For me it basically breaks down to

• life

** social

*** gifts

*** birthdays

*** social event journal to remember past events

** tasks

*** repetitive weekly chore list

*** priority life tasks

*** housework/yardwork & maintenance

*** hobbies & whatever else

** meta stuff about the system (where this list of lists would be written down in an analog system as a map)

** daily scratchpad list archive

** today's scratchpad list

Every day I use the system I create a scratchpad list. I move the previous sessions scratchpad list to the archive (or delete it) ripping out the pieces I want to keep and inserting them into the relevant permanent list.

I am describing a system I implement digitally but a simple version could be done with some notebooks and a pocketable small post it note pad for "today's scratchpad list". This system assumes you are using a seperate calendar or integrated date stamps for list items so they can be displayed in a calendar view.

Not claiming it's original but this is the perspective that makes other more complex and fleshed out systems make sense to me as I can translate how that particular system maps to this abstracted recipe.

In a fully built out task tracking and thinking system the **tasks subheading is more of note system with tasks sprinkled throughout that a collating mechanism creates a list of just actionable TODOs tasks from.

How do I sort out just an actionable task list? With org mode tasks have a flag and are retrieved into a list of just actionable tasks by a basic software function, but there are ways you could translate this too into an analog equivalent with bookmarks in your task notebooks marking active TODO tasks.