tl;dr have a to-do list and always carry a pen or pencil.<p>(Pen seems better since there's less chance of putting holes in clothing or stabbing oneself.)<p>Not that I would recommend it. If I'm truly into my work then I'll have sufficient integrity and memory to operate intuitively, from a rapidly evolving <i>mental</i> to-do list.<p>If I want to achieve, better would be to have a <i>to-don't</i> list. It might include things like don't drink too much, eat too much, consume too much entertainment, porn, etc. This is what focus means: to gently <i>exclude</i> stuff.<p>That way vitality and creativity will flow into my work. Any other approach is implicitly enacting the theory that work/learning is painful. Which is false. Nobody is taking my cookies away; I'm switching to a different flavour. (They say a Zen master can see and feel the beauty in everything. That must include creative work.)<p>It seems to me that alcoholics, the obese, etc, have a certain thing in common with brilliant, creative achievers -- they know that the fun has to be <i>here and now</i>. We say to addicts who promise to quit soon that "tomorrow never comes". Why don't we say it to people who show us lists of goals? In reality the concepts of procrastination, time management, memory management, rewards, rule-based living, etc, aren't very helpful.