Welcome to the second part of my guide (read part one) looking at ten tasks you can trim out of your to-do list to leave you much more focused. If you want to effectively use this list, print it out and include it as part of your weekly review. As you fill in your to-do list check each task against my ten point guide and see if you really need to include it.
Reminders
Your to-do list is not the place for putting general reminders, even if you do phrase it into the form of a next action. For instance, don’t put down “go to dentists at 9AM” or “buy milk from the supermarket.” That’s what calendars and shoppings lists are for.
Motivational tasks
One of the advantages of a to-do list is that it gives you a motivational push to complete a task so you can feel the satisfaction of ticking it off as complete. While this fact can be used to your advantage, if you really want to trim down your to-do list you should not list items purely as a way of motivating yourself to do something. I used to have a bad habit of letting dirty dishes pile up and I’d end up writing it down on my to-do list as a way to give me the kick I needed to do it. If you need to be motivated to do something, then you need to evaluate your habits and a to-do list is not the best tool for that.
Habits
As I said before the to-do list is not the best tool for managing your habit building so obviously writing down tasks that are related to your habits is not appropriate. I used to write down “go to gym” for instance, but it was not especially effective. Building or breaking habits requires much more focus on it than a to-do list can provide.
The next action that isn’t a next action
If you follow GTD practices you will be aware of the concept of a next action. The problem with a basic to-do list compared to a tightly scripted next actions list is that it can be common to write down a task that you can’t really move forward on. It’s very easy to write down an entire project as one item on the list for example. You may write down something like “do newsletter” which is very hard to do anything with. Where do you start? What steps are involved?
Grouping similar tasks
If you have an whole bunch of tasks that involve being in the same place or doing the same thing (for instance, emailing or making phone calls to a bunch of people) then list them separately and keep those lists next to where you will be working so you can easily refer to them and have less to carry around. If you have ever read GTD you will understand the use of contexts for batching together similarly themes tasks.
November 16, 2007 at 03:50PM
James, thanks for sorting things out for us! It’s good to realize why sometimes our system goes down the bin, and how to fix it. With respect to better places for maintaining habit reminders, just minutes before reading your posting I had compiled a list of online tool URLs over at David Allen’s Forums here.
November 16, 2007 at 09:46PM
Good list Rolf, thanks for pointing it out. I particularly like the Seinfeld chain approach.
September 20, 2009 at 04:39AM
Your article pretty much answers my question of why my to-do list is never ending. I wanted to know how long a to-do list must be and how long the to-do list of an organized person is. How long is the to-do list of an efficient worker? What goes in the to-do list? Great read!