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A list full of things that never move quietly drains everything else on it, because you meet all of them each time you look. Clearing in either direction gives you the list back. Deleting is not a failure. It is saying plainly that this was never going to happen, which was true already and was only costing you the guilt.
God's earth is wide (Quran 39:10). There is room to put something down and spend the effort where it will actually go.
الزمر
قُلۡ يَٰعِبَادِ ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُواْ ٱتَّقُواْ رَبَّكُمۡۚ لِلَّذِينَ أَحۡسَنُواْ فِي هَٰذِهِ ٱلدُّنۡيَا حَسَنَةࣱۗ وَأَرۡضُ ٱللَّهِ وَٰسِعَةٌۗ إِنَّمَا يُوَفَّى ٱلصَّٰبِرُونَ أَجۡرَهُم بِغَيۡرِ حِسَابࣲ
Say, ‘[God says], believing servants, be mindful of your Lord! Those who do good in this world will have a good reward- God’s earth is wide––and those who persevere patiently will be given a full and unstinting reward.’
Qur’an 39:10read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
A set of five experiments found that keeping up optimistic beliefs about your own abilities and future itself draws on self-regulatory resources. That lends some weight to the idea that a list of things you keep promising yourself is not free to carry. It was laboratory work about positivity rather than about to do lists, so the link here is by analogy.
Fischer P, Greitemeyer T, Frey D. (2007). Ego depletion and positive illusions: does the construction of positivity require regulatory resources?. Personality & social psychology bulletin doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Things you keep meaning to do take up room even on the days you never touch them.
An avoided task charges you rent even on the days nothing goes wrong. The low hum of hoping nobody asks is part of what it costs.
An app can tell you what needs doing. It cannot make you want to do it. That gap is why the next one will disappoint you too.
Before deciding you are avoiding something, check that you actually know what it wants. How long, in what form, by when, and what counts as finished.