The old system let to-do items quietly auto-archive after seven days. That meant things could sit unresolved indefinitely without anyone actually deciding anything about them. I was building a responsibilities chart for the three CG principals and used it to fix the pattern.
Set a system-wide hard rule: no to-do item survives more than fourteen days. At day fourteen it ships or it dies, no exceptions, with a yellow flag at day seven and a forced red-flag decision by day twelve.
There should never be a to-do item that lasts more than two weeks. The quiet auto-archive let things rot without anyone owning the decision to kill them. A loud, forced choice is more honest, even when the choice is to kill something.
The rule applies equally to all three principals' work streams, with a target ship-to-kill ratio of roughly 60 to 40 as the health check. Too many kills means intake is too loose, too many ships means intake is too narrow.
Letting something quietly disappear isn't the same as deciding to end it, and only one of those is honest.
The rule exists so a person has to make the call instead of letting a system's silence make it for them.