How to Use a to-Do List to Stay Focused

Are you the master or slave of your task manager? In this week’s episode, I’m going to show you how to take control of your tasks. 

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Episode 278 | Script

Hello and welcome to episode 278 of the Working With Podcast. A podcast to answer all your questions about productivity, time management, self-development and goal planning. My name is Carl Pullein and I am your host for this show.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, people were busy, much as we are today, yet we never began the day with to-do lists of twenty-plus tasks. That wasn’t the way we used to-do lists. To-do lists were for the essential, must not forget to do tasks. 

Most desk diaries at that time only had space for around six tasks at the bottom of each day’s column. Ironically, six tasks was the number Ivy Lee recommended when he devised the Ivy Lee method for Bethlehem Steel in 1918. That method worked then and it still works today. 

So what has happened over the last fifteen years or so? Have our brains diminished somehow? I don’t think so. I suspect the reason why we are struggling now is because we believe everything that must be done should be added to the to-do list, yet does it? How effective would you be if the only things you saw on your list each day were the things that really mattered? I know you would be a lot more focused. 

That’s what we’ll be looking at this week, so, let me hand you over to the Mystery Podcast voice for this week’s question. 

This week’s question comes from Michelle. Michelle asks, Hi Carl, I’ve tried so many times to use a to-do list and it always begins well, but after a few days, it becomes overwhelming. I know how helpful they are and I wondered if you could break down what should and should not be in a to-do list. 

Hi Michelle, thank you for your question. 

Let’s go back to Ivy Lee. While we don’t know why Ivy Lee chose six tasks to add to a to-do list, what we do know is anyone who has used this method almost always complete the six tasks and has enough time at the end of the day to plan the next six. 

Ivy Lee’s method is simple. At the end of the day, write down, in order of priority, the six tasks you want to complete tomorrow. Leave that piece of paper on your desk so when you arrive back at work in the morning, the first thing you see are those six tasks. Then, you begin at the top and work your way down the list until you have all six crossed out. 

Think about that for a moment. How confident are you at being able to consistently complete six tasks each day? 

Let’s imagine for a moment you are a university professor. Today, you have two ninety minute lectures to give from 9:00am. Your lectures will finish at 12:15pm and then you have to arrange some meetings with your Ph.D students, mark some papers, spend a little time writing your own paper, respond to your email, prepare for your lectures tomorrow and exercise. That’s six tasks. Do you have time for anything else? If you work a typical eight or nine hour day, three hours have already gone lecturing, which leaves you with five to six hours to do everything else. 

Exercise can be done after you finish for the day, but marking papers, writing your own paper and responding to email are not five minute tasks. I would say, if you try and cram anything else into your day, you’ve already lost the day. 

The key to this Michelle is to understand that time is limited. We do not have an infinite amount of time each day. Sure, you can work eighteen hours a day trying to do everything, but that is not sustainable. You might be able to that for a couple of days, but eventually you will break. You are not a machine and there needs to be balance between work and rest. (Whether you like that or not). 

But look at the professor’s day, if she were to do the tasks she had set for herself, she would be moving important things forward. She might not be able to finish everything, that’s fine as long as she’s consistently working on the important things. 

In many ways, we are our own worst enemies. Thinking that everything has to be finished in one day will always lead to overwhelm and in the worst case scenario, burnout. It’s not possible to complete everything at the first try. Sometimes you need to continue with a task on another day. 

Now, there is something else at play here. How are you writing your tasks? You are not going to do very well at the supermarket if all that was on your list was: food, drink toiletries. Sure you would pick up something, but more than likely you would pick up all the wrong things. Instead, we need to be smarter than that and be more specific. Apple, bananas, chicken, salmon, broccoli, sprouts, red wine and shampoo would give you a better (and faster) experience at the supermarket. 

The same applies to your to-do list. Writing things like; Ph.D curriculum, Bathroom and Board meeting, on your to-do list is not going to help you. What do you need to do related to the Ph.D curriculum? What does the “bathroom” mean? Perhaps what you mean is you want to redecorate the bathroom. Great, what does that mean at a task level? Pick up some paint swatches? Buy paint and brushes? What? 

Another thing about writing vague words down on your task list is you will have no idea how long it will take you. Ph.D curriculum, how long will that take you? How about if instead of writing a statement, you wrote something like: continue writing Ph.D curriculum”? Now you can decide how long you will spend writing the curriculum. Using the word “continue” (or begin) here puts you in control of the time you spend on the work. A simple change, but one with a huge benefit when it comes to reducing an overwhelming to-do list. 

Now, let’s go back to the number of tasks you are putting on your to-do list. Many to-dos have what I would describe as a natural trigger. For instance, your garbage can needs taking out when it is full. I know I see my garbage can every day, so I can tell when it needs taking out. Similarly, I know when my car needs washing every time I drive it. It would be pointless add these as tasks to my task manager. 

How about email? Do you send all your actionable email to you to-do list? Why? You already have the mail in your email app, why do you need to duplicate it in your to-do list? All you need is a folder in your email app, called something like “Action This Day”. Any email that requires action can be placed in there and if you dedicate a given amount of time each day for dealing with your actionable emails, you can simply go to that folder and work from there. 

Now, I know there can be an issue with emails that contain a bigger task. For instance if your boss emails you and asks you to prepare a report for this month’s board meeting. That’s not going to be a five minute task. However, rather than sending the email to your to-do list, add the task itself and archive the original email. You can then make a decision about when you will write the report. Once the report is finished, you can retrieve the original email from your achieve (it’s simple to do with search) and send the report. 

Now, I know I may have made this sound easy, the trouble is it’s not. To reduce your to-do list requires a change in approach. If you’ve been told to capture everything, it will seem counterintuitive to not do so. 

I advise to look at all your tools. For instance, if you need around an hour a day to respond to your email and messages, then schedule that hour in your calendar. There’s no point in saying you cannot find an hour for emails and messages, when you still need an hour. That’s fighting against time itself, you will never win that battle. To give you an example, generally, I set aside 4:30 to 5:30pm each day for responding to messages and emails. For the most part I can be consistent, but occasionally, I have to move the time around. That’s fine. The objective is to do it, not necessarily do at 4:30pm. 

Exercise can also be put on your calendar. I’ve found if you put exercise on a to-do list, you will find an excuse not to do it. On your calendar, and it’s unlikely you will find an excuse. 

Project notes are a great place to put your dependent tasks. A dependent task is a task that cannot be done until something else has been done. For example, you cannot complete a sales report until all the sales data has been collected. Or you cannot redecorate the bathroom until you have bought the paint. 

Another tip I would give is to keep your grocery list separate from your task list. For example, I use Todoist as my to-do list, but my grocery list is in Apple Reminders. I wear an Apple Watch and to add an item to the list is as simple as raising my wrist and asking Siri to add something to the list. You can also keep a shopping list in your notes app if you prefer. 

If you are struggling with your to-do list, remember the only list that matters today is your today list. Nothing else is important. If you are planning the week and giving yourself ten to fifteen minutes at the end of the day to review your tasks for tomorrow you can make sure you have not over-committed yourself before the day starts. You should not be working from your folders. That’s a sign you have not planned the week. Weekly planning gives you time away from the noise to calming decide what needs to be done next week. That will go a long way towards reducing your daily list. 

I hope that helps, Michelle. That you for your question. And thank you to you for listening. It just remains for me now to wish you all a very very productive week.