- Lists are NOT the most common way people remind themselves of to-dos
- Email is the most common source of reminders
- Over half of to-dos are online (see blue highlight)

Wake Forest University

Purpose: to examine what resources individuals use the most to keep track of their to-dos. From this first study, patterns surrounding effective to-do list strategies emerged.

Pilot Study (What a To-Do: Studies of Task Management Towards the Design of a Personal Task List Manager)

Bellotti, V., Dalal, B., Good, N., Flynn, P., Bobrow, D. G., & Ducheneaut, N. (2004). What a to-do: Studies of task management towards the design of a personal task list manager. Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 735–742. https://doi.org/10.1145/985692.985785

What a To-Do: Studies of Task Management Towards the Design of a Personal Task List Manager 

Study 1 Quantitative Results (What a To-Do: Studies of Task Management Towards the Design of a Personal Task List Manager)

- Minimal effort used when creating to-dos; does not typically describe task, just provides enough of a cue/reminder
- Because of this, reminders are often not grammatical. Cue is just minimal 
enough to remind the individual
- Not all to-dos get done! Some to-dos are given lower priority
- To-do clues/prompts often placed in the way of someone's routine so that the cue is discovered in the right moment
- To-dos take many forms (list reminders, certain items, digital cues) 

Study 1 Qualitative Results
(What a To-Do: Studies of Task Management Towards the Design of a Personal Task List Manager)

- Multiple methods to create to-dos (can't just utilize lists)
- Can be placed "in-the-way" so that users encounter their reminders during their daily routine
- Always on & readily available
- Does not require formal task entries/descriptions
- Must have a way to handle to-dos that have low importance, but have not been deleted

TLM Design Implications (What a To-Do: Studies of Task Management Towards the Design of a Personal Task List Manager)

- 8 total participants: 3 administrative staff, 4 researchers, and 1 manager
- Participants asked to count all of their to-dos and show what resources they used to keep track of them
- 595 to-dos counted
- Researchers gained explanations of each resource used along with examples of certain to-dos


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