Comments

Here are a couple of quick comments that don't really go anywhere.

First, as I tried to suggest by using the word “level”, I like to think of the things I might do as arranged in a hierarchy, or tree, with the available time starting at the top and being distributed downward. It's clear even to me that a tree structure doesn't always fit the facts, but I still find it a useful way of thinking.

By the way, I'm sure I picked up the tree idea from work, where it was clear that a hierarchical issues list was exactly the right concept.

Second, although the problem is ultimately one of finiteness, there's another aspect of it that I find equally disturbing. I don't know if this is true for everyone, but for me, I think of new things I want to do faster than I do old things I've already thought of. So, the problem isn't just that I have more things I want to do than I have time for, it's that I'm not even in a steady-state situation.