Main idea

The minutes of a condo board meeting tell the story of the meeting. That's valuable, but to get back to where the work stands and what to do next, you still have to reread everything and decide for yourself what matters today.

Three functions get mixed together in the usual tools, and are better kept apart. The current state says where things stand. The history says what happened. The pickup says what to do next. Minutes only fulfil the second; so does the inbox; the to-do list half fulfils the third.

Why it matters

Each function is read at a different moment and through a different question: you consult the history to understand or to prove, the current state to get your bearings, the pickup to act. Mixing them forces you to read the whole history to extract the current state, every time.

Nuances and limits

Separating them creates a risk of divergence: a current state not updated after an event recorded in the history says something false, and nothing flags it.

Open questions

• Who updates the current state when the history gains an event nobody judged important?