I recently reviewed my task management process and in doing so I read an ebook by Kourosh Dini called Creating Flow with OmniFocus (OmniFocus is the name of the task management program that I've been using for a few years now; if you use a Mac, I highly recommend it).
What I really liked about this ebook was how Kourosh interspersed scientific knowledge throughout it. Several parts even teetered on philosophical. In one section he talks about how our brains process stuff:
One psychoanalyst, Wilfred Bion, suggests that thought itself is born of frustration. Thought, in this definition, is essentially any movement or creation of mind be it emotion, intellect, movement, or otherwise.
Similarly, plans are born of frustration. They come about because we are not already at our goals. Were we there already, it would not even occur to us to create a goal. And, as we are not already there, there are more than likely unknown tasks and concepts that have yet to occur simply because we have not started the journey there.
While projects can get messy, it is the continual refining, redefining, and re-working of the tasks and projects that eventually create the end results.
As one goes through contexts, there are any number of times where one will come across a task that seems redundant, poorly prioritized, in the wrong context or otherwise. We are not, after all, automatons. If there is something nagging us from the back of our minds, there is definitely reason to re-think how the tasks are presented.