I remember reading a very long time ago that someone did some research on this very subject and found that the majority of problems go away if you don't deal with them. They concluded that this could be part of the reason procrastination exists - procrastinators had a genetic advantage in saving a lot of energy.
This makes even more sense if you consider that the majority of the need to perform tasks in an evolutionary context would have come form other humans. Simply not doing anything while waiting to see who returns more angry to get their stuff done would have obviated the need to keep track of a task list oneself.
