I’m a to-do list guy. I can’t remember the last time I started a day without one; indeed, an average day for me entails several to-do lists written on anything from scraps of yellow legal pad paper to my phone’s built-in Reminders app. There’s only one problem: I rarely make it through one list, to say nothing of the numerous one-offs I create as the day wears on.
According to Huffington Post, nearly 90 percent of people who make to-do lists doom their bulleted entries to the same fate—and, while many point to daily interruptions as the culprit, it’s clear that a sheer lack of urgency is the problem for anyone regularly struggling to check that last box (or ten).
But what if your to-do list…exploded? That’s a question that Exploding To Do wants desperately to answer for you.
Explosive urgency is the idea behind the company’s titular app. Citing decision fatigue as a major contributor to unfinished business, Exploding To Do seeks to cut down on your long-term planning in favor of manageable, daily tasks—and, even then, only the important ones.
After all, you don’t have much time. At the end of the day, your to-do list “explodes”, and while you can relegate entries to future dates or review combusted days of the past, the current day’s events are over; through this somewhat dramatic approach, Exploding To Do hopes to foster your “selective focus” so that you can make the most out of your day—and maybe finish a to-do list along the way.
From a presentation standpoint, Exploding To Do offers a fairly minimal presentation—something akin to a pen-and-paper approach—but the company behind it confirms that users will be able to track data, access to-do lists of days past, and create a back-log of ideas and actions for use at any time without having to detract from the day’s work.
Decision fatigue is a beast, especially in an age of neon lights and 60-hour work weeks. It’s refreshing to see something minimal and task-oriented grace the market—even if that product promises to explode daily.
You can sign up for Exploding To Do’s wait list on their website.
Jack Lloyd has a BA in Creative Writing from Forest Grove's Pacific University; he spends his writing days using his degree to pursue semicolons, freelance writing and editing, oxford commas, and enough coffee to kill a bear. His infatuation with rain is matched only by his dry sense of humor.
