A todo list is an organizational tool, not a motivational tool. It’s a memory aid, not a way to persuade yourself about what to do. You should put tasks on your todo list that you want to do. If you include tasks that you don’t want to do, it’s not going to solve the problem by causing you to want to do those tasks.
Quick analysis of first paragraph of the article:
A todo list is an organizational tool, not a motivational tool. It’s a memory aid, not a way to persuade yourself about what to do. You should put tasks on your todo list that you want to do. If you include tasks that you don’t want to do, it’s not going to solve the problem by causing you to want to do those tasks.
The opening sentence says what a todo list is. It also claifies a common misconception about todo lists by saying one thing that a todo list isn’t.
The second sentence has a similar structure to the first sentence. It says another things about what a todo list is and similarly distinguishes it from something that a todo list isn’t.
The reason that the sentence about todo lists being an organizational tool was the opener instead of the sentence about todo lists being a memory aid is because the organizational aspect of todo lists is more significant and perhaps more general than the memory aid aspect.
The third sentence is a follow on to the ideas in the second half of the first two sentences. Since todo lists aren’t for motivation or persuation, the only things that should go on them are things that you don’t need motivation or persuasion to do. Thus the todo list only includes items that you want to do.
The last sentence has an “if…then…” structure. In logic, what follows the “if” is called the antecedent and what follows the “then” is called the consequent. If/then means that there is a cause and effect or logical implication relationship between the antecedent and the consequent. The “if” clause is a contrast with the prior sentence. It’s setting up the premise that you are going to do the opposite of what was proposed in the prior sentence. The “then” clause is a statement of the result of the taking the action in the “if” clause. The phrase “solve the problem” in this sentence is about being persuaded or motivated to do the todo list items. So, the “then” clause is saying that you won’t want to do things on a todo list merely by having them on this list. This assertion is in line with the ideas in the first two sentences which each declare that motivation and persuasion aren’t what todo lists are for.
Is there a cause and effect relationship here? If you do the first clause (include tasks you don’t want to do on your todo list), what does that cause? And then after you consider that, you should check whether it specifically causes the thing in the second clause, rather than merely causing something else.
No, there isn’t a specific cause and effect relationship there. Putting tasks on the todo list that you don’t want to do might cause you to feel conflicted about your list, or avoid your todo list, or do tasks that you dislike, or something else like that. The problem mentioned in the second clause is not wanting to do your todo list. One potential solution to that problem would be changing your mind and wanting to do the tasks on the list. But you can’t change your mind about what you want to do merely by a mechanical process of adding items to a todo list. So, that particular solution is impossible given that the “if” clause is true. The if/then is saying, IF X, THEN not Y, which doesn’t tell you what is required [EDIT: for] Y.
I think I read the sentence as IF X, then Y. So, my misreading is related to lack of logic knowledge and some incorrect automatizations around that. Part of the error was not really grasping the “not” adverb and not connecting the “by causing you to…” phrase to the overall meaning. Those are more grammar/text analysis mistakes. I also didn’t have the judgement to recognize that something was a confusing about the if/then stuff.
Does this kind of logic error or text-analysis error indicate that paragraph level analysis is overreaching? Would it be better to work on drilling down into some practice activities related to grammamatical relationship between clauses or the logic within sentences?
I have conflicting intuitions that there would be a lot to gain by drilling down but also that some good practice could result from more paragraph level work. More paragraph level work could also reveal more about my current baseline knowledge.
FYI you still look confused to me.
No, it doesn’t tell me whether your error rate when doing paragraph analysis is too high to make progress.
My guess is if you practiced similarly 100 more times, you would get better at it, rather than be stuck and not improving. So if it’s not easy to improve your rate of progress, just practicing a lot is probably a reasonable alternative.
There are often multiple ways to make progress. As long as you have some clear ideas about activities you can do that seem somewhat useful, then the most important thing is probably just doing a lot of stuff, not which stuff.
Yes, I am still confused. I’m not sure how to determine whether there is a cause and effect relationship with this sentence. I read that a cause is something that is both necessary and sufficient for the effect. I found a legal definition of a cause:
legal cause | Wex | US Law | LII / Legal Information Institute (cornell.edu)
A cause that produces a result in a natural and probable sequence and without which the result would not have occurred.
That definition seems to include the necessary component but not the sufficient component of being a cause.
Looking at the sentence again:
If you include tasks that you don’t want to do, it’s not going to solve the problem by causing you to want to do those tasks.
Rewrite adding my interpolations:
If you include tasks that you don’t want to do, [then the inclusion of those tasks is] not going to solve the problem [of doing the tasks on your todo list] by causing you to want to do those tasks.
Is including tasks that you don’t want to do necessary for not solving the problem in qualified manner above? No, there are other ways to make it so you are not going to solve the problem of doing the tasks by causing yourself to want to do the task.
Is including tasks that you don’t want to do suffficient for not solving the problem in qualified manner above? Idk. Is putting the tasks on your todo list that you don’t want to do enough to prevent you from solving the problem? No, I think you could still find a way to want to do the tasks on your todo list or a way to not want them on the list. But you won’t have solved the problem by having the unwanted items on the list. Something else would have to happen, like some kind of creative problem solving.
I’m still very unsure even after attempting some further thought and analysis. But overall, the sentence looks likes it says that there is not a causal relationship between adding unwanted items to the todo list and wanting to do those items.
Maybe that stuff above, about necessary vs sufficient, isn’t even relevant to my confusion or might be adding to it. My confusion might just have to do with making sense of the clauses’ meanings. The second clause is based on the linking verb “is”. That indicates the clause is depicting an equivalence or state of being relationship. I read “it” as meaning “the inclusion of tasks that you don’t want to do on your todo list”.The verb “is” has modifier “not”. So, you have a non-equivalence or non-state-of-being relationship. Maybe I should be looking at “not” a part of the “then” statement instead of as a part of the sentence level if/then logic. So, the overall sentence logic is just “If X, Then Y” instead of “If X, Then not Y”. The sentence meaning would be if you do X, then you will end up with the overall situation Y. In that case X causes Y.
Second paragraph tree:
Putting tasks on your list that you don’t want to do may alienate you from your todo list, discourage you from checking the list, and reduce how much you get any of the other todo tasks done. It can also prevent you from ever reaching a clear todo list – where you finished everything and get to feel good about that before coming up with more stuff to do next.
