I don't particularly believe in astrology, but a few years ago, a friend urged me to have my chart done. The astrologer discovered that my Sun sign, Moon sign, and Rising sign are all Virgo.

That makes me a “Triple Virgo”(3V).

Meaning? Let's Google.

"The Workaholic of the Zodiac."

"Methodical and Practical."

"Excessively Organized."

"Creative and Artistic."

"Control Freak."

Hmmm. Sorta, kinda me.

​

Maybe you’re saying to yourself, “He’s a freak. I knew it”.

Granted.

But I don’t think I’m especially anal. I’ve totally stopped alphabetizing my socks.

And anyway, how do creativity and excessive organization coexist? It would seem that if you are super controlling and “Overly Critical,” will you really dream up cool new things? Besides nifty spreadsheet templates, I mean.

Rather than inspired by the stars, I think my desire for a degree of organization is to make my dreams come true. To help get the things I seem to always be thinking up out of my head and into the world. I really want to see or read or play with all those vague notions and I need some sort of system to make that happen. I’m a one-band on many of my projects and there are only so many hours in the day — even if you don’t sleep very well.

​

Now that we've established where I'm coming from, let's talk ToDo Lists.

I didn’t start out as an advocate. I hated the idea of having to do all these things. I loathed assignment sheets and deadlines and reviews.

That changed when I started working for myself. I no longer had a boss to tell me what to do and when. If I didn’t start to prioritize, I’d starve.

During all those years of working in various corporations, I had an enduring sense of dread of what it would be like to be unemployed or self-employed. It came down to Leave it to Beaver.

This was a TV show I’d never seen until I was in high school and got a bad case of the flu. I spend a few days in bed and watched daytime TV, as one will.

Leave it to Beaver. The Newly Wed Game, The Price is Right. The Mothers In Law. Mr Ed. The Lucy Show. Match Game. And, interspersed, there were commercials for denture adhesive and step-in bathtubs and collectible commemorative thimbles and Time-Life Books and air-conditioning repair school.

I decided that if I worked for myself, I’d probably just end up on the couch watching daytime TV and eating Doritos — until I was homeless.

Hence, the need for a fat, honking ToDo List.

​

My ToDo Lists have become more sophisticated over time.

There were the margins-of-the-notebook years.

Then the Post-It period.

Followed by the Bullet Journaling fetish fiasco.

(Bullet Journaling is a really triggering phenomenon for 3Vs. It can swiftly rise to the height of anal compulsive madness, as you are spurred on to make perfectly-lettered databases of every minute aspect of your life, past, present and future, and then deploy a barrage of emoticons and colored pens and plastic rulers to prioritize and array them into geometric task squadrons endlessly stretching over the horizon into eternity. I think the thing that bullet journalistas most strive for is to have perfect bullet journals. ☑️ keep bullet journal. And then make YouTube videos about them).

I also love ticking boxes. I found that when I set out the things that I needed to do, and then did at least some of them, I felt good. A sense of accomplishment goes a long way in making me keep doing what I was doing.

And I’m not above writing down something I’ve done just so I can cross it off the list.

Because I love books and sketchbooks and notebooks, I have stacks filled with notes and lists. If you write down everything you have to do on the page of a notebook, you feel like you’ve basically done those things. And then you turn the page and forget the list and all the things on it and get on with your life.

So I’d end up with books full of lists and a constant sense that I was forgetting something.

I needed a list that would remind me I was failing it. A list that would wake me up in the middle of the night to make feel horribly guilty. A list that would hold me by the wrist and shake me until I did stuff.

In short, an app.

​

Type ”to do” into the Apple app store.

There’s no shortage of choices. And reviews of all those choices. And free trial downloads.

In fact, you can waste an incredible amount of time just picking a ToDo app. Take it from a survivor.

After much trial and error, I’ve ended up developing an inextricable relationship with something called Todoist. In every conversation and meeting I have, on every walk I take, and book I read, I find more things to do and type into this app on my phone.

It asks me when I want to do these things, down to the minute. Then it transfers all those commitments to my various calendars on my iPhone, my iPad, my laptops and desktops.

As the deadline approaches, it bings and bongs. It hectors me through the Alexa in the kitchen and the dashboard of my car. It vibrates the phone on my wrist. It never judges, never scolds — but it is relentless.

This may sound like a living hell to you.

But for a 3V, this is bliss.

Nothing falls between the cracks. When the monkey voice in my head nags me about my many failings, ToDoist leaps in to defend me. It congratulates me on my productivity. It awards me points and digital medals for getting stuff done. It invites me to share my accomplishments on Twitter and Facebook. “I did 13 things today!!”

​

All that said, I am going to write to the development team and suggest a new feature for ToDoist.

The ToDon'tist®.

A tool to remind myself of all the things I don’t have to do. The chores I can skip. The priorities I can deescalate. The emails I don’t need to reply to. The people I don’t have to call back. The shows I don’t have to watch. The thoughts I needn’t have.

Will the ToDoist team think this feature is worth the development cost and add it to their ToDo list?

I think it’s a reasonable business opportunity.

What percentage of the world is Triple Virgo? Less that a twelfth, for sure. Maybe we’re one in a twelve hundred. Or one in twelve million.

But I think there are enough of us around who would gladly pay for the ToDon’tist®.

$5 a month for a little buzzing reminder on our wrists that we can put down our Post-Its and mechanical pencils and rulers and highlighters — and take a breath.

A gentle reminder that we don’t, in fact, have to do it all.

Your pal,
Danny

_________
​P.S. ✅ You read this big, long essay. ❎ So you don't have to read the postscript.