To do list or not to do list

Sometimes I feel life is one long to-do list, in various formats and places. Notebook. Notes on phones. Google doc. Word doc. Mind map. Different lists for different categories. Oh and I forgot about calendars - paper and digital. What goes where? Do we just accept that systems will always be overlapping and messy or keep aiming for optimization? The main point is not to forget. My systems will always have a weakness for speed and new ideas, spreading over multiple locations, prone to duplicates. And then some things just stick. How do you stay on top of things?

​Sometimes I feel life is one long to-do list, in various formats and places. Notebook. Notes on phones. Google doc. Word doc. Mind map. Different lists for different categories. Oh and I forgot about calendars - paper and digital. What goes where? Do we just accept that systems will always be overlapping and messy or keep aiming for optimization? The main point is not to forget. My systems will always have a weakness for speed and new ideas, spreading over multiple locations, prone to duplicates. And then some things just stick. How do you stay on top of things?