Your To-Do List is Holding You Back
If you are anything like most ambitious people, your to-do list is your best friend, a source of comfort that validates you accomplished something, especially when you feel like you didn’t. It may be time to ditch the list and find a new best friend.
Before I incur the wrath of the project management community, let me clarify. To-do lists are a great way to keep track of simple, no-brainer tasks, like sending an email message or picking up the dry cleaning. But they are decidedly less beneficial when trying to keep track of bigger, harder to quantify (and just a smidge more important) goals or activities. Think about it. Was “revolutionize the way we think about the solar system” on Galileo’s to-do list? After the first Tesla rolled off the assembly line, did Elon Musk let out a sigh of relief and say, “Finally, I can cross ‘develop an electric car’ off my list!”
The most to-do list-loving among you may be thinking, “Wait! I can break those big goals down into smaller, more actionable tasks.” True, but even those smaller, more actionable items are no match for the tempting little tasks that can be completed so quickly. When you combine simple administrative tasks with more complex thought-oriented tasks on a single to-do list, you give them equal value, even though they are not. In our perpetually busy lives, the prospect of crossing a bunch of things off your list is much more appealing than crossing a single, albeit more challenging item, so when it comes time to run through the tasks on the to-do list, you most likely start with the easy items first, reasoning that you will get them out of the way so that we can work on the more difficult tasks.
This is the TOTAL OPPOSITE of what you should do, for two reasons. First, when you start the day with the small stuff, you expend your precious peak energy on tasks that don’t require it and may feel drained when you are ready to move on the more impactful items, which brings me to the second problem. Those little tasks, like Gremlins who get wet, have a nasty habit of multiplying before your very eyes, and pretty soon, you may find yourself caught in what I call the “the just-one-more-thing” trap. This happens to me ALL the time: I get on a tear taking care of the little stuff, and next thing I know, the day is done and I have nothing to show for it.
Don’t worry: you don’t have to completely shun your to-do list. Go ahead and make your list of administrative tasks (I knew there was no way for me to talk you out of it), but instead of putting the big items on the list, identify two bigger tasks you’d like to make progress on. Devote the first hour of your day to one bigger task, and once you have reached a natural breakpoint (you get stuck, you need to stretch your legs, etc.), if you have exhausted your energy for that task, move to the administrative tasks. Spend about 30 minutes on the administrative tasks, and when you feel refreshed, go back to tackling the big task you were working on previously, or try the second one.
It’s important to resist the temptation to use little tasks to feel productive. Often, at the end of my most productive days, I don’t have anything substantive to show for it. I didn’t check anything off a list, but I had a breakthrough in my thinking or found a way to solve a problem that had been bothering me. Don’t let your to-do list get in the way of your greatness.
What techniques do you use to structure your day? Email me so that I can share them!
