I have a love-hate relationship with to-do lists. I absolutely love my to-do list; I don’t think I could function as a human being without it. What bothers the hell out of me is that I never seem to get it “Done.” By “Done,” I mean that there will always be more tasks to do tomorrow, the next day, and the day after that. I recently showed someone my to-do list because she was interested in seeing how it was set up. She looked over the whole of my list, and her first comment was “Wow, there’s a lot there,” and I agreed with her. The problem with to-do lists is that there is SO MUCH that we all have to do, but looking at the whole list can be a great way to psych yourself out of doing anything. The trick with to-do lists is to make them manageable, so you can accomplish everything you need to without feeling overwhelmed by the sheer amount of tasks in your life.

1) The tasks must be attainable that day – I prefer to put on my to-do list things that can be done within a day. Within an hour is better, but at some point throughout the day is just fine. Big, massive projects SHOULD NOT be on a daily to-do list. It’s important to remember that there are only so many hours in the day. If you try to put something on your to-do list that is big and complicated and will take more than one day, it’s not worth it. It would be better if you had a massive project to break down into smaller tasks, and then put those on your daily to-do list. This way, you will be able to get all your work done, feel a sense of accomplishment at the end of the day, AND get your big project done.

2) Dates are critical – I talked last month about how important having dates in your filing system is, and in your to-do list, it’s equally as vital to your overall success. 90% of digital to-do lists have a way to look at your list that shows you only the tasks that are due today, so assigning all of your tasks a due date has two essential functions. First, it enables you to distribute your tasks effectively. It can be easy to list out all the things you have to do, but ensuring you have enough time to complete them is the tough part. I have a nasty habit of thinking that when I start a new big project, I can get everything done in a relatively short time, and almost always prove myself wrong. Setting dates and spreading out task timelines is an easy way to ensure you accomplish everything without overloading yourself. Another benefit of assigning dates to your tasks is that when you review “What needs to get done today,” you aren’t overwhelmed with everything. Speaking of which, my next point is relevant to this idea in three…two…one.

3) Don’t look at your WHOLE list – I’ll be honest, I have made this mistake many times. Looking at your entire to-do list in one spot can be really intimidating. Even for to-do list veterans like me, looking at my whole list in its entirety can make me break into a cold sweat. What do I do instead? I break up my to-do list into different views so that if I have to look at a whole project, I only see all the tasks from that specific project. Most to-do list apps give you the ability to make multiple separate lists, which you can then combine into a master list. Again, I would stress not trying to work solely with your master list, simply because getting lost is really easy to do.

4) Dates are adjustable – For a while, when I was honing my “To-do List-Fu,” I would regularly kick myself if I didn’t complete all my tasks on the to-do list every day. I would put everything I thought I needed to get done on my to-do list and assign a deadline for completion. The issue is that if I ran out of time on a specific day and couldn’t get everything done, I would chastise myself for not being productive enough. That (I know now)….is crap. If I have 10 tasks on my list and complete 9, but then need to sort out three additional tasks that weren’t originally on my list, that still means I’ve accomplished 12 tasks. What you need to remember with your own lists is that life happens, and while yes, some things NEED to be done in a timely fashion, there will be things on your to-do list that can, if push comes to shove, be pushed.

Now I fully recognize that, being a to-do list geek, I could talk about this forever, and you (as a possible non-to-do list-er) would probably not do that, but bear with me here. To-do lists are great, but they DO need a strategy to use them. As we approach the end of the year, people may be considering New Year’s resolutions. This could be the perfect time to invest in a to-do list app to set up your projects for next year.

I’m going to be talking about to-do list strategies this month. Also, and because it’s the holiday season, I’ll be doing a post that is all about the types of gifts for the tech nerd in your life.

How do you set up your to-do list?

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