Just going through some old notes and discovered an idea I'd had for a list/layout/log approach to task management which included, from left to right:

• a List of all tasks (a backlog) which would have its own management, filtering, etc (out of scope for the current thought)
• a Layout of your day (a day view calendar). You can drag and drop tasks to / from the layout to plan your day, it syncs with online calendars, etc.
• a Log of your day. A second day view calendar showing time you've logged for the day (all easily drag-and-drop editable and resizable)

This is similar to an approach I saw recently via Johnny Decimal, in which he had a stack of stuff he had to work on, the 3 or 4 things he was working on now, which could be switched around as the task changed (currently logging) and a spike where all the completed stuff was added (Looking back at the post, it wasn't exactly like that, but that's neither here nor there).

There's something here. I'm just not sure what it is yet.

I can't help but imagine things digitally, rather than pen and paper, and even then the idea is not well formed. But the layout part could benefit from Johnny's "currently working on" type stuff.

I feel like there's a backlog management piece — out of scope for this particular idea — which would end up populating a backlog list. From this list you would drag things out into a "doing now" type section. The top thing would be the biggest. The thing you are doing right now. The only thing you are doing right now. From a time-tracking perspective, this could log the amount of time the thing stays on top of the stack. There's also a little space for the two or three things you will be doing next, getting progressively smaller.

I still like the idea of a day view calendar (perhaps under that?) but I think it should be rolling. That is, it should have the current time at the top of the view (maybe showing the previous half-hour as well?) so you can quickly glance at what's coming up next on the calendar. I imagine you'd be able to drop tasks from the backlog or the now stack onto the calendar to time-block them in, if that's your jam. You'd also be able to tap on an event in the calendar to throw it at the top of your now stack to say "this event is actually what I'm doing right now".

I also still like the idea of the log, or perhaps a "done" stack, so you can quickly glance at what you've achieved throughout the day, and how long it took you.

So, in summary, there's "to do", "doing now", "upcoming" (calendar) and "done". It lacks the alliteration of List-Layout-Log, though. I could probably fix that with enough thought.

I also feel like working with such an app would require it's own separate screen, but it should also be stupidly simple to navigate, even with just a keyboard. You need to be able to mark something as done and move on to the next thing fast — with as little friction as possible.

There is definitely something here... But it requires some more thought.