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good task list will eliminate the frustration and guilt you feel when you fall behind on projects. It will help you to work more smartly and with greater purpose.
Productivity Paradox.
false sense of accomplishment.
You Misunderstand The Goal Of To-Do Lists
The main purpose of your to-do list is to help you organize your tasks and projects, and highlight the important stuff.
list of items displayed in front of you is much easier to manage than the same list swimming around in your head.
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.
You Neglect To Assign Deadlines
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.
Deadlines help us to choose between competing tasks based on the goals we hope to accomplish.
Your Lists Are Too Long
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.
Your Lists Have Too Much Variability
“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.
You Give Yourself Too Many Options
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. In other words, your cognitive resources have been exhausted.
we’re more inclined to choose activities that offer immediate gratification over those that are arguably better for us, but require more effort.
“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
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.
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?
For example, suppose your to-do list includes the task “call my accountant.” It provides no information about the item’s priority. Do you need to call your accountant today or can it wait until next week? Nor is there any information concerning how long the call is likely to last. Will it take a few minutes or will you be on the phone for an hour? Also lacking are details regarding the purpose of the call. Do you need to ask your accountant a question about a potential write-off? Or do you want to explore the pros and cons of starting a shell corporation?
growing record of things left unaddressed and unfinished.
Your Tasks Are Defined Too Broadly
this broadly defined to-do item is actually a full-blown project made up of numerous tasks.
I wouldn’t know how to get started since I neglected to list the individual tasks. I would be inclined to procrastinate.
a narrowly-defined task implies clear starting and ending points.
Your Tasks Are Not Attached To Specific Goals
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.
If you neglect this step, you’ll be less motivated to get the item done.
It’s important to realize that such periods are temporary.
Once you’ve identified whatever is triggering your negativity, you can take steps to change your circumstances and relieve the pressure.
#1 - The Massive, All-Inclusive List
brain dump is an important step toward creating an effective to-do list. But it’s a first step. After you’ve written down all of the tasks you can think of,
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.
popularity isn’t due to its effectiveness.
#2 - The “Task + Starting Date + Due Date” List
deadlines.
We not only get more things done, but we get more of the right things done.
starting dates.
You can devote your attention to tasks that are in progress or need to be started that day. You can ignore those that have starting dates in the future.
The tasks’ starting dates will prompt you to work on them early enough to meet their respective deadlines.
#3 - The To-Do List Twosome: Master Task List + Daily Task List
It involves keeping two distinct lists: your master list and your daily list.
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.
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.
Its scope is limited to the tasks you intend to complete by the end of the day.
Each evening, you would review your master list.
