More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Read between
May 19 - May 22, 2021
What Are Your To-Do Lists Supposed To Accomplish?
know what you need to work on
meet your deadlines.
the day’s top priorities based on their importance and urgency.
working on the right tasks at the right time.
avoid wasting valuable time putting out fires.
get more done in less time.
get the right things done.
focusing on high-value activities that help you to accomplish your goals.
improve your focus.
When it comes to getting things done, focus is where the battle is won.
Focus is what allows you to get important work done rather than waste time on minor or trivial activities.
41% of to-do items are never completed.
50% of completed to-do items are done within a day. 18% of completed to-do items are done within an hour. 10% of completed to-do items are done within a minute.
The main purpose of your to-do list is to help you organize your tasks and projects, and highlight the important stuff. It allows you to get everything out of your head, where things are likely to fall through the cracks. By writing them down, you’ll collect them in one place and gain a bird’s-eye view of your biggest priorities.
solid to-do list will focus your attention on the right work and prevent you from getting sidelined by less-critical items.
Your task list isn’t a tool for getting everything done. Rather, it’s a tool that will ensure you get the right things done.
A to-do list without deadlines is a wish list.
Without deadlines, we lean toward inaction.
Parkinson’s Law: “Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.”
present too many options,
which pulls your attention away from your most important work.
discouraging. You finish each day realizing that you failed to complete the day’s list of tasks.
encourage procrastination. By failing to complete your to-do items day after day, you train your mind to accept that outcome.
You have a limited amount of time to get things done during the course of a given day. It follows that you should limit the scope of your to-do list to accommodate this constraint.
Many people do a brain dump of every task they need or want to get done. They record everything on a single list. The problem is, they neglect to categorize these tasks and put them on separate lists according to context, priority, and urgency.
To-do lists that serve as brain dump repositories invariably collect tasks that vary too broadly in scope.
no connection between the various tasks.
The more options we have, the less capable we are to decide between them and the more anxiety we experience as a result.
decision fatigue. It’s a state in which you’re less able to make good decisions because you’re mentally exhausted from making decisions throughout the day.
“decision avoidance.” Confronted with too many options, you avoid picking from among them because doing so requires too much mental effort.
You Neglect To Add Context For Each Task
One of the greatest failings in most to-do lists is a lack of context for individual tasks. Items are written down without any indication about the time needed to complete them, their priority, and the roles they play in achieving specific goals.
When you create a list of tasks without context, you end up with options that are difficult to choose from.
The problem with broadly-defined tasks is that they’re too large in scope. Many lack a clear starting point and ending point. As a result, there’s no way to properly measure success.
Projects masquerade as tasks when they haven’t been broken down to their constituent parts. Because the individual to-do items are left unspecified, it’s difficult to know when the projects have been completed. This is a common failing in to-do lists.
defining tasks too broadly is detrimental to their completion.
Our goals spur us to take action. We’re less inclined to procrastinate when we’re able to predict the positive result of completing a specific task.
- The Project-Based System
Trello. It’s free and user-friendly.
Step 1: Isolate Current Tasks From Future Tasks
Step 2: Define Tasks By Desired Outcomes
We take action to effect specific outcomes.
The simplest way to get through your daily to-do list is to assign a “why” to each item found on it. Know the reason the item is on your list.
when you associate tasks with specific outcomes, you’ll feel more compelled to get them done.
Step 3: Break Projects Down To Individual Tasks
Step 4: Assign A Deadline To Each Task
make sure each deadline is realistic.
come up with a reason for each due date.
give yourself less time than you think you need.
