a post on boingboing talks about how lists of shows to watch on tivo become "to-do" lists:
When I first got my TiVo, having a lot of programming on the drive felt like someone had done me a large favor; but over time, it felt almost like a nag: here's all this "work" I've got piled up for you to do.
i have this problem with both my email and my news reader. i have real work to do this morning, but i can't bring myself to leave the 47 unread items sitting there. and there's no way to make the new item notification go away. i've just shrunk it down as far as i can, and i'll do my best to remember that it's not really a to-do list; it just looks like one.