To-Do List Formula: A Stress-Free Guide To Creating To-Do Lists That Work!

by Damon Zahariades

http://artofproductivity.com/free-gift/

Free pdf

You’ll also discover the changes you need to make to meet your deadlines, lower your stress, and find more joy in your daily experience.

They’ll actually help you to get things done. More to the point, they’ll help you to get the important things done. That could mean the difference between struggling with chronic stress and self-guilt and enjoying a relaxed, pressure-free workweek

Speaking of productivity, a proper to-do list will help you to get more done in less time. Importantly, you’ll get the right things done. Remember, being productive isn’t about completing a long list of tasks. It’s not about staying busy. It’s about focusing on high-value activities that help you to accomplish your goals.

Take a look at the following numbers, courtesy of productivity app developer iDoneThis. 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.

Most people misunderstand the function of a to-do list. They believe it’s a tool that should help them to complete every task they think deserves their attention. On the contrary, a 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. Nothing more. Without deadlines, we lean toward inaction.

Deadlines are the enemy of procrastination. They motivate us to take action and finish tasks. They also help us to gauge the effectiveness of our time management efforts. If we’re consistently getting important things done on time, we must be doing something right.

Recall Parkinson’s Law: “Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.” If you choose not to assign deadlines to your to-do items, don’t be surprised when those items linger on your list.

Fourth, they encourage procrastination. By failing to complete your to-do items day after day, you train your mind to accept that outcome. With time, you’ll lose the drive, or impetus, to complete tasks in a timely manner.

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. The items remain on a single massive register, which is then referred to each day as a rolling reminder of what needs to get done. This is a terrible approach to task management. It results in a long list that grows longer as new tasks are added each day.

To-do lists that serve as brain dump repositories invariably collect tasks that vary too broadly in scope. Items that will take three minutes to complete are listed next to items that will take three weeks. High-priority tasks are listed next to low-priority tasks that can be put on the back burner indefinitely. You’ll also find items associated with a wide swath of unrelated projects. In other words, there’s no connection between the various tasks. There are serious consequences to this approach. First, faced with a long list of options, you’re likely to either become paralyzed with inaction or spurred to engage in a low-value activity, such as checking Facebook. This is what psychologist Barry Schwartz called the “Paradox of Choice.” The more options we have, the less capable we are to decide between them and the more anxiety we experience as a result.

We wake up in the morning with a limited store of cognitive resources. This store is quickly used up throughout the day as we make decisions. All decisions, simple and complex, take a toll. This is the reason it’s easy to choose between multiple options in the morning - for example, should you have waffles, eggs, or cereal for breakfast? You have a full store of cognitive resources at your disposal. At the end of the day, however, even the simplest of choices can seem difficult. Should you go to the gym, watch television, or have a meaningful conversation with your spouse? You’re tired and have fewer cognitive resources at your disposal. As a result, your ability to make rational decisions is impaired.

This eventually leads to a predicament known as “decision avoidance.” Confronted with too many options, you avoid picking from among them because doing so requires too much mental effort. Instead, you spend valuable time checking email, visiting Facebook, and reading news headlines, all in an attempt to sidestep the act of deciding what to work on. The result is predictable. Your productivity plummets and your to-do items, including the important ones, go unfinished.

Without such context, it’s difficult to know which tasks deserve your immediate attention. In fact, it’s difficult to even know if you’re able to work on a particular task given your circumstances. If you don’t know how long something will take to finish, how important it is, and how it contributes to your goals, how can you know whether you should work on it? If you don’t know whether you need access to certain resources to work on the task, how can you know whether working on it is even possible at a particular point in time? The answer is, you can’t know.

When you create a list of tasks without context, you end up with options that are difficult to choose from. The result? Your list, which is supposed to be a record of things you need to get done, becomes a growing record of things left unaddressed and unfinished.

If this item were on my to-do list, I wouldn’t know how to get started since I neglected to list the individual tasks. I would be inclined to procrastinate. That being the case, it would remain on my to-do list unaddressed, causing me anxiety that increases each day as I fail to make progress on it. In contrast, a narrowly-defined task implies clear starting and ending points. For example, you’d know when the task “reserve a domain name” has been completed. You’d know when the task “find a web host” has been completed. These to-do items carry a singular objective, and it’s easy to know whether that objective has been met.

Consider a corporate manager who wants to improve his department’s workflow. The to-do item “increase department productivity” is ambiguous. “Schedule meeting with team leaders to discuss new workflow plan” would be more effective since it presents a single objective. It’s easy to know when that objective has been met.

Strangely, many people forget this principle when creating their to-do lists. They write down (or record online) every task that comes to mind. But they fail to associate these tasks with specific goals. Consequently, they end up spending their limited time working on to-do items that matter little to them in the long run.

The point is that you must attach a specific goal to each task on your to-do list. Know the reason each item needs to be completed. If you neglect this step, you’ll be less motivated to get the item done.

Assessing Your To-Do List Mastery: A Self-Appraisal

Questionnaire

How Negative Emotions Impair Your Productivity * * * It’s important to recognize the impact our emotions have on our productivity. When we’re unhappy, stressed, or fearful, our productivity suffers. We feel disengaged from our work, regardless of its role in achieving our goals. We’re also less creative and have more difficulty making decisions. Moreover, we lose focus and become more easily distracted.

Studies show that chronic stress and fear can literally change how the brain functions. Our ability to process thoughts and make rational decisions suffers as stress hormones, such as cortisol, accumulate. Neuroscientists have discovered that, over time, this state can damage the brain, hampering our decision-making ability.

So if you’re having trouble staying productive during the workday, take stock of your emotional state. Are you struggling with feelings that are siphoning your motivation? Are you dealing with emotions that are having a toxic effect on your willpower? Is persistent negativity eroding your focus and causing you to be more easily distracted? If so, pinpoint the reasons you’re experiencing these feelings. For example, do you feel guilty and depressed because you’ve missed important deadlines at your job? Do you feel stressed and angry because you’re being overwhelmed by too many conflicting responsibilities at home?

Mindfulnes

10 Most Popular To-Do List Systems * * * There’s more than one way to create an effective to-do list. This section will describe the top 10 strategies used today. You may already be familiar with some of them. Others may be new to you.

#1 - The Massive, All-Inclusive List

We’ll discuss this facet of to-do list management in more detail later. For now, it’s enough to know that doing a brain dump and working from a single, comprehensive list is a terrible idea. You might feel productive as you complete tasks and cross them off your list. But in reality, you’ll be inclined to choose easy, low-priority tasks that require minimal time to complete and leave the high-value items unaddressed.

#2 - The “Task + Starting Date + Due Date” List

As we discussed earlier, most to-do lists lack concrete deadlines. An individual may have a vague sense regarding the latest date by which a particular task must be completed, but he or she neglects to assign a formal due date to it.

This approach to creating to-do lists also introduces a second crucial feature: starting dates. Rather than leaving you with a long list of tasks and their respective due dates, it also provides the dates on which you should begin working on the tasks.

Daily planning

#3 - The To-Do List Twosome: Master Task List + Daily Task List

Here’s a summary of how this system works: Your master list is a rolling repository of every task you think of. It’s where you record every item, regardless of its priority, deadline, the time required to complete it, and the project with which it’s associated.

You’ll never get through your master list. In fact, it will probably grow with time. That’s fine, according to folks who use this system. The purpose of this list is to capture the myriad tasks swimming around in your head, saving you the effort of having to remember them.

#4 - The "3+2" Strategy

#5 - The 1-3-5 Rule

#6 - The Project-Based System

#7 - The 3-MIT Approach

The Matrix system was popularized by the late Stephen Covey, author of the acclaimed book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. It is also known as the “Eisenhower Box.” The same principles apply to both. It’s a tool used to decide how to allocate one’s time among competing tasks. A matrix is made up of four quadrants titled as follows: Important - Urgent Important - Not Urgent Not Important - Urgent Not Important - Not Urgent

This is a crucial distinction. You’ll find that completing each day’s to-do list will motivate and inspire you. There’s something invigorating about crossing off every item from your list. You’ll feel as if the day is a productive success. Imagine experiencing that positive feeling day after day.

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. Determine why you need to get it done. Write the reason down next to the task.

You’ll find that when you associate tasks with specific outcomes, you’ll feel more compelled to get them done. Taking action will signify progress toward goals you hope to achieve - goals that are important to you. This is one of the defining traits of an effective to-do list.

Step 3: Break Projects Down To Individual Tasks * * * You’ve probably heard this joke: How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.

When we’re faced with a large project, it’s difficult to know where to begin. Consequently, we become more prone to distractions. Any distraction is preferable to grappling with an endeavor for which we lack direction and momentum. This is the reason many to-do “items” remain unfinished at the end of the day. They’re technically projects. They’re too large in scope and can seem overwhelming, which causes us to procrastinate. We ultimately carry them forward to the following day, where they continue to nag us.

Make sure your to-do lists are limited to actionable tasks, not projects. If an item requires more than one action, it is a project that can - and should - be broken down. By breaking them down, you’ll enjoy better focus and get important work done more quickly.

Atividades e historias

Attaching a deadline to every item on your master to-do list makes it easier to know which tasks to select for your daily to-do list. You can tell at a glance which items need your attention tomorrow and which ones can be shelved until a future date.

Third, give yourself less time than you think you need. I mentioned Parkinson’s Law in the section Why You’re Not Finishing Your List Of To-Do Items. That law states “work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.” We tend to allow ourselves too much time to get things done. You’ll find that narrowing the window will improve your focus and result in greater efficiency and productivity.

strongly recommend limiting the number of items on your daily to-do list to seven. This is a manageable number. Assuming no single task requires hours to complete, it’s possible to get through your entire list by the end of the day.

My “limit-to-seven” suggestion refers solely to tasks that require at least 15 minutes to complete. You’ll find that many of the tasks on your master list can be handled within one or two minutes. Following are a few examples: Make your bed Check your voicemail Sort your mail Start a load of laundry Make a dinner reservation Subscribe to a newsletter (like mine!) Return a phone call Add a plug-in to your Wordpress blog Declutter your desktop Decide what to have for dinner

For these reasons, categorize each task on your master to-do list using the following three contexts: Project Type Location I recommend creating a separate list for each project, each type of task, and each location. For example, the following projects would warrant their own lists: Write a book Remodel my kitchen Buy a car The following types of tasks would also warrant their own lists: Analytical work Creative work Mindless work Likewise, the following locations would warrant their own lists: At the office At home On the road