I Built a Task Manager That Automatically Kills Tasks You’re Ignoring

30% of my tasks are in the graveyard. I don't miss a single one.

I opened Things 3 and saw 247 tasks staring back at me. I felt my chest tighten. I closed the app.

This was one of the task managers I’d abandoned over the years. Remember the Milk, Things, an Eisenhower Matrix app - same pattern every time. I’d start excited, add tasks diligently, then drown in my own ambition until I quit.

I knew I needed a task manager. But I couldn’t stop stockpiling tasks until the guilt made me quit.

The problem wasn’t the apps. The problem was me: I couldn’t kill my own ideas. Every task felt important. How could I decide which puppies to kill?

Then I discovered something counterintuitive: I didn’t need to decide. I just needed to watch which tasks I was already ignoring.

What I Tried Before I Built a Task Manager That Kills Your Tasks

I tried several task managers. First time, it was Remember the Milk. I came across this little tool by accident during my studies and fell in love with its cool name, the mascot, the simplicity. Well, actually, you can tweak it quite a bit. I optimized it. And I added tasks at a rate higher than I could tick them off. And then it happened. I couldn’t stand the ever growing list of tasks. I felt defeated.

Years later, I tried again. This time I did research. I chose the very well reviewed, very polished and genuinely excellent task manager Things. I can highly recommend it. But I didn’t understand my problem and so I was up for a second disappointment, this time “with style”.

Still not understanding, I tried again after a year or two with a different kind of task manager: one based on the Eisenhower Matrix. But I realized that I couldn’t mark anything as “not important”. I liked my ideas. They all felt important. So I only used urgent/non-urgent differentiation. And again, tasks piled up faster than I could finish them.

My problem: I know I need a task manager, but I cannot handle it. I am stockpiling tasks and feel bad about it until the point where I stop using the very tool I need. I tried to compensate by sending myself text messages, etc. But it was not a good situation, too messy, too unstructured, too unreliable.

Why I Built a Task Manager That Kills Your Tasks

How do others cope with runaway task lists?

How do they separate them enough from their ideas that they can say “this is actually not important”?

Surely, I know I need to manage my tasks but I don’t want to try a fourth task manager and feel like failing myself again.

I cannot be the only one.

And so I read through online community pages, trying to find an answer. There were endless discussions about which task manager was best. But nobody seemed to be writing about why they fail using task managers.

I found a discussion about why one would even use task managers - one could just use a sheet of paper. Well, that is way too unstructured for me. And I won’t always have the piece of paper with me.

And then, I struck gold.

Someone was describing his process, based on something called bullet journaling. He has a book that he carries around. Tasks get added at the bottom, line by line. Every day he goes through the pages, oldest to newest, and strikes through tasks completed and copies a few tasks to his daily list.

Ok, nice.

But then he wrote something like “and after a while I tear out pages with the old tasks.” He found out that if a task wasn’t done for quite a while that he couldn’t deem it important enough to work on, then these tasks simply aren’t important and can be thrown away.

Now, that was new to me.

And it was bold: throwing away tasks just because you didn’t act on them.

This was genius.

How This Task Manager Kills Tasks for You

From that moment, I put my main project on hold and focused on building this.

How could it work? What’s the digital equivalent of tearing out pages? Would it even work digitally?

I experimented. Deleting tasks felt too radical for me - you remember, I like my ideas.

So I created a graveyard: a task that isn’t touched for 30 days gets automatically moved there. Not deleted. Just acknowledged as not actually important.

To make it work, I needed a daily ritual - I call it the Compass Check. Every day, I review tomorrow: check my calendar, categorize tasks by energy and effort, and select three priorities for the day.

Those three priorities show up in widgets on my phone and Mac. Everything else fades into the background.

The graveyard step happens automatically. No decision required. If I haven’t touched a task in 30 days, it’s gone. I can always look at what’s there, but I never have to judge whether something deserves to be archived.

My behavior reveals what’s important. I don’t have to decide - I just have to be honest about what I’m actually doing.

The Compass Check takes about five minutes. I review what’s waiting for responses, check what has due dates, look at tomorrow’s calendar, and pick three things that matter for tomorrow. Sometimes I categorize tasks by how much energy they’ll take - high energy tasks for when I’m fresh, low energy tasks for when I’m tired.

If you like gamification, there’s a streak counter for consecutive days of running a Compass Check. But it only shows when you’re on a streak - no guilt when you miss a day.

I collect tasks from everywhere via sharing extensions on both iOS and macOS. Ideas from conversations, articles I want to read, projects I want to start - they all go into the system. And then the graveyard does its work.

How Killing Tasks Is Changing My Life

I’m on the longest streak of using a task manager I’ve ever had. And in that time, 30% of my tasks have ended up in the graveyard.

I don’t miss a single one.

The tasks I thought were important when I added them - “Learn Rust,” “Build a personal CRM,” “Write about productivity systems” - turned out to be passing interests, not real priorities. If they mattered, I would have worked on them.

But here’s the real change: I’m never overwhelmed anymore.

I used to open Things 3 and feel my chest tighten. Now I open Three Daily Goals and see just three priorities. The backlog is there if I need it, but it’s not screaming at me.

The daily review takes five minutes and removes surprises. No more “oh crap, I forgot about that meeting” moments when a reminder pops up on my computer. And with three clear priorities staring at me from my home screen widgets, I actually do them.

The shift wasn’t just emotional. I started finishing things. Not because I got faster or more disciplined, but because I wasn’t drowning in options. Three tasks a day. That’s it.

The subtle change is this: when you accept that not every task needs to be done, you take pressure off yourself.

I can do a lot. But I can’t do everything I’d like to do. And that’s okay.

Your Turn

Right now, you probably have a task list somewhere. Maybe it’s in Things 3, maybe it’s in a notebook, maybe it’s scattered across sticky notes and browser tabs.

Here’s what I want you to do: Open it. Scroll to the bottom. Find the tasks you’ve been ignoring for weeks.

They’re not important. I know you think they are. But if they were, you’d have done them.

You don’t need my app to figure that out. You just need permission to let them go.

But if you want something that does the letting go for you, I built that. It’s called Three Daily Goals, and it’s open source - you can compile it yourself from GitHub or download it from the App Store.

30% of my tasks end up in the graveyard. I don’t miss a single one.