Todo, to-do, or to do? That is the question
Todo lists are great. They provide us with structure, a clear goal, and little dopamine hits throughout the day. They help us with time management, planning, and procrastination. They are, in short, fantastic productivity tools!
To create a productive todo list we need to utilize supporting lists, plan out our day, be careful not to over or under populate, and set achievable tasks.
So todo lists are great, but how do we get the most out of one and ensure it is helping us to be productive? Let’s discuss:
What tools do I use?
When it comes to todo lists, we have a vast array of tools to choose from: apps, websites, pencil and paper, crayons and walls, chalk and boards, sticks and sand, pens and arms, and so on.
And they are free! Most todo apps will offer a free tier to get you started, which is often more than is needed to make a really productive todo list.
I use ClickUp for business and Trello for daily personal todo lists. I use two apps because they both have pros and cons over each other and are suited for slightly different use cases. ClickUp I find is excellent for collaboration, sharing, and structuring large projects. Trello is simple, fast, and mobile-friendly. The screenshots in this post are from my Trello daily todo list page.
How I structure my todo list
A traditional todo list is a list of tasks you wish to complete. You check off the task as you complete it and hope by the end of the day you have checked off all tasks. This is great and is what a todo list is at its core, but we can make them so much better!
Repeat Pool
A repeat pool is a list of todo tasks that you frequently do – tasks such as Publish Blog Post, Put out Bins, and Pickup Kids from School.
By populating a Repeat Pool, we can remove a lot of unnecessary thinking each day. As we populate our todo list, we can look through our Repeat Pool and pull in tasks that we need to do that day. They offer reminders of things that we need to do but aren’t necessarily always on our minds. Repeat pools save us time and energy each day and are a great way to get us started on a productive todo list.
Priority lists
Once a week I check over and populate my priority lists. I have three priority lists that I title: Important – Urgent, Important – Not Urgent, and Not Important – Not Urgent. You may recognize these titles from The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and notice that one is missing – Not Important -Urgent, and you would be right. But I never found anything to put in this category so I removed it (if I find something that I need to do urgently, then it tends to be important).
Each morning, I look through these lists and pull some of the tasks into my daily todo list. Having tasks split out by importance and urgency means I can prioritize what I should work on first while not forgetting about the not-so-urgent tasks. By looking through these lists every day, I can ensure that tasks sitting in the later lists are reviewed and can be bumped up to the Important – Urgent list if situations change.
Keep completed tasks
I have another list on my Trello board that holds the completed tasks for that year – “Done in 20xx”. This list is great to look through at the end of the year, or when I want to remind myself how much I have achieved. It can be a real motivator!
I don’t put every single task in here, just the ones I am keen to remember or I’m proud of. The tasks in the Repeat Pool generally won’t make it into this list, but you do you!
Considerations
The previous section covered how to organize a daily todo list, now let’s look at things to avoid and some mental considerations.
Plan the whole day
When writing up our todo lists, it’s important to consider our day as a whole. There are things we can’t avoid doing in a day and we need to ensure we have time to do them. We can’t do two things at once, at least not effectively, so knowing what needs to be done and when will ensure we are working at maximum efficiency.
Each day, before committing to the todo list, give it a once over and really consider if you will have time to complete each task. Will task X only take 30 minutes and can you can finish it before the school run? Or recognise that the afternoon meeting always runs over schedule and you likely won’t have time to perform Y.
Planning the day out will help us avoid being surprised by the surprising lack of time we have. It will help to ensure that we won’t be disappointed at not completing the list, or annoyed at rushing through important tasks.
What not to include
Not everything you do on a daily basis needs to, or should, be added to the list. Todo lists help us plan our day and give us a little push to get things done, but they aren’t there to automate our every waking moment. So with that in mind, we can leave off everyday occurrences like Eat Breakfast, Take Kids to School, and Watch Game of Thrones.
If you are particularly forgetful and have things that you absolutely need to remember, like taking the kids to school, then an alarm on your phone will be the better option. After all, who knows if you will remember to check your todo list?
Looking for a little bit of inspiration for populating your todo list? Tidying up can be an easy addition – this post here goes into why it’s so important.
Avoid overpopulating
Overpopulating our todo lists is counter-productive. It is easy to get carried away and create tasks for absolutely everything we want to do in a day, but it’s important to show restraint.
First of all, there is a finite amount of time in a day so we need to consider how long each task is likely to take. We can’t work for more hours than there are!
We also have a finite amount of decisions we can effectively make in a day, and although using todo lists saves us from making some decisions, we also can’t expect our brains to be running at peak effectiveness through a jam-packed day.
Overpopulating our list in the morning, while we are at maximum motivation, can later lead to overwhelm. This is something we need to keep in mind and work on as we become masters of todo lists. Overwhelm is a leading cause of procrastination and giving up. Notice the days when you feel overwhelmed and consider if you have too many items on your todo list.
It is better to have a shorter todo list that is done well than a long todo list that is rushed or not completed at all.
When to force it, when to leave it
Some days will be a struggle when every task on your list makes you want to reach for your phone and lose yourself in social media. I’m here to tell you that not only is this normal, but sometimes it’s also the right thing to do. Well, maybe not social media, but something that lets you rest.
When confronted with a task we don’t want to do, how do we know if we should force ourselves to do it? What I do is ask myself questions along these lines: is this task going to help me achieve my main goal?, what will happen if I don’t complete this task?, will I be making my life harder if I don’t complete this task?, and why don’t I want to do this? Often just answering these questions can motivate me to get on with it, but sometimes I realize it’s not the most important task right now and I allow myself to leave it.
If you have answered the above questions and the thought of doing the task is still making you miserable, then, if it’s an option, don’t do it. Give yourself a break and don’t beat yourself up. There is always tomorrow.
Sometimes we might need to apply the 5-minute technique. This is where we start the task and keep going for 5 minutes. Action Creates Motivation. If we still aren’t motivated to continue after the 5 minutes then we stop and try again another time.
Of course, some of us are great at lying to ourselves and we will make excuses as to why we can’t do something. Take stock and decide, at a time when not pressured to perform a task, if you gave up too easily or made an excuse that wasn’t really valid. If you find that you are always making excuses then it’s time to knuckle down and start forcing it. Build up over time, by ensuring you force at least one task per day, put all your energy into it and ensure it’s done! Maybe just have one task a day to start with and, again, ensure it is done. You will start to build up the habit of getting stuff done and you won’t want to break your streak. It will become easier over time.
A closing thought
If, after all the above, you are still not completing tasks day in and day out, then maybe your goal doesn’t really resonate with you. If you don’t really want to run a marathon, or start your own business, or learn a foreign language, then having tasks related to these goals on your todo list will drain you and detract from the list’s effectiveness.
If you often don’t complete certain tasks then re-assess what is important to you.
Thanks for reading
Iain McClafferty – The Five Year Mortgage
