Migrate tasks deliberately at the end of each month

At the month’s end, rewrite unfinished tasks by hand — only those worth the effort of rewriting survive.

Why it works

Manual migration exploits physical friction as a filter. When a task must be physically rewritten to survive, the trivial and the procrastinated surface as candidates for deletion rather than continuation. The question "is this worth rewriting?" is a more honest filter than reviewing a list and checking boxes — rewriting requires a micro-commitment each time. Tasks that survive migration are genuinely important; tasks that don’t were occupying space without real priority.

How to do it

1. At the end of each month, scan all incomplete tasks in your logs.
2. For each one, decide: complete it now, migrate it to next month’s log, move it to a future log, or strike it through and release it.
3. Physically rewrite only the migrated tasks — do not copy-paste or transfer digitally.

Evidence

No direct evidence for migration as a specific technique. The mechanism — friction as a filter — is grounded in behavioral economics (friction effects on behavior choice). The outcome (clarity about what genuinely matters) is widely reported by practitioners. (anecdotal)

Migration is one of the most-reported effective elements of the system by practitioners, but it has not been studied against other task-review methods.

Common mistake

Migrating tasks automatically without actually asking whether they are worth carrying — at which point migration becomes copying and the filter stops working.