If you are really trying to solve procrastination, you have to address the distractions.<p>Now, here is what I would like to see: the OFF switch. Hitting a button that would block all electronic distractions (turning off television etc) and block distracting sites (like youtube/reddit/HN) and disable distracting apps (like iPhone games) for half an hour.<p>This most likely will involve special outlets or plugs that can be turned on/off via wifi.
This kind of defeats the purpose of even presenting a list. It should only display one task at a time if it only wants you to work on one task at a time.
I cringe a little whenever I see someone try to solve an issue with planning and productivity that's already been covered years ago by awesome systems like GTD - especially when they try to solve it with technology. I want a tool, not an infomercial-esque "solution."<p>To be constructive -- in order to make this useful as a tool and retain the central value-adding idea, make sure you include tags and tag filters at the very least. That's all you need to make it both simple enough for casual users and versatile enough for power users. I can't tell you how many tools I would love to try but can't because they don't have tagging or replace it with something not versatile enough (like nested lists). Foremost among those is Google Tasks.
Problem is that if all you do is expose the top project, and that takes time (for example, waiting for a long compile), you lose the ability to switch to another task.
The example given illustrates one of the flaws of almost all todo implementations: "Study for math exam" - you can never check this off the list because it can't be discretely finished.
The problem with procrastination is not the todo list software/system but the procrastinator.<p>Also a huge flaw of online task managers is they are rigid(just a list where you can mark things as done). Freeform task management makes organization easier.
Make it free and monetize it like all the free-to-play games do:<p>If you want to cross of a non-top task, you have to pay increasing amounts of (real) money, e.g. 2nd task 0.50 $, 3rd task 1$, 4th task 2$ etc.