There was a time when to-do lists were all the craze. They have become part of almost every life/work hack list out there, but slowly, over time, something has changed.
Nowadays, there are an increasing number of articles emerging that declare that to-do lists are not only not that productive, but are actually bad for us.
How true is this, and if so, is there a better method out there?
To-do lists
Let’s start by saying something pretty obvious - everybody is different. The idea that there is a single organisational method out there that perfectly fits everybody is absurd. To-do lists seem to be a good example of something that divides people by their style of working but also how they choose to live their lives.
Some people are undoubtedly much more regimented than others. Some prefer to set goals, targets, and timelines, while others choose to approach life in a more relaxed, carefree, and flexible manner.
It’s important to stress that neither of these approaches is necessarily the ‘right’ way. The first option might mean you get more done, but may lead to more stress and less free time, while the second might be wonderfully relaxing, but is that really how you would want to be every single day.
The Good
When everything is happening at once, our minds can easily become swamped with information. What time am I picking the kids up? When is my next appointment and with who? Did I send that email to my boss before I ran out of the office at 5 pm last Friday?
Whatever we can do to ease the burden on the mind has to be seen as a good thing. Yes, our minds are astonishing machines that we are only beginning to understand, but they are frequently overloaded to the point of snapping. And when that happens, the results can be messy.
To-lists at very least allow us to create a series of tasks that need to be done throughout the day, which means we don’t need to juggle them in our memory.
And really that’s just the start. There are numerous other benefits that come with to-do lists, including reduced anxiety and helping to break down goals into manageable and, hopefully, achievable goals.
The Bad
Much of the criticism around to-do lists stems from the fact that they can be detrimental to our self-belief - and it’s hard to argue with that. If you finish work at the end of the day, having worked flat out nonstop, but you’ve only completed half of your to-list, it can be a depressing feeling.
We all know the feeling of sitting at home and stressing over something you did or didn’t do at work and a failed to-list can magnify this dramatically if there are multiple points uncompleted.
Then there is the case of people piling too much onto their to-list, in the desperate hope that just because you’ve put a lot of things on there, it’s going to magically equate to you getting everything done. By loading a to-do list, you are setting yourself up for failure before you even begin.
Conclusion
Both of these arguments are perfectly valid. We do feel horrible when we fail to complete a to-do list, but this is almost certainly down to an incorrect way of approaching the list. Life is filled with unexpected events and the likelihood of you sailing through a day, and the to-do list that accompanies it, smoothly and without any hiccups is usually pure fantasy. Here are a few points to help you create a to-do list that works.
- It’s much better to approach a to-do list as a guideline rather than a strict exercise where you will be punished if you don’t succeed. On average, we spend around 3 times more on activities than we think we do, so it’s important to have plenty of flexibility and don’t beat yourself up if you don’t complete the list.
- If need be, start with a small list and slowly work up from there until you reach a point where you feel you have a good chance of completing them every day.
- Prioritise what you need to do first. It’s always a good idea to do the worst tasks first so you get them out of the way, but at the same time, the worst task might not be the most time-sensitive task.
- Review your list at the end of the day. If you missed your target by miles, why was that? Did you overload your list to begin? If so, think about reducing your target for the next day. If you didn’t complete the list because you were lazy, that’s a whole different issue at hand, but it should at least make that fact clear to you.
- Relax. The whole idea about a to-do list is to help you take some of the stress and anxiety out of the working day. If you find yourself stressing about the thing that’s supposed to help you feel less stressed, you’re obviously not approaching it the right way.
