To-Do Lists

Everyone knows the value of the to-do list, but this isn’t as helpful as you might think because everyone inherently kind of knows what they should be doing and when they need to do it by. The act of writing it down just helps remind them. This makes them more likely to do what they know they should be doing—more than if they didn’t have such a list. Sometimes when we’re struggling to get started, it’s because we can’t choose what to fixate on. Too many things have the potential to command our focus, and sometimes we can’t differentiate between what we should avoid and what actually deserves our attention.

The underrated problem most of us deal with is that we can’t prioritize, and thus we don’t know what we should and shouldn’t be doing. Each day, we’re faced with choosing tasks that will create the biggest impact for us, and there are many hidden obstacles. Thus, along with your to-do list, it’s equally important to make a don’t-do list. The contents of a don’t-do list might be surprising. You need to fill your don’t-do list with tasks that will sneakily steal your time and undermine your goals. These are tasks that are insignificant or a poor use of your time, tasks that don’t help your bottom line, and tasks that have a serious case of diminishing returns the more you work on them. They are useless, but it can be difficult to distinguish between real tasks and useless tasks, and it will require some hard thought on your part.

There are a few categories of tasks that belong on the don’t-do list. Among them are tasks that are important in one or many ways but are waiting for feedback from others or for underlying tasks to be completed first. Put these on your don’t-do list because there is literally nothing you can do about them, so they are just clogging up your mental bandwidth. Just note that you are waiting to hear back from someone else and the date on which you need to follow-up if you haven't heard back. Then push these out of your mind, because they’re on someone else’s to-do list, not yours. Include tasks that are current and ongoing but will not benefit  from additional work or attention paid to them. These tasks suffer from diminishing returns. These tasks are just a waste of energy because while they can still stand to improve (and is there anything that can't?), the amount of likely improvement will either not make a difference in the overall outcome, or will take a disproportionate amount of time and effort without making a significant dent.

The fewer things that tug on your mind, the better—the kind of stress and anxiety they create only hampers or kills productivity. A don’t-do list will free your mind of the burden of having too many things in the air because it eliminates most of those things. You can focus on the balls that are still in flight and steadily knock each one out. Direct your attention only to what matters at the moment.