5 Tips to Wrest Back Control of Your To Do List
Does your to-do list dominate your life? Would you like to boss your to-do list around instead of the other way around?
If so, read on for five tips on how to be in charge of your life and your to-do list.
Tip 1 – First KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid)
Adding “apply for jobs” or “learn Spanish” to your to-do list is begging to fail.
Why?
They’re too complex.
Your brain has to make a zillion decisions before it can even begin to work on those tasks, so it goes on vacation instead. You drink coffee. You watch TV. You do busywork instead. And at the end of the day, and for many days to come, your task remains undone.
Break up tasks into small chunks that you can do without making a bunch of decisions first. For example, “call Amy to ask for help on my resume” or “study Spanish vocabulary for 15 minutes using the Duolingo app.”
Tip 2 – Second KISS (Keep it Specific, Stupid)
To-do list culprits “Exercise” and “clean the house” are simple, and based on Tip #1 should be okay. But they are still a cinch for your brain to ignore, and frequently result in procrastination and failure-to-complete.
Why?
They’re too vague.
“Exercise” could mean anything from walking to the mailbox to yoga to a kickboxing class to calling up your buddy to go for a run. When faced with the actual decision to do something that, let’s face it, most of us don’t want to do anyway, your brain goes right back on vacation and says “I can’t figure out what to do, so I’ll do nothing.” Or it’ll unthink “Ooh, I know! I’ll go back to scrolling through my FB feed to see if something earth-shattering happened in the last 36 seconds!”
Damn you, Facebook feed. How I hate/don’t hate thee.
Instead, garnish your to-do list with “go for a 20 minute run on the bike path before lunch.” Granted, you can write just “Run,” but you do have to make the decision about specifics when you add the item to your list. Or your brain will trick you into “forgetting” later as you anxiously await the web page loading to show you Kim Kardashian’s nude, err I mean new, pics.
Same goes for “clean the house.” Do you have the right cleaning supplies? Are you going to clean your preteen’s room again? Will someone walk over the just-mopped floor and ruin it? Are you going to attack the garage this time? Or the attic? What do you actually mean?
Try “sweep, garbage, dishes” as three separate items, and then “Laundry – wash, dry, fold, put away” as four separate items. Yeah, I’m looking at you, miz “I did my laundry two days ago and it’s still sitting in the dryer cuz I hate folding.”
Don’t feel bad, I’m not judging you. I hate folding, too.
Which is why I give it its own to-do item.
Tip 3 – One Task to Rule Them All
You have a zillion things to get done. And of course they absolutely must all get done immediately. But all tasks are not created equal, and some will never happen unless you prioritize them above all the others.
That’s why I recommend you pick ONE task that you absolutely must get done today. Make it one of the big ones that you have to break down into smaller chunks, one you’ve been procrastinating for a good long while, like, oh say, “do taxes” or at least “organize W-2 info for taxes” or somesuch. Obviously a fictional example at the moment – thank God THAT is over for this year.
Once you have your to-do list completed, work on the ONE task immediately, as early in the day as possible, and get it out of the way.
Tip 4 – Invest in Self Care
Level up your daily to-do list with self-care items. That way, when you’ve been doing work for a couple of hours, “meditate 15 min” or or “walk 10 min” or “read fun book” will feel like an absolute delight, and you’ll come back to your work with a fresher mind and body.
Self-care becomes a no-calories-required treat to look forward to.
Speaking of food, I feature all meals and snacks on my to-do list. When I forget to eat, which happens altogether too often, I become extremely cranky and unsociable and wonder why. So I design my to-do list to prevent that.
Outsmart yourself with your to-do list, plan for your idiosyncrasies, and set yourself up for success.
You deserve it.
Tip 5 – Plan to fail, but not because you failed to plan
Don’t beat yourself up if you don’t complete all the items on your to-do list. No one ever does. Yeah, yeah, I know, I can’t say that, some dude out there makes a list of two things every day, and always completes both of them. Or some savant genius does 100 bajillion things every single day.
But you know what I mean.
Aim to create a list that feels doable, but challenging. If the list is overwhelming, you’ll go hide under the covers and won’t get much done. If the list requires zero effort, you won’t feel engaged, and won’t even get those few easy items done.
I design my daily list so that it’s hard enough that I can complete 70-80% of it if I work hard, then rest and leave the other items for another day.
How do you manage your to-do list, or does it still manage you? Let me know in the comments below!
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