CJ Eller

No matter how many reminders I give myself about chores, I'm bound to forget them. I don't forget about scrolling through Twitter or playing a video game. Just about getting my truck's oil changed or replacing the house's dryer vent.

This gets me thinking about Hijack Your Feed, a browser extension for MacOS that transforms Twitter ads into your todos:

Hijack Your Feed generates eye-catching posts based on your Reminders. Designed to nudge you toward your intentions… and away from doom-scrolling.

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Harness the power of persuasive design for your own benefit. Hijack Your Feed transforms any task—no matter how boring—into content worth consuming.

I'm intrigued by the idea of having your todo list embed itself within the things that distract you from checking off your todos in the first place. Because we're all used to the idea of eating your vegetables before having dessert. An analogous practice of this mindset could be your game console preventing you from playing something until you complete an item on your todo list.

What Hijack Your Feed proposes is different. It acts on a subliminal level. Imagine playing a video game that is able to pull in your todo list and mentions todo list items in-game, maybe even incorporates them into the story — not just on a surface level but in a fundamental way. This isn't preventing you from playing the game but is rather using the game to get you thinking about the things you want to get done outside of playing the game. All, of course, with the hope you'd go out with more eagerness to complete those tasks.

This isn't exactly what Hijack Your Feed is going for per se, but it gets me rethinking my perspective on todo lists.