than doing "what needs to be done".

That's a sort of basic start of how I task prioritize.

Thanks. for now I went with a three-tier priority list, which (so far) works out for me;
- "High-Priority Low-Rewarding", mostly for boring life stuff or not-that-interesting but essential hobby-related tasks
- "Mid-Priority Mid-Rewarding", things not mandatory for life but that I find far more satisfying
- "Low-Priority Highly-Rewarding", mostly remote / "additional" aims that I just find highly desirable to do someday

Since I haven't yet found software that would allow me such thing, I specify time-constrained tasks separately in calendar and don't prioritize them to reduce burden (And well, majority of timed stuff is very likely high-priority anyway). Because of that I've also backed off the idea of imposing "artificial deadlines" I've written about in previous post