Hire Your To-Do List
I finally read a piece of life-changing (or, at least, mind-changing) productivity advice: Hire your to-do list.
So the article starts out talking about how we conduct our life as if the to-do list is in charge and we are working for the to-do list, rather than recognizing that we are the boss of our time and the to-do works for us. It begins by hiring your to-do list; figuring out why you’re keeping it in the first place and how you can make it efficiently work for you as a paper employee rather than a paper task master.
But what I love is that she keeps a three-part to-do list: (1) stuff that needs to get done sometime, but it doesn’t matter when, (2) stuff that needs to get done immediately, or by the end of the day, and (3) stuff that does not need to get done. A not-to-do list, which serves as a reminder of all the tasks she rejects from her to-do list so they don’t weasel their way back on.
This realization forces you to acknowledge there are lower priority items that you will likely never complete. Delete those non-essentials, put them on your not-to-do list, and commit to letting them go. This will prevent you from wasting precious time continually re-evaluating whether you might get to them.
It sort of feels like that advice Alton Brown gives about cleaning out the kitchen drawers. Put everything in a box. If you use the utensil, wash it and put it back in a drawer. Everything still in the box in six months are things you don’t need.
Things that languish on a to-do list are probably things that could have gone straight onto the not-to-do list, never to be thought about again.
Nerding out on this one.
2 comments
Love this! I recently added a “waiting on” component to my to-do list, which I’m using imperfectly but do find helpful when I remember to jot things down. So often there’s something I need to do, but before I can do it I need to find out — something. So I email a colleague or whatever and wait to get the answer. This works fine if they respond promptly(ish), but if they don’t, I may forget about that item all together (I’ve typically moved it off my to-do list once it’s not in the active stage because I mostly try to keep stuff I should be actively doing on there).
And yes, having a don’t-do list seems like a good idea in its own way also. Things not to spend time or energy on, including not worrying that they are undone…
Yes, the kitchen utensil advice. I tried that once. Then after six months, put most of the things in the box back in the drawers, because there are things I use once a year that I can’t do without! lol
I think I do this mentally with my To-do list. But then, maybe by actively removing things from the To-do list and putting them on a Not-to-d0 list would remove the guilt and same of not doing them. The freedom of that would be wonderful.