by Rachel Smith
30 January 2015
My husband is a very organised person. But over the years, I’ve watched his to-do list grow and grow. These days, it’s a monster with hundreds of entries, kept only in check by an iPhone app which enables him to filter to-do items into specific categories. (He urged me to download this app years ago, and I deleted it shortly after in a fit of overwhelming list rage, so I can’t even share with you the name of it.)
If his to-do list stresses me out (and the items on it aren’t even mine to worry about), then I can only imagine how it must weigh on him, all the overwhelming stuff he has ‘to do’. And recently, watching him for the umpteenth time flicking through and re-prioritising items on it reminded me of a time management guru I’d come across a while ago: Mark Foster, who is anti to-do lists.
“There are two main reasons why they [don’t work],” he explains. “The first is that you never get more than a third of the way down the list. The second is that for every item that you cross off the list, you think of another three items to go on it. The result is that you end up with a huge, growing, indigestible lump of un-actioned items which gets transferred day after day.”
Foster’s solution to the evil, ever-growing to-do list is creating ‘will-do lists’ instead, which are simple and way more achievable. You simply commit to several tasks you know you can definitely do that day. Plus, it’s a closed list. Unlike typical to-do lists, where you add stuff as you go, a will-do list is just for what you can accomplish that day. The aim is to scrunch your scribbled list up into a ball and chuck it in your rubbish bin because there’s nothing left on it to do.
I have two to-do lists – one is a hard copy I print out every Sunday, and the other is more of an ongoing bullet journal I add to every day in my reMarkable. But instead of ticking things off, I can just rub them out, which is satisfying in itself.
Do you have a will-do list? An dauntingly long to-do list like my husband’s? Or another strategy for staying on track and productive with the tasks you need to do?
Great article Rachel, thanks. It’s a little like how I use the Pomodoro method. I print out a couple of Activity Inventory lists, all the things I can think of that need to be done, and considerably more To Do Today lists. I just bulldog clip them together with the Activity Inventory at the back and the To Do Today at the front. The idea is that like you suggest with the ‘Will-do’ list, I pick several items off the Activity Inventory, although it may be just one if it’s a biggie like write a feature, put them on the To Do Today and get to work.
Sounds like a good system Darren. I did try the Pomodoro method but didn’t stick with it although I have stuck with the ‘will-do’ lists.