Creating an Effective To-Do List (Day 9)

It's time to tackle that list of To-Dos on Habitica.  Have you been stashing things there, then never looking at them again?  Don't worry if so... it happens to many people!  Part of the problem is that we are not taught how to create an effective to-do list.  They become a list of things we don't want to forget but might never get around to doing, things we feel guilty about not doing, things we can't actually do, and all manner of repellent tasks.  For example, I have 22 items on my To-Do list right now.  It's not a huge number, but I don't like scrolling through them and be reminded of my failures, so I stop looking at all.  It's two full pages, and I get uncomfortable when they don't fit all on one screen, so I can see them all and choose from them all at once.  Here are my ideas for helping with this trap.

In David Allen's classic book Getting Things Done [1], he describes what he calls "Next Actions". I like this terminology because it reminds us that what we need to figure out is the next thing we need to do, and what action that is.  I'm sure you have items on your list that are the classic dependency problem; I have a to-do that is "submit paperwork for reimbursement", but I can't submit it until I find the papers, I don't know how to log in to the website I'm supposed to use for it, and even if I find all the papers I won't be convinced I have them all unless I check my calendar history to make sure I caught all the appointments.  So "submit" is not the correct verb for what my next action is... my next action is probably better described as "Look through piles of paper for health receipts".  Or even better, actually, might be "Create file folder for health receipts".  Then when I do run across one, I know where to put it so it doesn't get lost again!

Be careful about verbs that aren't actual, physical actions.  It won't help if you re-word your to-do to be "Decide on healthcare provider."  A decision isn't a physical action.  What has kept you from making the decision so far, and what would you do if you wanted to make progress on deciding?  Would you look something up on the web?  Call a colleague for a recommendation?  Is there something you need to do first - like do a task for that colleague that you promised you would do, but haven't done yet, which is why you don't want to get in touch?

Take a 5-minute block of anti-procrastination or a chunk of work, and edit your to-dos to reflect the next action you will do for each of them.

Now we will tackle the issue of our commitment to doing these items.  For each of them, ask yourself - is this action important enough to do this week, before your next day in the inn?  Will you truly be kicking yourself if you forget to do it by then?  If the answer is no for any of them, then it's time we learn about tags in Habitica.  Look in the middle for your the button that says "Tags", and open up the drop-down menu:

You'll be able to add a tag by typing next the plus sign, then saving your edits.  Call your new tag something like ireallymeanit or anything that makes sense to you.  Now pick several to-dos and add the tag.  You'll be able to filter to only see those tasks, which will help you to focus on the things you identified as being most urgent. (We'll have to deal with things that are important but not urgent in the future, obviously, but I want you to feel like you have things under control first).

Caution: resist the temptation to tag them all!  I want you to assume you can only manage one of these items a day until your next planned day of recreation.  So if it's Monday (which it is for me) and your next day of recreation is Saturday (which it is for me), I can only add the tag to five items.  I hope you're fired up and want to to more, but don't do it yet!  When you finish one of these items, you'll get gold for it, but I also recommend you list it in your log for the day, perhaps with a checkmark next to it.  Eventually we'll look to see how many to-dos you realistically can plan to do in a week.

Need More?

I have lots of thoughts on this!  More will be coming...

[1] Allen, David. Getting Things Done the Art of Stress-Free Productivity. Penguin Books, 2001.