Creating tasks and to do lists

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In general, you need more slack than you expect. Unless you have a lot of practice, your estimations of how long things will take or how difficult they are will almost always be on the low end. Most of us treat best-case scenarios as if they are the most likely scenarios and will inevitably come to pass, but they rarely do.

If you are a high performer and recovery is not an intentional and strategic part of your time and workflow, you are only damaging your output in the long run.

See Use Complexity Partitioning when you are Overwhelmed by things

Create better tasks lists

Reference: NPR lifekit

  1. Figure out what matters to you. What are your priorities at this moment? Do you have a big goal or project in mind? What is a game changer in your life? Sometimes, you don’t pick a goal. Life hands it to you. e.g. taking care of a sick pet. And that is fine. If you don’t have a big picture goal at the moment, that is ok. If that is the case, let your current to-do list guide you. Keep asking why? for each of the items on your to do list. Don’t keep feeding zombie projects/tasks. Do the tasks on your to-do list enlarge you or diminish you? If your job is hard or if the tasks on your to-do list are hard, ask yourself these questions: Is it the kind of hard that will help you grow as a person and develop skills or is it the kind of hard that is pointless?

  2. Pick a to-do list system. Paper or digital? Hour by hour? Or a simple list of tasks? This system can change. This is just a starting point. Advantages of paper to-do lists are that they are concrete, tactile and the page can come to an end. Endless to-do lists can get overwhelming.

    Calendar approach:

    Time blocks on the agenda - squares or rectangles of time for a task - it is also called time boxing - a good way to figure out how much you can realistically tackle in a day - since you are visually blocking off time for each of the items on your to-do list. That awareness can help you think about the question - Am I spending my time in a way that is meaningful to me? What is my intention in life?

    Some people find it too rigid. They don’t like very rigorous association between a task and a time of the day. Many things can come in the way - moods, responsibilities as a parent, random emergencies that arise, etc. You cannot say, I am absolutely going to be doing this task between 3 PM and 4 PM today. It feels imprisoning. It feels like life is not fun anymore - even if you work on things that matter. So some people like a list of tasks better.

    Your system to organize your life needs to evolve constantly.

  3. Fill your list with tasks of daily living but also with steps towards your big picture goal.

    Tasks of your daily living don’t have to make it into the to-do list. e.g. buy toilet papar, refill that prescription, buy groceries.

    Follow the two-minute rule from the productivity world. If it takes less that two minutes to do something, just do it right then and there. It is not worth spending the bandwidth to write down - remembe it - and to do it.

    Consider automating some of them so that they don’t make the to do list at all.

    “Re-decorate my apartment” is not an item that should be on a to-do list. Which part of the apartment? kitchen? floor? The items on a to-do list need to be actionable. Go smaller. Call the hardware store and get an estimate for the floor - is a do-able task. Or, look at tiles for the floor - is a do-able task. Order the tiles - is a do-able task.

    Limit your to-do lists to 4 or 5 items per a given timeslot. And do not add more items to it unless you take something off of that list.

  4. Pick something to fail at. You don't have to do everything all at once. You don't have to do it all well.

    It is called “creative neglect”.

    You are not going to be excelling on a whole lot of dimensions all at once. Like, being a really good parent and a really good employee. Then, you are not going to be a really good runner or triathlon or whatever else you have planned for that exact time.

    We cannot do it all - at least not simultaneously.

    Make decisions like, For this season of my life, I am not going to be doing ’triathlon’. Or not going to be keeping a tidy and beautiful house with a new-born baby and a full-time job. When you see a messy house, don’t think that you are failing. See it as a reminder of your values and what you have committed to.

Remember: To-do lists exist to serve us. We don’t answer to them. If your to-do list is making you feel bad about yourself or your life, crumble it up and throw it out and start over again when you are ready.

Don’t go through life feeling like you are in productivity debt - The feeling that you need to Work really hard today to pay off the debt by the end of the day. There is nothing that you need to do to earn your right to exist.

These Seven To-Do List Mistakes Could Be Derailing Your Productivity

Why you shouldn’t write your list in the morning, and the items you should leave off completely.

Fast Company

  • Stephanie Vozza

When it comes to getting things done, sometimes the simple productivity methods are the best. Case in point: the to-do list. This handy tool keeps you on track by putting tasks top of mind . . . unless you’re doing it wrong.

Mistakes on your to-do list could be putting your workday in jeopardy, say experts.

“A to-do list is a road map for your day,” says Paula Rizzo, author of Listful Thinking: Using Lists to Be More Productive, Successful, and Less Stressed. “It sets an intention so you know what you’re doing, but you can get derailed if you don’t use it correctly.”

Before you write your next to-do list, make sure you aren’t making these seven common mistakes:

1. Writing the List in the Morning

It may feel natural to create your to-do list first thing in the morning, but that’s too late, says Eileen Roth, author of Organizing For Dummies. “If you do that and you have an 8 a.m. meeting across town, you probably won’t be there,” she says. Instead, create your list the night before.

Writing the list at the end of the day allows you to leave work behind and transition into personal time, says Roth. “You go home and can stop thinking about your to-do list because you already created it and know what tomorrow’s to-do’s look like. Your mind can rest,” she says.

2. Including Too Many Tasks

If your to-do list includes so many tasks that it would take a few weeks or even months to complete, you’re setting yourself up for failure, says Rizzo. “When you list too many things, it’s overwhelming,” she says.

Three tasks are ideal, says Kyra Bobinet, author of Well Designed Life: 10 Lessons in Brain Science & Design Thinking for a Mindful, Healthy, and Purposeful Life. “Your brain understands things in groups of three,” she says. “Take advantage of this by creating a ‘top three’ at the beginning of your to-do list. Most people have a list that is longer than three items.”

Long lists are a problem because most people aren’t aware of how few productive hours we truly have in a day, says Christina Willner, founder of the productivity software Amazing Marvin. “Our mental energy is a far more limiting factor than time,” she says. “We only have about three to six good hours of work in us each day.”

Another reason that long lists are common is that people tend to underestimate how long a task takes, says Willner. Instead, she suggests estimating each task’s duration, and writing it next to the task. Then track your time to help make future estimates more accurate.

3. Including Someday Items

Aspirational tasks, like writing a book, don’t belong on a to-do list; instead, create a separate bucket list. “If your to-do list says, ‘Climb Mount Everest and pick up milk,’ those are two separate lists,” says Rizzo.

Daily to-do lists should be focused. If you have a big project you want to complete, you can put it on your to-do list if you chunk it out into smaller, more attainable tasks, says Rizzo.

Someday items belong on a master list that holds all the tasks you want to do and is constantly growing and shrinking, says Willner. “You don’t want to work directly from your master list,” she says. “Not only is it overwhelming to see so many tasks; it’s also not satisfying to never be able to complete it. Instead, you want to make a separate daily list where you plan which tasks to tackle the next day and only work off that list.”

4. Treating Each Item Equally

A good to-do list should be a priority list, says productivity coach Nancy Gaines. “Only add items that will move your career or business forward,” she says. “If it’s not a priority, it should not be on the list. Non-priorities are just distractions.”

She suggests following the “3-3-3 system when writing out your list.” “Delete three of the items since they probably aren’t that important,” says Gaines. “Delegate three of the items to someone else, as they are not the best use of your time or talents. And do three of the items that are the highest priority.”

5. Not Being Specific

People often write vague notes on a to-do list, but it can be difficult to take action if you have to stop and think how to proceed, says Maura Thomas, author of Personal Productivity Secrets. If you have 10 minutes to get something done and a vague to-do list, you’ll waste time trying to reconnect with each item on the list and remember what it means.

“Take the few extra seconds, while you’re in planning mode and writing the list, to be as specific as you can be, so that when you’re taking on a task on the fly, you can just get it done,” she says. For example, instead of writing “expense report” on your to-do list, write “enter receipts into spreadsheet.”

And skip the vague-sounding action words, such as “plan,” “implement,” or “develop” from your list of tasks. “If you only have a few minutes, seeing a word like ‘develop’ on your list will act like a speed bump, and you’ll probably skip over it,” says Thomas. “Save those vague words for your projects list, which is for those big-picture items that aren’t immediately actionable by themselves.”

6. Using the Same List Until It’s Done

Too often, people create one to-do list and use it until all of the items are done, says Roth. “The problem with that theory is that every day changes, so what you did today is not what you will do tomorrow,” she says. “And what you think you are going to do tomorrow may change before today is over.”

Instead, create a fresh list for each day. “Some people who work only on projects can work on a weekly to-do list, but even that will change as the days progress through the week,” says Roth.

7. Not Linking Your List and Calendar

Having a full calendar that does not include the actions on your full to-do list is another mistake, says Katie Mazzocco, author of Revolutionary Productivity: How to Maximize Your Time, Impact, and Income in Your Small Business.

“Recognize that there is only so much time each day,” she says. “If you have a full calendar and a full to-do list that aren’t connected, you’ll never have time to take action on your to-do list, short of robbing yourself of sleep, family time, weekend relaxation, or vacation.”

Instead, block out time on your calendar to take action on your to-do list items.

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