13 ways to make peace with your to-do list
I’ve had a love-hate relationship with planners and planning since college in the late 80s when I first came across a day planner. The initial appeal was not unlike getting new school supplies– crisp, clean, unsullied by the imperfection of life and holding the promise of finally being able to realize some state that always felt just out of reach.
The pattern sustained itself for many years to come:
Begin with enthusiasm.
Track and record all I need to accomplish – usually three times as much as I can feasibly complete in a single day.
Do those tasks anyway.
Repeat. For three days, maybe a week.
Rebel against exhausting pace and schoolmarm planner and don’t open it again for weeks, maybe months.
Surrender to:
The frustration of feeling disorganized
A looming deadline or task that needed to be completed - most always something where I am accountable to someone outside of myself
Open the planner and feel shame at the weeks of empty pages.
Do a brain dump of all that needs to be done.
Feel overwhelmed and eat something or do something else not listed in the planner.
Feel the pinch of procrastination and bang out something that resembles success but falls short of what I envisioned.
Feel relief at having accomplished the task while working to push down the disappointment at having done it half-assed at the last minute.
Get caught up in something else and ignore the planner because I won’t be a slave to a stupid little book that feels like a schoolmarm who is never pleased with me.
Enjoy feeling like a free spirit who enjoys spontaneity and despises routines until life’s responsibilities get overwhelming again, and I resolve to do better.
Open the planner and wince at all the weeks or months of blank pages and realize that the problem is the planner I selected. I do not have the right planner. Of course, I don’t use it. It has a black, pebbled plastic cover and boring white pages. So uninspired. How could I possibly use it with consistency?
Hunt for a new planner (preferably without dates so I don’t have to feel wrong about the weeks of nothing), or depending on the era, a new app or productivity hack will be the magic bullet.
Repeat the entire process.
As of this writing, I am in the second to last month of being 52, and for the first time, I have managed to use a system daily for four months without abandoning it or running away like my hair is on fire. After countless productivity systems studied, coaches worked with, meditations practiced, self-reflections journaled, and spiritual and productivity books read, I landed on the following principles or outlooks that make the planner habit sustainable:
I will never get it all done.
The list will continue into infinity.
Not getting something done today is a part of the two points above.
Checking boxes is immensely satisfying. I will write down a task I just completed and color it in the checkmark box to record my activity - simply for the joy of it.
It’s essential to review activity and boxes checked to remind yourself of accomplishments and progress made in moving forward.
If one checked box equals ten others, give yourself some more wins. Break the enormous task down into smaller tasks and check them off.
A missed day is a missed day. We are human. Pick up the planner or app, update as needed, and keep moving.
Pause before acting. Some tasks eliminate themselves.
You don’t have to be the one to do everything. You can still check off if you delegate a task and it gets done. Learning how to work through others (a team, family, group of friends, etc.) is good. In turn, they can give you things to do, and you can add them to your list and check them off, too.
The task list is a brain dump, not a schoolmarm. Use it to get the stuff out of your head and into a place where you can review it later. Adding it to the list does not mean you have to do it. You can decide later what stays on the list or gets deleted or tabled.
Colors, visuals, emojis, and fun words all help make the planner more enjoyable, but not if they become a new source of pressure to create beautiful pages that you don’t have time, energy, or inspiration to pursue. Use them when you feel inspired. Abandon them if they weigh you down.
Satisfaction comes through building consistency instead of grand, sweeping gestures. Slow, steady, tedious progress wins in the end.
Not every day is heroic. Give yourself at least one day a week to rest and be free of checking things off your list. If you do anyway, it’s a bonus you can add to the next day.
One book that changed everything for me and inspired this post is 4000 Weeks by Oliver Burkeman (not an affiliate link - just a fan). I hope to write a whole post about this book, but for now - check it out for a deeper dive into the nature of productivity, time, and the choices we make to order our days and lives - deep and paradigm-shifting insights.
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