Yeah, it seems like they were writing massive volumes of useless ephemeral to-do lists and throwing them away was easy.
Maybe they were doing it wrong and should've been writing down durable knowledge that has lasting value.
I write down guides to do things, explanations of how things work that make sense to me, information that I know will be useful at some time but will be accessed infrequently (e.g. information about people or projects).
A 7,000 book reading list seems useless if your goal is to read all of them. But if it's just a bank of interesting books to pull from when you want something to read on the beach or on a sunny weekend, that doesn't cause me stress at least. I'm adding to the bank, not adding items to do. Like my list of board games to try.
Maybe they were doing it wrong and should've been writing down durable knowledge that has lasting value.
I write down guides to do things, explanations of how things work that make sense to me, information that I know will be useful at some time but will be accessed infrequently (e.g. information about people or projects).
A 7,000 book reading list seems useless if your goal is to read all of them. But if it's just a bank of interesting books to pull from when you want something to read on the beach or on a sunny weekend, that doesn't cause me stress at least. I'm adding to the bank, not adding items to do. Like my list of board games to try.